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about: Regina Weinreich

  • Diane Von Furstenberg, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli: Icons at the Tribeca Film Festival

    Aaaaaaa
    Opening the Tribeca Film Festival, DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: WOMAN IN CHARGE, features the famed fashion designer who was to the late 20th century what Coco Chanel was to the early century, a game changer on how women dress. Her signature wrap frock, effortless and affordable, was in every closet, and made DVF’s name. Asked, how she became a princess? In my case, I married a prince, she deadpans in the movie. A celebrity life ensued including liaisons with many men (and one girl), respite in Bali, and marriage to Barry Diller. She attributes her success to the lessons in fearlessness taught by her mother, a survivor of Auschwitz.

    As she tells it, upon liberation, her emaciated mother was fed by her parents using a medicine dropper. To those of us who share second generation Holocaust legacy, some essential details are missing in this otherwise informative, vivid documentary of a fascinating life. Belgian Jews, how did her grandparents elude Nazi round ups? Focusing instead on her life in America, two-time Oscar-winning director Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy takes us through DVF’s insecurities and pleasures as a mother, the glitz and glamor of Studio 54, the devastation of AIDS, feminist activism. It’s a lot. And nothing says icon more than the portrait of her by Andy Warhol.

    Of course, Elizabeth Taylor was famously a Warhol subject too. In the new documentary, ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE LOST TAPES, we are reminded of Liz as child actor, the many beloved films such as NATIONAL VELVET, FATHER OF THE BRIDE, among them, and Liz in the tabloids, the many marriages including Nicky Hilton (enough said), Mike Todd (probably the love of her life), Eddie Fisher (not so much), Richard Burton (twice). Her friendships with Debbie Reynolds (America’s sweetheart) and Cybil Burton, women whose marriages she broke up is not much mentioned. Then again, much of the story comes from Liz Taylor herself, from an interview for a book by journalist Richard Meryman.

    Given these “lost tapes,” documentarian Nanette Burstein had access to Taylor’s personal archives. In a zoomed conversation Burstein said she was most surprised by Elizabeth Taylor’s insecurities. Yes of course Taylor was uniquely beautiful, but she wanted to be known for her art. Awarded her first Oscar for BUtterfield 8, Taylor had a mixed response: she plays a prostitute during a period in her life when her love life was intensely scrutinized. Burstein strategically shows a scene where her character confronts her mother. In real life, her father had called Liz a whore.

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  • Steve Van Zandt: Disciple at the Tribeca Film Festival: It’s More Than Rock ‘N’ Roll

    Steve Vansant
    Wearing orange leathery skinny pants and his signature bandanna, Steve Van Zandt, greeted guests as they attended the premiere of Bill Teck’s documentary about him, Steve van Zandt: Disciple, to air on June 22 on HBO. Many were friends and family, and many knew him simply as Bruce Springsteen’s guitar partner in the E Street Band. Everyone got a refresher on decades-long dedication to R&B. In a riveting two and a half hours, Van Zandt’s energy provides evidence, even in his ‘70’s, there’s more to come: the film limns his early Asbury Park/ Stone Pony years, ups and downs in his music/ songwriting career, acting in the HBO’s “The Sopranos,” and in a Netflix series, “Lillyhammer.” His political activism led to a boycott of Sun City that resulted not only in Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, but to an end to apartheid and change for South Africa’s black community. What’s next? Above all, rock ‘n’ roll has legs, and heart.

    As with many subjects of biopics, seeing his life in a cogent narrative was startling, “more coherent than the way I lived it,” said Little Stevie at the Q&A. Director Teck promised to follow the work, and “Disciple” gave him focus. He worked hard to get the ok, and thanked Stevie’s wife Maureen for her help in finally securing it. Copious research gleaned pictures from their hippie-style wedding, and a two-shot of Van Zandt with Nelson Mandela. Yes, that really happened.

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  • John Slattery in The Subject was Roses: Waiting for Sarah Jessica Parker

    The Subject was roses

    At Bay Street Theater, the stage was set for The Subject Was Roses. In the courtyard, the drama was palpable. A wine cart selling Wolffer sparkling rose, a summer intern named Lily giving long stemmed roses to VIPs beside the red carpet where theater royalty such as Nathan Lane and Andrea Martin smiled for cameras. The play features an all-star family, that is John Slattery, his real-life wife Talia Balsam, and their son Harry Slattery, a star-in-waiting in his theater debut, but everyone was waiting for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick who brought family and friends Andy Cohen and Bridget Everett, star of HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, now going into its third season. The show would go on.

    A family story, The Subject was Roses begins as Timmy (Harry Slattery) returns home from war to find his parents, grateful for his return but living out age-old marital issues. Alcohol is involved.

    Let’s just say, he has good genes: Said Balsam, herself the child of actors, Joyce Van Patten and Martin Balsam: “It’s a period piece but it’s the internal lives, the alcoholism, the family dynamic of a boy watching his parents in a dysfunctional situation. Someone who wants to get out and make his own way is universal.”

    As Timmy, navigating the emotional roller coaster of this post-WW II family in Frank Gilroy’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play, Harry makes it all look so easy. John Slattery was happy with opening night, especially for his son. First time out of the gate, “Harry hit it out of the park.”

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  • Bernstein’s Wall: Leonard Bernstein Uptown

    Berstien
    An elite group gathered this week for a special screening of BERNSTEIN’S WALL, a documentary about the great composer/ conductor/ educator, a fixture of 20th century American cultural history. Well-timed, the riveting documentary comes after Bradley Cooper’s success with MAESTRO, his Oscar nominated biopic of the legendary artist. But here, with Leonard Bernstein’s own words dancing across the screen, we get the inner life of this creative genius.

    This week’s screening and dinner at Jean-Georges’ new Four Twenty-Five restaurant hit every high note, hosted by Spectrum One’s Frank DiLella—not far from the Philharmonic where Bernstein’s illustrious career was launched at 25, when, as an understudy conductor filling in, he garnered raves. Ditto for this exceptional movie. Not quite a biopic, as filmmaker Doug Tirola makes clear—a proper one might be hours long—this film, comprised only of Bernstein’s own voice from tapes and readings from personal letters, recounting the importance of music, his own process, how music informs his life, still manages to touch all bases: his political activism—starting with the Berlin Wall, and coming to the “Kotel” in Jerusalem.

    BERNSTEIN’S WALL was actually ready prior to MAESTRO, and the filmmakers—including producer Susan Bedusa-– strategically held it back. Bradley Cooper’s focus on the Bernstein’s marriage to Felicia Montenegro and homosexuality was a point of contention. What about Bernstein’s politics? At an early BERNSTEIN’S WALL screening put together by Peggy Siegal, Peter Duchin, who had attended Bernstein’s legendary parties, remembered the infamous one Tom Wolfe sensationalized in his Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Chasers. Duchin said the encounter was Lenny’s wife Felicia’s idea to bring the Black Panthers to the Dakota: Let’s just hear what they have to say. A not-so-outrageous event that nevertheless made headlines.

    Tirola illuminates these subjects: Black Panthers, McCarthyism, Bernstein’s Talmudic style as a teacher. His pulse attuned to the politics of the day, and mensch that he was, Leonard Bernstein did not turn away. Jewish, he fixed neither his nose nor his name. And even though Bernstein clearly states that at age 10 he wished his strict immigrant father dead—he was dismayed at his son’s career choice—Lenny came to understand and to love him.

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  • The Commandant’s Shadow: Rudolf Hoss’ Secondhand Smoke

    Commandows Shadow
    “I had the best part of my life in Auschwitz,” says Hans Jurgen Hoss, son of the killing camp’s commandant, Rudolf Hoss—without a trace of irony. A fictional version of his time there can be seen in the Academy Award winning, THE ZONE OF INTEREST; he’s one of the five children who frolicked in the garden beside the camp’s walls, oblivious to what was going on. As he says in the documentary, THE COMMANDANT’S SHADOW, he thought it was a prison and was happy to be able to live where his father worked. In his late ‘80’s, taking the filmmakers around the house, he shows where the crematoria could be seen from an upstairs window, noting there were fewer trees then. He does not recall a stench. His son Kai, Rudolf Hoss’ grandson says, understating the difficult matter of his father having been a child next to the murder of millions, “I think my father has repressed memories.”

    Astonishing but true, awaiting trial for war crimes in Nuremburg, Rudolf Hoss wrote his autobiography, segments of which form a compelling narrative of what exactly went on in Auschwitz, providing a detailed account and perhaps varnishing his reputation, a confession. He watched as children were torn screaming from their mothers and thought of his own family, he writes. Director Daniela Volker was amazed that his book was not more widely known. Even Hans only read it for the film.

    Is it merely a German boast when Kai Hoss asserts repeatedly, “My grandfather was the most successful mass murderer in human history?” Tasked with creating an efficient killing machine as the Fuhrer demanded the Final Solution for the Jews, Hoss was hands on. Now a man of the church, his grandson Kai copes with this legacy through scripture, God’s grace, and his ministry to others in Stuttgart, he tells me at the film’s New York premiere at the Whitby Hotel.

    Also present was Maya Lasker-Wallfisch, the daughter of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who, as a young woman transported to Auschwitz, was in luck. The orchestra needed a cellist; playing music kept her alive. In the film we see her celebrating her 98th birthday in London. Distant and tough on her daughter, Anita’s mothering was no-nonsense. Now a psychoanalyst, Maya sees her life as a mess.  Moving to Berlin, she memorializes her murdered grandparents who she never met in the effort to reclaim what might have been– had life in Germany been possible. Despite a hopeful and generous world view, Anita’s open hyper-criticism of Maya is evident. “Your Auschwitz is different from my Auschwitz. I did not know if I would live another hour,” she tells her daughter even as Maya is desperate to know more. Anita triumphs hosting Hans Jurgen Hoss for coffee and fruit pie in London—an utterly remarkable, historic meeting, given the sides of the wall each occupied in the war years. This coming together is the film’s climax, and summing it up, Anita delivers the film’ zinger: “Isn’t that beautiful?”

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  • Ladies Who Lunch: Designs by Josie Natori to Benefit Cancer Research

    BBBB
    On my way into Riverpark for the fashion show marking the annual “Collaborating for a Cure Ladies Lunch” to benefit the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, I ran into Dr. Waxman making his way out ‘round the revolving door. I’m here to see you, I said, always reminding the esteemed cancer specialist that my mother died in his care. But did we do the best we could for her? Yes, I replied. And I thank you for that. My mother died in 1996, and since that time I come to see the doctor at these special events, to learn how much more has been done by his researchers to combat a disease that affects just about every family.

    While Dr. Waxman had to be elsewhere, he was there at Riverpark to support his wife Marion Waxman and the women who help this annual event such a huge success. This year designer Josie Natori, who I knew for her lingerie created for Lord & Taylor back in the day, presented gorgeous embroidered caftans. Models worked the spacious, elegant room as the ladies lunched on burrata and branzino. One stopped at every table to show off a stunning necklace from Mikimoto to be auctioned. The opulence was palpable at a time when most of us worry about the future of the planet. But that was not the point. The point is cancer, and it is still killing us.

    Dr. Waxman often explains the latest accomplishments of his research foundation, reminding everyone, while we are all ageing beautifully, the older we get, the more vulnerable we are to the disease. I am sure no one wants to hear that news, but it feels worse because as life is extended, that means the greater possibility of illness for our kids—and grandkids. That hits home.

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  • Jessica Lange in Paula Vogel’s Mother Play: A Mom on Broadway

    Mother
    In a Marilyn Monroe styled wig, Jessica Lange in character as Phyllis swans around her apartment in a hot pink satin robe, self-healing. What other actress can hold your attention for the time it takes to put on some music, fix a snack, just hang out? She’s gorgeous and riveting, even if abandoned by her alcoholic husband, lonely, and poor. Mother Play, by Pulitzer Prize winning Paula Vogel at the Hayes Theater, and directed by Tina Landau, is quasi-autobiographical. Raising two kids, a single mom, we know, is rough. One minute Phyllis cannot buy groceries to feed her son Carl (Jim Parsons) and daughter Martha (Celia Keenan-Bolger); another, she’s hit a second-hand store and come out with a Chanel. Making sacrifices—well, she has her limits!

    Those limits include living in cockroach infested apartments from which she manages to be evicted once she complains. Hence the subtitle: A Play in Five Evictions. New York City audiences will appreciate a chorus line of roaches projected onto the walls, even though the setting is Washington D.C. over several decades. Phyllis may not be the most devoted mother but she has aspirations for her children. Those do not include the fact that they are gay. In one scene at a disco when she attempts to make peace with Carl’s sexuality, she loses it upon seeing Martha kissing a woman.

    While many of the play’s themes of sexual liberation, AIDS, recall bygone eras, the family story resonates. As the vivid Phyllis loses her panache, Martha affirms the deeper values of compassion and love. In rich performances, Jim Parsons and Celia Keenan-Bolger are TONY-nominated, as is the play and Jessica Lange.

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  • Rachel McAdams’ Broadway Debut in Mary Jane: A Mom on Broadway

    Aimie
    Amy Herzog’s play Mary Jane demands that we slow down, take in the drama of the day-to-day. Opening with Mary Jane–the movie star Rachel McAdams as Everywoman–in the kitchen of her Queens apartment with the super, Ruthie (Brenda Wehle) clearing a stubborn pipe. Their conversation, the stuff of existence starts with the body, how trauma is stored in our cells. The familiar banalities that affirm life also make existence tedious. Mary Jane has removed the child protective bars from her windows as baby Alex, known only by the beeps of his life support. will not be wandering anywhere near a dangerous opening. So, this no-no follows the caring logic of a devoted mother. Ruthie, bending the rules, has to pretend not to notice.

    As Mary Jane moves toward the bedroom to check on her son, sometimes a little easy-going skip to the door is reminiscent of McAdams’ character in WEDDING CRASHERS. The swagger of her MEAN GIRLS Regina George is far away. As Mary Jane in a Broadway debut, McAdams breathes through the difficulties of caring for an ill child, politely thanking everyone for their help. Even Kat (Lily Santiago), the music therapist who comes to the hospital when Alex lands in emergency pediatric care. Too little too late, Kat sings “The lion sleeps tonight,” and Mary Jane loses it till the song becomes “Bluebird, bluebird, through my window.” Triggers are kept at bay.

    You get used to the rhythms of this all-woman production directed by Anne Kauffman. All actors do double duty –except for McAdams who is onstage for all of its 90 minutes. A Buddhist priest, Tenkei (Brenda Wehle again) ministers to Mary Jane, who answers “?” to the hospital’s question about faith. Slipping on white scrubs over her jeans, Mary Jane listens. A spotlight illuminates her.

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  • Sigourney Weaver in Christopher Durang’s Whimsical Take on Chekhov: Celebrating Theater at Lincoln Center

    Bigger
    Some of the original cast of Christopher Durang’s Vanya, Sonia, Masha, and Spike brought this theater gem to life for the Theater at Lincoln Center gala this week, where the show began over a decade ago, before it made its logical move to Broadway’s Golden Theater winning a TONY award for Best Play. Now, taking over the Vivian Beaumont stage on a set designed for the current production of Uncle Vanya, this Chekhovian mash-up retains its brilliance, even gaining some according to Sigourney Weaver, reprising her role as Masha, a narcissistic actress returning to her ancestral home in Bucks County, PA, in time for a neighborhood costume party.

    Whenever I am blue, I can snap out of it conjuring Sigourney Weaver’s image as Snow White. Act I is a sendup of Chekhovian tropes with prescient views on real estate and familiar philosophical exclamations like “I’m in mourning for my life!” In Durang’s whimsical mix master, here directed by Bartlett Sher with a scant three-day rehearsal time, the tragic—and neurotic– circumstance of everyday life turns to high hilarity.

    Weaver’s character, Masha, in fact a superstar action hero like Weaver herself (think Alien, Avatar), makes for a most vulnerable Snow White, too tall, her lips too thin, mistaken for Norma Desmond, BoPeep, a Meissen figure. Coming home to the house in which she was raised with her boy toy, Spike (Billy Magnussen in the original but in this production a fine David Hull); this cougar is at the cusp of keeping up the sexual acrobatics, humping him, while suffering this shallow hunk’s wanderlust.

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  • Jeff Bridges Brings his Dude-ness to Lincoln Center: The Chaplin Awards

    Jeff Bridges
    Named for the first recipient, Charlie Chaplin, this yearly Film at Lincoln Center honor was the place to be this week to honor Jeff Bridges. Of the Bridges family of actors—with dad Sea Hunt’s Lloyd Bridges, mom Dorothy, big brother Beau Bridges, and sister Cindy, Jeff famously would not embrace being an actor until his 10th movie. Blase, is not the word; “relaxed” was on every presenter’s lips.

    Those included Barbara Streisand, videoed in to pay tribute to Bridges. She directed and starred with him in THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES. Because she loved that he insisted on dancing with her every night of shooting, she made that the ending of the movie.

    Beyond “relaxed, add:” “He’s a good man.” Coming from Sharon Stone, that’s a lot. At last year’s NYWFT Muse Awards luncheon, the Basic Interest actress spoke at length about the horrors of men in the industry back in the day. Offering only kudos to Bridges, she said she saw him in STARMAN and wondered if such a kind being would fall her way from the sky. She starred with Bridges and Nick Nolte in a Sam Shepard Play, and felt lucky to be with such good men.

    Rosie Perez raised a glass from the Alice Tully Hall stage, in remembrance of a drink she did not have with him when he championed her for a role in FEARLESS. He was so relaxed, “it pissed me off.” And, get this, she said, they were reluctant to have an interracial couple. “Jeff,” she addressed him, “it would be so easy for you to be an asshole.”

    Blythe Danner, who can go ditsy on cue, forgot some details about the film she did with Bridges, and when he shouted out the references from the audience, she was impressed by his good “projection”—given he’s a movie actor. Ditto, John Lithgow on video sang his praises. But it was Chris Pine, most hilarious, on their friendship after making the film HELL OR HIGH WATER, quoting some of Bridges’ signature lines.

    “Ok, if I quote you?”

    “Go for it man.”

    And he did THE BIG LEBOWSKI’s Dude speech: “Yeah, well, . . . that’s just your opinion.”

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  • Alicia Keyes’ Hell’s Kitchen and Sufjans Stevens’ Illinoise: Coming of Age on Broadway

    Hells Kitchen
    Tales of young people reaching their first rung of wisdom is a potent motif. On Broadway, two musicals, vastly different, feature that story in song and dance. At the Shubert Theatre, Hell’s Kitchen, not quite the coming-of-age of its creator, Alicia Keyes, but close enough, takes place in Manhattan Plaza, housing for artists in Hell’s Kitchen, the ‘hood. What starts out as teen rebellion: girl crush on perhaps an inappropriate hunk with mom exerting all her force to keep her home, healthy, and in school, finds her in the building’s “Ellington Room,” for solace and a place to hide, taking piano lessons from an elder. Her unreliable but good-hearted jazzman dad comes ‘round at will. These are the bare bones of this origin tale, book by Kristoffer Diaz, which could also be seen as a play on the joke, “If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.”

    Mother is white, in the person of Shoshana Bean, and Ali is Maleah Joi Moon. Their powerhouse voices are more than matched by Brandon Victor Dixon’s dad named Davis, and those of the supporting players, a bevy of childhood friends (Rema Webb, Nyseli Vega, Vanessa Ferguson, Jackie Leon), musician/ construction worker, Knuck (Chris Lee), and Miss Liza Jane (Kecia Lewis), the mysterious being in the Ellington Room–in my mind like Mary Lou Williams—an incomparable piano playing ancestor. Because Alicia Keyes’ music is so well known, audiences have a hard time repressing the need to belt her signature songs: “Girl on Fire,” “No One,” “Empire State of Mind.”

    With singers wearing the wings of butterflies, Illinoise, is a stunning story of healing at the St. James Theatre. Vocalists and musicians occupy the stage’s upper level, celestial, as dancers performing Justin Peck’s choreography take center stage. Passionate followers of Sufjan Stevens revel in the gorgeous music in an idyllic set as the dancers play out themes of death, loss, and grieving.

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  • Michael Stuhlbarg in Patriots: Bye Bye Boris

    Putin
    If you were weaned on Russian literature: Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, you know exactly what nourishes the Russian soul—beyond vodka and borscht. Patriots, Peter Morgan’s play about the rise of Vladimir Putin at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, explores that pull through an oligarch’s power, and what happens when he loses it by his own hubris. A math prodigy, Boris Berezovsky (Michael Stuhlbarg) rises and maintains his wealth wheeling and dealing and situating those he manipulates in prominence. One such individual is Vladimir Putin (Will Keen), a nobody placed strategically until he becomes “president.” Eventually, fate finds Berezovsky exiled in London. While he is not poisoned to death as others in exile are, he simply cannot live outside his homeland.

    Stuhlbarg displays Berezovsky’s ample appetites in a robust performance. Act II begins with him fishing in the Caribbean. Banquets look like bacchanals—native dance, available women. Restraint is shown by his colleagues Roman Abramovich (Luke Thallon) who does what he must to stay in power’s favor; ditto for Professor Perelman (Ron Guttman) with whom Berezovsky spars in matters of math and politics. Morgan’s book is smart, philosophical as these historic figures are given voice. Yeah, it must have been good to be outrageously rich in Russia’s 1990’s.

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  • Eddie Redmayne in Cabaret: How Kinky is It?

    Cabaret
    The musical Cabaret was always a window into the years leading up to the atrocities of World War II based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories. Landmark productions starring Joel Grey and Alan Cumming as Emcee at the fictional Kit Kat Club allowed us to glimpse a decadence we could never imagine. Can you ever top the images of cross-dressing, cross-gender, and utter flagrant sex that John Kander’s music and Fred Ebb’s lyrics brought to provocative life? The new must-see production at the August Wilson Theater, redone in the round so that it could give audiences not only the vision but the experience, is simply above and beyond.

    And how do you celebrate that? This opening weekend literally had audiences leaving their troubles at the door, as Eddie Redmayne, the latest Emcee welcomes everyone in whatever your language, to do just that. Angular, his kinkily-clad body a vessel of dis-jointed movement, “Wilkommen” he sings and introduces the ladies and gentlemen dancers who thrust their pelvises your way. Soon the key figures, an American writer called Clifford Bradshaw (Ato Blankson-Wood), an actress named Sally Bowles (a marvelous Gayle Rankin) after Isherwood’s friend, the writer Jane Bowles, and others join the party. Most poignant is landlady Fraulein Schneider, a fabulous Bebe Neuwirth and her beau Herr Schultz (Steven Skybell), a Jew. When he brings her fresh fruit, it is not only an Edenic gift and sexy, but in that real time of deprivation, it brought life-affirming hope.

    Speaking to the actors as the Kit Kat Club became a huge multi-leveled party space with flowing Moet & Chandon, lobster rolls, and tasty sliders, we learned just how much the long legacy of the play informed this new production. Sporting a Kit Kat logo “eye” pin, a gift from director Rebecca Frecknall, Neuwirth said in this subtle performance she was mindful that the role was created for Lotte Lenya.

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  • Bernadette Peters’ Joke: Posh Meets Borscht Belt as Guild Hall Returns to the Rainbow Room

    Bernadet petersGuild Hall Academy of the Arts President, the painter Eric Fischl got to hone his comedy chops at this year’s spring gala, fashioning a speech on a string of cliches—thanks to A. I. That set the night off in good spirits, against The Rainbow Room’s customary spectacular panoramic views of the city now fogged in, but as Board Chair Marty Cohen observed, “When it comes to Guild Hall, there’s no such thing as bad weather.”

    Sure enough, we were expecting no shows but most showed: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sunny Hosten, Fern Mallis, April Gornik, Ross Bleckner, Rufus Wainwright, and the robust theater crowd to celebrate Daryl Roth. That included her son Jordan Roth, head of Jujamcyn, clad in an elegant ensemble accessorized with his grandmother Sylvia’s matching clutch. He opened his speech with, “My mother loves gay people.” That broke the ice, as a proud, even gleeful son spoke of Roth’s collection of 13 Tony Awards and counting.

    She had just signed Julianne Margulies and Peter Gallagher to a show adapted from Delia Ephron’s Left on Tenth she’s hoping to stage in the fall, with Susan Stroman—also present– directing. As I congratulated her, Roth pulled me aside to say, she has yet to find a theater. Ah, the perils of producing!

    Her pal Bernadette Peters took the stage and before singing two numbers from Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods told a joke about a frog who, upon getting a kiss from an elder gentleman, promised to turn into a gorgeous blond who would make love to him every night for the rest of his life. The man took the frog home and went to bed, explaining that at this point in life he preferred to have a talking frog.

    The jokes did not end there. Howard Marks, who with his wife Nancy were also honored, with a Special Award for Leadership and Philanthropy told one about a boy who got a part in a school play. His mother asked, what part? The Jewish husband. Her reply: Couldn’t you get a speaking role?

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  • Alex Bornstein at the NYWFT Muse Awards: “You Are Enough.

    Alex“Do not fuck with a woman from NYC,” exclaimed comedian/actress Alex Bornstein, accepting her award for The Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment Made in NY Award at this year’s NYWFT Muse Awards.

    The “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” star reminded 700 guests seated for a sumptuous steak dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street this week, she was not actually “made in New York,” but everyone seemed to think she was, maybe because as Susie Myerson, she epitomized the brash, pushy person who could be a New York bred talent agent.

    Her parents never called to congratulate her for any of her work, but they did for “Mrs. Maisel.” “You were good,” said her mother, while her father asked, “Why weren’t you the lead?” Her mother replied, “Because the skinny one with the perfect tits is the lead.” This may have bothered her growing up, but as the Muses dispense advice, now she knows: “You are enough.”

    Canadian actress Tantoo Cardinal whose personal story informed Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, had gratitude to family, particularly her grandmother who picked her up from the “dregs of genocide.” When her grandfather spoke her name, she said, “I knew he knew me.” And when he died, she wore an eagle feather in her hair for him. That was brave, she told the crowd. Of indigenous descent, she was taught to be ashamed of who she was.

    The WONDERSTRUCK and A QUIET PLACE actress Millicent Simmons accepted the Loreen Arbus Changemaker Award. Her mother was discouraged from learning to sign by doctors who thought that would slow her, a deaf baby, in learning to speak. A riveting performer, in A QUIET PLACE II, she leads the cast including writer director John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, often giving them notes. Actress Kyra Sedgwick has taken on directing. Her husband Kevin Bacon advised her: she was great at directing, if only she would never say “I’m sorry,” as she worked—as in, I’m sorry but we’re doing another take. This gave the audience a hearty, knowing chuckle.

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  • Water for Elephants: An Awesome Spectacle on Broadway

    Aaa at 8.53.22 AM
    This circus show comes with no disclaimer. No animals were hurt in Water for Elephants, opening this week at the Imperial Theater. Some human characters, yes! But if you know the story from the movie and the book on which it’s based, you know that certain bad leaders get their just desserts. The animals, so appealing in their puppet form, make for the heart and soul of this beautiful theater piece.

    When Marlena, a gorgeous aerialist (Isabelle McCalla), married to the ringmaster (Paul Alexander Nolan), must put down her prized, overworked show horse, he ascends to the heavens in a white sash, carried aloft in the acrobatics of Antoine Boissereau, an elegant performer from France in his Broadway debut. Here is a riveting moment, the essence of this production: the audience must suspend disbelief; awed, you see the divine in the art.

    Now, of course, Marlena must find another act, and soon an elephant with long curled eyelashes wraps her in its trunk. The elephant act works well to rescue the Depression era failing Benzini Brothers Circus. Along with a talented troupe of acrobats and one funny clown (Joe de Paul—the Playbill says he really did run away with the circus), the circus thrives. The day is saved! Until . . .

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  • Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People

    Enim of rhe peple
    If the players were not dressed in late 19th century fitted jackets, and the Circle in the Square stage not set as the interior of a fine Norwegian home with old school furnishings, you might think An Enemy of the People was a pandemic era drama of science vs. profit. Jeremy Strong--vulnerable as he was as Kendall Roy in Succession— as Dr. Thomas Stockmann, wants to alert the small town of serious, life-threatening bacteria in the water. His brother Peter—Michael Imperioli as a thuggish Sopranos bully who happens to be mayor, wants to suppress the information so that the people do not suffer the economic decline, from thriving baths about to enrich the community. Dr. Fauci seems so present, as does a narcissistic leader bent on denying scientific research. Amy Herzog has trimmed Ibsen’s original work to good effect and under Sam Gold’s superb direction An Enemy of the People feels like a parable for this time.

    As in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the ostensible drama whether it relates to the dynamic of saving people’s lives vs. preserving the opportunities for the rich or marriage and its tenuous relationship to true love, the real threat is the sheep-like dumbness of a citizenry that does not think for itself.

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  • Amy Ryan, Liev Schreiber, Zoe Kazan in A Superb Revival of Doubt: A Parable

    Dought 2a
    In the revival of John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable at the Todd Haimes Theater, Amy Ryan as formidable, grim-faced Sister Aloysius is the kind of no-nonsense nun so fearful—under her eye, the consequences of actions good or bad are the same; you definitely don’t want to be caught. As directed by Scott Ellis, a fine tuning of Shanley’s work, she demonizes Liev Schreiber as Father Flynn, newly arrived at this Bronx parish in 1964. From the start, centerstage, delivering a sermon on “Doubt” in New York-ese, back lit by stained glass, he projects humanity, especially as his speech sets up the parable at hand: Doubt can be as binding as faith.

    This is theater at its finest, a holy cathedral of words. Playing with notions of innocence and guilt, the 2004 play—a Pulitzer Prize winner–means to keep us juggling our own internal debates on the subject, the truth intensely shimmering far away, compelling, mysterious and suspenseful. A younger teacher, Zoe Kazan shines as Sister James. Meek as need be before her superiors, she also represents the future of the church. She has doubts about what happened in the rectory when a student—the school’s only black boy– returns to class after a private meeting with Father Flynn. Reporting to Sister Aloysius, she suspects her superior’s accusations go too far, judging him a pedophile without saying the word. Can she maintain discipline as represented by Sister Alyosius, while keeping a tender, nurturing and welcoming presence for her students?

    Sister Aloysius’ meeting with the boy’s mother in a deft performance by Quincey Tyler Bernstine brings its own surprises. As does Father Flynn’s confrontation with Sister Aloysius in her Bible-lined study, questioning why he is thought guilty without proof. Of course, we as observers have our own certainties, or doubts, and they keep shifting. And it’s hard not to be swayed by Father Flynn’s kindness, vulnerability—and sheer manliness.

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  • Marion Cotillard at the Rendez-vous with French Cinema

    Marion CollardOscar winner Marion Cotillard in feathery white posed before photographers on opening night of this year’s Rendez-vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center. She’s a big star, known internationally since her debut role as Edith Piaf, but for this yearly festival, a collaboration with Unifrance, it did not take long before she melded into the crowd, another guest for cocktails. Similarly, at the French Embassy where the party turned swank, she was part of the crowd with Thomas Cailley, director of the opening night film, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, enjoying drinks, vegetarian tagine, the confluence of English and French conversation. The French are very good at keeping the celebrity buzz under control.

    Winner of five Cesars in France, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM, explores the imagined proposition of humans mutating into animals–literally. How does that affect identity? Family? Empathy? The star, Romain Duris, plays a family man whose wife has become a large beast—yes, literally. Neither he nor Adele Exarchopoulos, another big star who plays a minor role attended. In France as in America, having a film this lauded will improve chances of funding the next one, but Cailley said of his film in our conversation: This film is weird, and will widen the possibilities for others to make their more edgy films.

    Taking a conservative view on this movie that also features one such mutant who wants to fly, this is surely the best movie I have ever seen on the subject of father/son relationships. More conventional, director Pascal Bonitzer’s film AUCTION, about a Nazi-stolen Egon Schiele painting turning up in a workingclass home in the French countryside, would screen the next night, its North American premiere. A favorite among Rendez-vous critics, AUCTION is smart about the art market. Bonitzer based his script on interviews with key players in a known newspaper story. While Alex Lutz stars as an auctioneer, for Bonitzer, the young man who wants to give up his lucrative possession to the true Jewish heirs is a hero.

    Sting—yes, that Sting– plays himself in Michel Gondry’s THE BOOK OF SOLUTIONS, perhaps the goofiest selection in the Rendezvous lineup. A young film director (Pierre Niney), wanting to complete his work after the project has been kaboshed, holes himself up in the French countryside with the stolen footage. Manic, he wants to complete his movie and even convinces Sting to perform. Nutty as the twists and turns seem, this film may illustrate the inner frustrations of many filmmakers.

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  • Christine Lahti in Russian Troll Farm: Jesse Tyler Ferguson Honored at the Vineyard Theater Gala

    Russion Trol Farm 2PM
    Any lingering doubts about how the 2016 election went the way it did, Sarah Gancher’s Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy, now ending its run at the Vineyard Theater, offers a hilarious, clever, chilling spectacle of our nightmares come true –especially horrifying as we move toward the 2024 elections. Set in a cold office space, this play posits workers, computer nerds doing what they do best: hacking. A photo of Putin hangs on a back wall. We are in fact where our worst fears of control by a foreign enemy are fueled and posted. Expert in manipulating social media, these workers, led by Ljuba, a Robotnik performed by Christine Lahti, tweet misinformation at once familiar and breathtakingly outrageous—Hillary as a pedophile—kidnapped kids in tunnels beneath Disneyland—incredible fakeries that had us by the –eh, balls.

    The brightest note—this is good, riveting theater. And that view goes beyond the sight of Steve’s (John Lavelle) ample, inked butt crack. Renata Friedman as Masha, Haskell King as Egor, and Hadi Tabbal as Nikolai round out the fine ensemble. My hope is Russian Troll Farm will move to Broadway—as have other superb Vineyard productions such as Dana H. and This is a Room.

    At the Vineyard Theatre’s gala this week, the Edison Ballroon was abuzz. Honoring Jesse Tyler Fergusen, a rousing rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” was a no-brainer. Chelsea Clinton, Lea DeLaria, Celia-Keegan Bolger, Sara Bareilles, Emily Bergl, and Montego Glover paid tribute, but Glover, a former Ferguson roommate, could attest: Jesse puts down the toilet seat. Whattamensch!

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  • Jennifer Holliday at the Carlyle Café

    Carlyle 2024 TWO TWOFEB
    Tony award winning Jennifer Holliday makes her debut at the Café Carlyle, not far from where she starred on Broadway as Effie in 1981 in “Dreamgirls.” Singing “I’m Still Here,” Holliday channels ancestors—Barbra Streisand among them– in a set that features selections from the American songbook. But more, she evokes a prior Café Carlyle resident, the legendary Elaine Stritch, who made this Stephen Sondheim “Follies” hit her signature song. Holliday now makes it her own, and ends her generous set with her “Dreamgirls” anthem, “And I’m Telling You—I’m Not Going.”

    Great news! At 63, Jennifer Holliday in a magenta sequined sheath, uses the intimacy of the Carlyle stage to sing about love, and honor her muses, Michael Bennett and Marvin Hamlisch. Their advice brought her to the standards that make this show so special—“Taking a Chance on Love,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” “Caravan,” “Body and Sou,” to name a few. Working in a jazz idiom –scatting like Ella Fitzgerald and mixing in her R&B chops– she’s backed by an excellent band: music director Shedrick Mitchell on piano, Eric Wheeler on bass, Charles Haynes on drums, and Jarien Jamanla on sax.

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  • Carey Mulligan’s Surprise Appearance at New York Philharmonic’s Evening of Maestro’s Music

    Mistro
    Director/ Producer/ Co-writer/ Star Bradley Cooper introduced a special concert at the newly refurbished Geffen Hall, featuring the NY Philharmonic performing Leonard Bernstein’s music for his film MAESTRO. That his subject Leonard Bernstein had begun his career in this very place, conducting the Philharmonic at age 25, gave the evening extra resonance. Fervidly researching, Cooper was said to have attended many a performance in the past five years, seated in the conductor’s box hanging dangerously over the rail, in rapt attention to the feverish body movements needed for conducting. His devotion extended to every aspect of the film, and it shows. Now after MAESTRO’s many awards and nominations, the night’s focus turned to the Philharmonic’s star conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin, the ample stage packed with musicians, the soloists, and the 50-member chorus. Now a hero to classical musicians everywhere, Bradley Cooper put them in the spotlight. And shine they did.

    In Cooper’s hands, glimpses of Bernstein’s musical genius pervade the film. Key scenes were projected over the live performances. The Requiem in St. John the Divine is the longest musical interlude, showing Cooper completely following in Bernstein’s conductor chops. As noted later in the Q&A, performers who had worked with Bernstein actually imagined him back in action. That’s how authentic Bradley Cooper seemed to them.

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  • Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James’ Menage a Trois in Days of Wine and Roses

    Days of wine and rosesWhen the new Broadway musical, Days of Wine and Roses, was announced, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s voluptuous classic song from the movie swelled in my mind’s ear. That was a lot to let go, as the new show at Studio 54 drew near. Featuring Kelli O’Hara and Brian D’Arcy James as the lovers in a doomed triangle with booze, to tunes by Adam Guettel and book by Craig Lucas, the team that made Light in the Piazza starring O’Hara, this Days of Wine and Roses scores the romance operatically, even as it is meant to evoke jazz. A perfect fit for O’Hara, a theater superstar with a singular voice.

    Brian D’Arcy James, known especially for comic roles, is the quintessential leading man—a handsome and attentive wooer. Meeting at an office party, the two hook up once she, a lovely “good” girl, not into drink, samples a chocolaty Brandy Alexander. An unshakable, high alcoholic bond precipitates their down journey.

    This is no spoiler alert. Anyone familiar with the vagaries of this disease will recognize the thwarted steps taken to survive, and feel the pain in witnessing D’Arcy James’ Joe’s crescendos as he tears down his father-in-law’s (Byron James) prized greenhouse in a drunken rage.

    Joe and O’Hara’s Kirsten sing every number, accompanied for a few tunes by their daughter Lila (Tabitha Lawing). Kelli O’Hara’s voice is the one you take home—in “Evanesce” and “There I Go.”

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  • Chita Rivera Remembered at the Café Carlyle: Putting on her Vamp

    Cheta Revera
    Broadway musical legend Chita Rivera takes the narrow strip of stage at the Café Carlyle, maneuvering her sequined body strategically so she won’t end up in your vodka tonic. Nobody moves like Chita Rivera. The consummate showwoman, she gives a great, not to be missed night, starting with “A Lot of Living to Do.” For her West Side Story medley, in honor of its 60th anniversary, she tells of Leonard Bernstein teaching her the role of Anita, and sings “A Boy Like That,” and “America.” With stories galore, and memories of performers who inspired her, such as Rosemary Clooney from whom she learned she could just stand there and sing, and then of course defying that she shimmies through “Sweet Happy Life,” advising, “It’s great when your spirit and body get together.” When she sings “Where Am I Going?” from Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ Sweet Charity, you feel grateful to have her right here, coquettish as three hookers, “Camille, Collette, Fifi” and wistful singing the ups and downs of Jacques Brel’s “Carousel.”

    With all due respect to Catherine Zeta-Jones who earned an Oscar for her film role as Velma in Chicago, Chita Rivera blows away all competition. Of course she originated the role of Velma in 1975, opposite Gwen Verdon, only one of her iconic Broadway performances in a career that includes Bye Bye Birdie, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, as well as West Side Story. Accompanied by an expert band, with music director Michael Croiter on guitar, Jason Loffredo on piano, Jim Donica’s bass, and Dan Willis reeds, she samples from her Broadway hits including the show-stopping vamp for “All That Jazz,” top hat, cane, and all.

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  • Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, Charles Melton: Who Cares About Oscar Snubs?

    Oscars2024
    After Oscar nominations, pundits weigh in on the snubs. What exactly does it mean? In the case of BARBIE, the highest grossing film of the year: laughing all the way to the proverbial, eh, literal, bank. Team BARBIE has a prominent place at the party, with nods for Best Picture, Original Song, Production Design, Costume Design, and Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s Adapted Screenplay. Producer Margot Robbie will look gorgeous, of course! As nominee for Best Supporting Actor, Ryan Gosling put it, “There’s no Ken without Barbie.” Don’t cry for me.

    For other films, MAY DECEMBER, for example, other consequences for revenues can make a difference, but with an auteur such as Todd Haynes featuring stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman—Oscar winners on their own. Watch them as presenters on the special day, and Charles Melton—you may recall from his New York Film Critics win– looks good in a tux without a shirt.

    As the late, great Sylvia Miles, a two-time Best Supporting Actress Nominee—for MIDNIGHT COWBOY and FAREWELL, MY LOVELY—always pointed out during Oscar season, you cannot predict the nominations in traditional ways, seeing the process more of an algorithm of repeated listing by Academy members in each category.

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