Gossip Central

Why Quibble? The Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess Revived on Broadway

A controversy over whether or not the original 1935 opera Porgy & Bess can work, pared down, cut in music and story, clouds over what should be a celebration. Filled with perhaps the most well known lyrics in the American songbook, Porgy & Bess in any variation is welcome.

The current version at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, with book redone by Suzan-Lori Parks and Diedre L. Murray, and directed by Diane Paulus is a crowd pleasing musical. Having seen much of what Paulus has done in recent years, with her interest in bringing high brow art to a place in popular culture: Shakespeare’ Midsummer Night’s Dream as The Donkey Show, Turandot as a wrestling competition, and Hair both in Central Park and on Broadway with audience participation, the variations in this Porgy & Bess seem tame by comparison.

Wit’s Wit

A conceit, an ironic barb, wit can be searing and funny. In the case of Margaret Edson’s Wit, the Tony winning play now in a Manhattan Theatre Club revival at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre under the fine direction of Lynne Meadow, Wit follows the journey of Vivian Bearing, a name that loosely translates to “enduring life,” a college professor specializing in 17^th century metaphysical poetry, in the verse of John Donne to be specific, author of “Death Be Not Proud.” As performed by Sex & the City’s Cynthia Nixon, she is a brainy Everyman/woman, precious in what she knows and does, vital in knowledge, commitment, and contribution to life, devastating to lose. And lose her we do. Sorry for the spoiler: she dies at Wit’s end.

Titillation and Tantrums: Shaw’s Philanderer at the Pearl Theater

The Pearl Theatre Company revival of George Bernard Shaw’s The Philanderer had many in the audience wondering why this delightful and deliciously scandalous play is not produced more often. Of course the sex implied and on view between corseted women and waist-coated men is nothing to raise a contemporary eyebrow, but in its day, 1893, it was banned for fifteen years.

Richard III: The Winter of Discontent Full Blown at BAM

The picture on the Richard III poster shows the actor Kevin Spacey, mangled like a piece of John Chamberlain’s chrome sculptures, his left leg in a brace turned inward, his epaulets woefully off kilter, his dark glasses barely grazing his nose, his crown cocked like a smartass cartoon. At BAM where the Bridge Project’s stunning production of Shakespeare’s play is thus advertised, the image only begins to tell you what’s in his heart. Having just murdered Lady Anne’s father and husband, he woos her, Shakespeare’s language suggesting everything you can possibly do with a cane. Its noise announces Richard’s writhing gestures, producing dread and glee. You don’t know where he will thrust it, including a gratuitous jab at a severed head in a bloody box. Ooooh!

Jack Kerouac Dissed in Seminar on Broadway

Alan Rickman warned me about this: In his new play at the Golden Theater on Broadway, Seminar by Theresa Rebeck, directed by Sam Gold, Rickman plays a well-established teacher of a private writers’ workshop. He cajoles and humiliates his students, sleeps with them, getting his point across.

Kim Cattrall in Noel Coward’s Private Lives

Deauville, 1930’s. The fine Private Lives revival directed by Richard Eyre at the Music Box Theater opens on a posh hotel terrace. The view must be amazing, you imagine as two couples on honeymoon in adjoining suites gaze over the audience to a yacht in the harbor. On the right, Elyot answers one jealous question after another about his first wife Amanda. His pretty blond new wife may sense Amanda’s shadowy presence. On the left, another newly wed man echoes the insecurities to his wife wrapped audaciously in a towel. Of course, the audience gets the conceit from the start; these in fact are one another’s exes, in the flesh! Yet the beauty of Private Lives is Noel Coward’s language, the hilarious barbs and banter, foreplay to out and out brawl. You cannot resist the unexpected laugh when Elyot, says, “Don’t quibble, Sybil.”

Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays on Minetta Lane

Who doesn't love a wedding? What little girl doesn't adore the Barbie decked in tiered white tulle? Or fetishize her. Who ever thought such beloved and at times tacky traditions would be so political?  And also terrifying? Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays at the Minetta Lane Theater, features eight playlets by the playwrights Mo Gaffney, Jordan Harrison, Moises Kaufman, Neil LaBute, Wendy MacLeod, Jose Rivera, Paul Rudnick, and Doug Wright. If you cry at weddings, straight or gay, you can consider these cathartic canapés.

All Things Being Relative: Relatively Speaking

With the writing talents of Ethan Coen, Elaine May, and Woody Allen, featuring performances by an ensemble that includes Marlo Thomas, Steve Guttenberg, and Julie Kavner, under the direction of John Turturro, the 3 one-acters that comprise Relatively Speaking at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre are exactly as you would expect, very funny. On Wednesday, my husband and I, fans of all three writers, enjoyed a fine night of theater, as good as can be. A delicious debate ensued. Which was best?

Tell it from The Mountaintop

In Katori Hall's play The Mountaintop, taking place on the fateful night that Martin Luther King was assassinated, a maid named Camae, delivering room service says, “Let me take you to the mountaintop.” And every way you can imagine to take that statement, a play off the speech the iconic Dr. King gave that afternoon, works.

Radha Blank's SEED Premieres in Harlem

Forget the red carpet. The drum beats on Fifth Avenue and 125th Street drew a select audience into the National Black Theatre for the eagerly awaited world premiere of Radha Blank's SEED. The 5-character drama involving a social worker, a family, and a prison inmate, against a back screen of the New York City subways and Harlem environs is fresh, lively, and let's just say, features one of the funniest exchanges ever to take place at a DuaneReade.