Gossip Central

The Doctor is In: Three on a Couch, Caroline's, 21, Gonzo 7

“3 on a Couch,” Carl Djerassi's comedy now in production at SoHo Playhouse, could be presented heavily philosophical, or light and slapstick. At a recent pre play dinner at Ama, Djerassi-who is Viennese and who in a previous life as a chemist invented the pill, (yes, that pill)-- told me, his theatrical work is influenced by Tom Stoppard and Harold Pinter, so he would have liked to see his play of ideas performed with a pinch of gravitas. He finds it mildly irksome that the director went more for the funny bone. As a result of Elena Araoz's efforts, though, sight gags and pratfalls convey the hilarious illogic of a man who fakes his own suicide, the brilliance of a woman who insists upon the uses of the mango fork, and the elastic Bill Irwin-type body of the doctor who treats them. I hope Dr. Djerassi won't mind my critique: his play best brings to mind Beckett's tragicomedy, “Waiting for Godot.”
     And speaking of laughs there were quite a few at Caroline's Comedy Club for the annual benefit for Autism Research when Audrey Flack and her Art Officials took the stage singing and strumming an original composition on the lives of Jackson Pollock and Caravaggio accompanied by banjos. Flack, a New York artist famous for her painting and sculpture knows from whence she speaks and it helped that she had a straight man (as in foil), a suit from the Smithsonian, Charles Duncan, to play off her smart lyrics.
    21 hosted a breakfast in celebration of a new book on the subject of men's aging. How timely! The early diners, many of them over sixty, definitely sexy, smartly dressed, and decidedly successful feasted on superb scrambled eggs and bacon-although some cautiously opted for granola-- while Dr. Robert Schwalbe explained his reasons for writing “Sixty, Sexy, and Successful: A Guide for Aging Male Baby Boomers.” He was noticing certain trends in men coming into his psychoanalytic practice. A handsome 64, he was also seeing some signs in himself. The smart crowd did not miss the nuance, as the doctor limned symptoms reminiscent of the bewildering case of our former governor Eliot Spitzer. The diagnosis: He could have used this book.
    And finally, in this election frenzy, a documentary on the life and times of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson will be released on the 4th of July. “Gonzo,” directed by Alex Gibney, this year's Oscar winner for “Taxi to the Dark Side,” arrives just in time to remind us what real American patriotism is all about. The provocative film, narrated by Johnny Depp who starred in the movie of Thompson's “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” on the writer and inventor of Gonzo journalism who committed suicide in 2005, will inspire some thought about how Dr. Thompson might now be kicking butt with his in your face writing, that is, if he were in

Dr.Regina Weinreich 

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Baby Jane Dexter at the Metropolitan Room

What’s the opposite of diva? That’s Baby Jane Dexter. At last weekend’s set at The Metropolitan Room, her robust performance, her ease with her audience and fans, and her material including ‘60’s and early ‘70’s rock made this a most friendly cabaret evening. The room was packed for her celebration of a new CD “You’re Following Me” recorded here in April. From “Zing Went the Strings (of my Heart)” to “Love Potion Number 9,” you could feel the empathy in the room. Interviewed on NPR recently, she spoke about the relationship of her singing and healing. Baby Jane is soulful without necessarily singing soul. She’s warm and funny, especially when describing a particular weakness for the frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity. I can soooo relate. You are in luck. You can catch her act at the Metropolitan Room on December 29. Prepare for emotional rescue.

Regina Weinreich                            Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Songs of Innocence and Experience at the Metropolitan Room

The title of William Blake's great epic of pre-and post-expulsion from Eden is an apt image for two recent pleasurable evenings at The Metropolitan Room. The pain and wisdom of  “experience” could define the themes performed theatrically by the veteran singer Julie Wilson accompanied on piano by Christopher Denny. With knowing, teasing eye-lash batting and brisk throws of her boas, red and black, over a sequined shoulder, she plays provocateur singing standards like “It Was Fascination,” “Let Me Entertain You,” “Good Morning Heartache,” “I Won't Say I Will But (I Won't Say I Won't),” and “The Ladies Who Lunch,” which she dedicated to “the girls who stay smart.” She's a woman of a certain age, unabashed 82, and she still has “It.”
Channeling the looks of Elizabeth Taylor in her National Velvet years, newcomer Judy Butterfield takes the stage in hair barrettes and an off the shoulder gown; if she is representative, the next generation of cabaret stars is coquettish and refined. A protégé of Andrea Marcovicci, Butterfield orchestrated her show, Judy Sings Judy: Songs of a Young Garland, to trace the earlier, lesser performed career of the singer who took us “over the rainbow.” Smart and funny, Butterfield mixes the music with anecdotes: how Judy got her name (Frances Ethel Gumm just wouldn't do), how she got her contract with MGM (performing “Eli Eli,” a song she learned for a bar mitzvah for Louis B. Mayer), how she sang for Clark Gable's 36th birthday (Dear Mr. Gable, she chimed to a framed picture of the star, “You Made Me Love You”), all the while taking us through Garland's greatest hits: “Zing Went the Strings of my Heart,” “Clang Clang Clang Went the Trolley,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” among others. With Michael Lavine on piano, she does a duet Garland had performed with Mickey Rooney: “Good Morning, Good Morning” and, reminding us that as a friend in the movies, Mickey sometimes left her alone, she sings: “They're Writing Songs of Love, But Not for Me.” By the time she brings down the house with the signature “Over the Rainbow,” you know you are in the presence of a talent on the brink; at 17, she's that good.

                                                                                        Regina Weinreich

Tammy Grimes at the Metropolitan Room

From the first note of “Rose of Washington Square,” you know you are in the presence of a Broadway legend. Now taking stage in this intimate club setting, Tammy Grimes, two-time Tony award winning actress for the musical “The Unsinkable Molly Brown” (1961) and for Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” (1970) is taking her illustrious career to a new phase. “I’ve got no future but oh what a past,” she intones, and you know this is no idle lyric.

               Channeling the spirit of her husband (since 1971), the arranger/composer Richard Bell, and accompanied on piano by Dennis Bock, she sings wit-charged melodies:  Kander and Ebb’s “You Gotta Ring Them Bells” (what a girl has to do to get out there), “Martha” (by Tom Waits), “He Went to Paris” (by Jimmy Buffett), “More Than One Man in her Life,” “I’ll Never Say No to You,” “Can’t Help Loving That Man of Mine,” “The Snake,” “You Better Love Me While You May,” Noel Coward’s “If Love Were All,” “I Ain’t Down Yet;” and she told stories. When she met Gower Champion, he said, too bad you can’t dance. She replied, “Maybe so, but I’m a great mover.”

               On Wednesday night The Metropolitan Room was packed with fans and friends: among them Academy Award winning actress Patricia Neal, biographer Patricia Bosworth, Joan Rivers, Rex Reed, and George Ross, husband of her Chestnut Hill school chum Anne.

About that past: As one of her stories goes, Marlon Brando had taken her to see the play “The Dark is Light Enough” when one actor, Christopher Plummer, caught her eye. (She was married to him, briefly, in 1956.)  But what about Brando?!!! “Well, that was just an apprentice dating a star.” Of all the projects in her distinguished career she loved best “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”—she also thought Kathy Bates playing this character in “Titanic” was marvelous—and the Turgenev play, “A Month in the Country” in which she starred with her daughter Amanda Plummer. As to her late husband Richard Bell, “Oh, I spoke to him tonight.”

My only quibble with this wonderful evening is that I wanted more. Fortunately, Tammy Grimes will perform again on April 12 at The Metropolitan Room.

                                                                                               Regina Weinreich