“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