Gossip Central

Halley Feiffer’s “A Funny Thing Happened . . .” at the Lucille Lortel Theater

As anyone who has ever spent time in a hospital room knows, the laughs are few. On opening night of Halley Feiffer’s “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City” at the Lucille Lortel Theater on Tuesday, the audience filing in did not think otherwise: two beds separated by a curtain, two people asleep, a set so familiarly appointed, prepared for the worst, you might think nothing comic could happen here, not even on the television monitor perched above woman stage left, until you see Karla (Beth Behrs of tv’s “2 Broke Girls”), in oversized sweater and goofy knit cap, as she moves antic testing a monologue for her stand-up act. (Picture: a younger Sandra Bernhard.) With mom (Lisa Emery) in bed, Karla’s got a captive if comatose audience. As she contemplates—loud—the joys of rape with her vibrator, an anguished schlep named Don (Erik Lochtefeld) enters stage right to usher his mom (Jacqueline Sydney) to her final rest. For Feiffer, and for director Trip Cullman, it’s a set up made in comedy heaven.

Food Bank of New York’s Can Do Dinner

The carpet was orange at Cipriani Wall Street, for the annual Food Bank of New York’s Can Do Dinner this week. The Four Tops in white sequined jackets as well as Neil Patrick Harris and his partner David Burtka basked in its glow. One prize auctioned at the gala was a meal cooked by Cordon-Bleu trained chef, Burtka for your guests at your home. The couple would take over your kitchen, Harris acting as mixologist. With Christie’s Lydia Fenet keeping it fast and funny, that item went for a tidy $30,000 with the money going to help the hungry. Among the honorees, Jose Andres was feted for the great work he’s done this year, particularly in bringing food to Puerto Rico still recovering from two hurricanes two years ago, when the island suffered food and electricity shortages. You do remember a certain orange person tossing some Bounty to the hungry populace.

Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything at the Jewish Museum: A Way to Say Goodbye

The Jewish Museum opens a dynamic homage to Canadian poet/ songman/ novelist/ cultural icon Leonard Cohen this week, focused on his art, and work from others inspired by his life and oeuvre. Staring up at an image of myself reclined comfortably, I experienced his “Famous Blue Raincoat” with words projected on the walls as well as images inspired by the song. This was Ari Folman’s contribution, “Depression Chamber,” an installation, like a therapy session, that must be experienced one person at a time. I anticipate lines, even with a timed reservation. It is just one piece from artists such as Christophe Chassol and Tacita Dean occupying three floors of the museum. Taryn Simon’s “New York Times, Friday, November 11, 2016,” the newspaper displayed in plexiglass illustrates the timing of Cohen’s death just a few days before our current president’s election to office. There is some symbolism there, especially in the juxtaposition of Obama and Trump’s first meeting, and an advertisement for Bernie Sanders’ book, Our Revolution.

Cradle Will Rock at Classic Stage Company: The Workers of Yesteryear

Nothing says worker like hair tied up in Rosie the Riveter do-rag. The Classic Stage Company’s revival of Marc Blitzstein’s 1937 song cycle, Cradle Will Rock, hits a proletarian note. The talented ensemble, led by Tony Yazbeck as Larry Foreman, made up of steel workers, cops, newsmen, church officials, or factory owners, attempt or resist unionizing. Not your typical subject for a musical, this leftist cry was very much reflective of between the wars issues.

The genre of “art song,” with composers Ned Rorem, Paul Bowles, Blitzstein, and others using song whimsically or politically, was quintessentially American. At CSC, with only a piano (played by four actors) accompanying, characters emerge, all in service to Mr. Mister (David Garrison). This way, a lot gets rationalized, thrashed out, manipulated into “fake news” in song.

Aretha Franklin at 29 Stars in Amazing Grace: “She Turned Your Ears into Eyes”

At the New York premiere of the documentary Amazing Grace, the recording session for Aretha Franklin’s historic 1972 gospel album, Clive Davis told an audience of many who knew the iconic singer, she invited him to dinner 40 years ago and asked, Could she be a hit?

From this auspicious beginning, at a screening room near the Freedom Tower, Dr. Amos C. Brown, pastor of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, provided a context for the church concert, backed by the Southern California Community Choir led by Anthony Hamilton, with James Cleveland accompanying Franklin at the apex of her singing chops: “People escaping lynching in Mississippi, at the height of despair, got the gift of music from Aretha Franklin.”

Tigerland on Discovery Channel: “Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright”

When filmmaker Ross Kauffman pitched the idea for Tigerland, his latest documentary film to air on the Discovery Channel, he proclaimed to producers, including Fisher Stevens, that he did not want to make another The Cove, fine as it was, another doc about the poaching of animals in the wild. Oops, Stevens had produced the Oscar-winning film about the endangered dolphins. Kauffman got the job anyway. Tigerland does address the diminution of the world’s tiger population, now only about 3400 in the wild, but as is this documentarian’s special skill, he gives the story a human face, focusing on the individuals, one in India, another in Russia, key figures who do the work of keeping the tiger species alive.

Beetlejuice: The Musical on Broadway, At Last

If you tell Alex Brightman, the star of Beetlejuice on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theater that he was born to play this exuberant, over-the-top part, he says, Oh sure! I was born to play this dead, Jewish, crazed, demon from the Netherworld! As if to say mockingly, that’s no compliment! When, in fact, it is! Brightman brings the fast-talking giddy mania that he played so well in School of Rock, as if it had been a dress rehearsal for Beetlejuice, adding of course the black & white Escher-like optics. For the opening preview this week, fans of all ages mobbed B-way and 50^th street, dressing up for the occasion. The composer of the historic “Day-O,” Irving Burgie, wouldn’t miss it. At 94, he exuded, “The song always turns them out.”

Sunset: An Interview with Director Laszlo Nemes

Director/ writer Laszlo Nemes won the Best Foreign Film Oscar for his 2015 debut, Son of Saul, a daring fiction feature set in Auschwitz. I met him as he was making the rounds during the award season. On one memorable night, he faced a most anxious moment, meeting Elie Wiesel, the novelist who wrote about his experience in Auschwitz, including watching his father die. Of the dwindling generation of survivors, Wiesel (87 at the time) was a Holocaust elder statesman, an eloquent witness and not one to suffer fools gladly. He found the film a powerful representation of his experience of the place, a murder factory, and important. Before his death in 2017, he was dedicated to keeping the memories of genocide alive as a deterrent to future atrocities. That night, I asked Nemes what he was planning next: a film set in Budapest at the dawn of World War I, from the point of view of a woman. In Sunset, Irisz Leiter, an orphaned woman, tries to get a job at a hat emporium that used to belong to her family. From there, Nemes sets her plight against the larger historic moment, again, as in Son of Saul, in allegory. I had a chance to speak to Laszlo Nemes about Sunset on the phone from his home in Budapest.

Mary Wilson Reigns Supreme at the Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations Opening Night

Of course the story of the Temptations, the R&B group topping the charts with hits like “My Girl,” and yes, “Ain’t Too Proud,” would have to acknowledge the girl groups of the era. As the Temps rose to fame, so too did The Supremes, and in the glorious musical Ain’t Too Proud at Broadway's Imperial Theater, they do get their cameo singing a medley of their hits. Rivals and perhaps romantic interests, the Supremes had their own dramatic story, limned by the hit musical Dreamgirls, but here they round out the men’s tale of collaboration, friendship, beautiful sound, and the business of making music for black men in America. As part of Dominique’s book, Mary Wilson gets a bit more than a shout out, and there she was in the audience on opening night, not minding a bit that the history is tweaked. On that, Mary Wilson “ain’t too proud.”

Tierney Sutton’s Homage to Alan and Marilyn Bergman at the Café Carlyle

Photo: David Andrako

From the very first jazzy note, you can tell she loves them. Tierney Sutton’s residency at the Café Carlyle is a tribute to the songwriting couple, Marilyn and Alan Bergman is an awe-fest to their music, and to them as a couple. Sutton goes through their romance and collaboration: to this day, after 61 years of marriage, they mostly occupy the same room, and when they call, they both call, speaking on extensions, inviting her to dinner or to test out a new tune. And as Sutton goes through this history, through their work with composers Michel Legrand, Dave Grusin, Marvin Hamlisch, John Williams and more, you realize, they’ve written the lyrics to songs you know and love, such as “Nice and Easy,” for Frank Sinatra, his first album’s title track, and “The Way We Were,” with Marvin Hamlisch, best known for the movie with Barbra Streisand.