Gossip Central

Apropos of Nothing: Woody Allen’s View from the Top

Back in the day, I knew a journalist who had a crush on Woody Allen, and joined a club with others similarly besotted. Witty and smart, this bespectacled nerd made them laugh, and that was sexy. Cut to Woody Allen today, a man in his ‘80’s trying to clear his name. His new book, Apropos of Nothing, is already a scandal because one publishing house coup caused a cancellation, to another’s gain. Hachette employees walked out in protest, leaving the publication to Arcade/ Skyhorse. Chalk it up to a knee jerk conclusion of guilt in the #metoo moment: a relapse of Woody Allen’s continued battle in courts of public opinion on the case of his having abused his daughter Dylan. You know the story. It’s complicated. A family rift. A woman’s revenge. In Apropos of Nothing, he tells his side: logical, clear, bewildered that his reputation remains besmirched after much investigation, his work boycotted in the America that gave it birth. If that were all, you might not want to read Apropos of Nothing. On the other hand, one of our most unique filmmakers also tells tales of his life, loves, craft and Manhattan real estate, offering a laugh-out-loud penthouse perspective: Brooklyn boy rises to the top.

Terrence McNally Remembered

Inevitable that the current virus would claim the life of someone up close and personal. The pleasures of Terrence McNally’s work in theater have been a staple of New York’s Broadway and off experience for decades. In June 2019, I saw a revival of his Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, his writing a glorious vehicle for the talents of the actors Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald.

A bed sits center stage at the Broadhurst Theater, in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment from the 1980’s. As Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune opens, Michael Shannon as Johnny and Audra McDonald, Frankie, make passionate love. From the grunts and groans, it’s pretty good sex we are witnessing, and when Johnny turns over, applause breaks out at the sight of his bare rump. Bodies are not all that’s naked in this intimate two-hander: as these co-workers in a diner have this night together, they talk and peel back histories of hurt.

Remembering Andreas Brown at the Gotham Book Mart

On December 27, 2016, I posted a story about returning to the Gotham Book Mart site, reconfigured after the legendary literary hangout lost its lease. Its proprietor, Andreas Brown, a man wise to books, theater, and the theater of books, died this week at age 86. Among many discoveries, he was onto Jimmy Kimmel, telling me, he’s going to be a big star. With some tweaking, I am remembering here Andreas Brown and his place among diamonds.

“That’s our trouble,” said my friend Roger Friedman, “everything used to be something else.” I had just told him about meeting my brothers and their families for the third Chanukah candle, 13 relatives in all, at a glatt kosher restaurant called Taam Tov in the Diamond District, on the very site of the legendary Gotham Book Mart. On November 17, 1986, my book, Kerouac’s Spontaneous Poetics, one of the first full-scale studies on the iconic beat poet and novelist, was celebrated here. A sign, “Wise Men Fish Here,” marked the spot, a literary emporium on a bejeweled street. The James Joyce Society met here. Among many other book parties, a reissue of Junkie was feted here too, in 1977. Carl Solomon and Patti Smith attended, honoring William S. Burroughs’ work. Poet Allen Ginsberg, who had clerked here back in the day, snapped my picture.

A Quiet Place II: Shhhhhhh!

Introducing the next chapter to the hit horror movie, A Quiet Place, writer/director John Krasinski said he never wanted to make a sequel, and now he prefers the new one: “That’s for you to decide,” he said to the rapt audience at the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Rose Hall premiere. Expect: the most successful franchise ever.

If you liked the first one, you will like A Quiet Place II. The crowd cheered wildly as the family, baby in arms, makes their way through a landscape emptied of people, besieged by grotesque creatures averse to sound. Because the filmmaking is superb, from story to direction, special effects to editing, the movie, as in the first, is riveting, reinventing the genre. You cannot look away from beginning to end at those faces: Emily Blunt as the every-mom turned action hero has her match in Millicent Simmonds, as the fiercely smart daughter who strategizes a route to survival. Simmonds who we first met on the set of Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck, has grown up. Now 17, Simmonds is luminous, in the manner of silent movie stars of yore, and Krasinski takes full advantage. For this episode, Cillian Murphy joins in on the journey, meeting up with good guy Djimon Hounsou. Without revealing too much, there are boats involved.

The Plot Against America on HBO: Democracy at Risk

Showrunner David Simon took the stage at the 92^nd Street Y carrying a giant-sized bottle of Purell following a preview screening of the HBO miniseries, The Plot Against America, to air on March 16. Certainly, Coronavirus was on his mind, a point of concern, even paranoia, while he was promoting his program, famously a Philip Roth novel fearful about the future of democracy. Simon shared the stage with his actors Winona Ryder, Morgan Spector, and John Turturro. Why adapt this Roth novel now?

Girl From the North Country at the Belasco Theater: Dark Drama With Dylan’s Music

The musical, Girl From the North Country, newly landed on Broadway at the Belasco Theater after sellout runs in London and at the Public Theater, imagines what you can do if you match up a brilliant storyteller, Conor McPherson, with a brilliant songwriter, Bob Dylan. And that’s without either one of them having met, spoken, emailed, or tweeted with the other! How exactly does that collaboration create such exciting theater?

All the Natalie Portmans at the MCC Theater

A white girl in a black tutu pirouettes onstage in a dour apartment, a fantasy vision of Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Reminiscent of other works with movie stars in the name (Being John Malkovitch/ Searthing for Debra Winger), All the Natalie Portmans, an off- Broadway debut by C. A. Johnson at the MCC Theater, the conceit gets a smug laugh. For Keyonna, a queer charter school student who fixates on white actresses—see her vision board where Winona Ryder also has pride of place—the apparition is life-saving, as is the pop-up presence of all the Natalie Portmans, from Queen Amidala to her youthful breakout role in The Professional. Beset by complications resulting from her father’s sudden death, Keyonna copes alongside a beleaguered brother, a family friend girl crush, and a booze-binging mom. The family gets by one way or another, until it doesn’t.

Salman Rushdie Commands The Rainbow Room at the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Awards

Even against a gloomy sky, The Rainbow Room with its magnificent city views defied yesterday’s weather, an impending pandemic, democrats duking it out. At Guild Hall’s most festive winter celebration, honoring achievement in the arts and philanthropy, serenity reigned, although most honorees greeted guests and neighbors with fist bumps and elbows over the usual bear hugs and double cheek air kisses. Among those cheering on Dorothea Rockburne in the Visual Arts, Barry Sonnenfeld for Performing Arts, Ted Hartley for Philanthropy and “a life well lived,” and Salman Rushdie for the Literary Arts, were Philippe Petit, Ralph  Gibson and Mary Jane Marcasiano, Tovah Feldshuh, Blythe Danner, Jordan Roth, Toni Ross, Patti Kenner, and many more representing the vibrant community, many attendees former awardees. April Gornik promised that the long-awaited Sag Harbor Arts complex will open this spring. And Eric Fishl raised a glass to the memory of Michael Lynne.

Dana H at the Vineyard Theater: Being There

I usually take notes when I review plays, but I could not risk taking my eyes off Deirdre O’Connell in Lucas Hnath’s play, Dana H. Because the actress’ mouth is moving to the sound of Dana Higginbotham in an edited interview with writer/artist Steve Cosson from 2015, speaking about events of 1998, lip-syncing, her face is doing all in the narration of a harrowing story, and, you simply cannot avert your attention. She tells you it’s the first time she’s ever recounted the story of her abduction by Jim, a member of the Aryan brotherhood, a five-month ordeal from motel to motel, and you believe her because the emotion is so strong, who could speak of it? And you believe her because it is true. And you believe her because she is the playwright’s mother. Finally, you are there with her, in one such motel, and you simply cannot believe she, her son, and you are alive to experience this story.

Remembering Rip Torn: R. I. P. Rip

At the Greenwich House Theater for a memorial for Rip Torn, awesome clips revealed the evolution of this legendary actor’s astonishing film career from Baby Doll (1956) to Bible epics through roles as a good guy and then menacing bad ass, onto his Emmy winning television work on “The Larry Shandling Show” and “30 Rock” with a hilarious scene with Alec Baldwin. A bit from his 1969 The Bearding of the President showed him with his “Nixon” nose, his own invention, and at least one friend opined that he would have been an even bigger presence in film and stage but for his politics.

But among the ample work that was not screened, was a bit of voice over in the Oscar winning documentary Harlan County USA. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple needed someone to say, “We’ve got our guns now,” and asked him to say the line so it could be heard. “I’ve never told anyone, but now I am telling you,” Kopple confessed to a crowd of New York friends and family, among them David Amram who led the speakers off and concluded with a special song for Rip, and accompanied Rip’s twin sons with Geraldine Page, Jon and Tony Torn, in a reading of Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”