Gossip Central

3 Sisters / Broadway by the Year

Judging from the number of Chekhov plays produced in New York in recent months—The Seagull, Cherry Orchard, Uncle,Vanya among them--the Russian playwright known for dramas reflecting cultural transitions, or our new buzzword change is more resonant to our culture than ever. Enter the mix: The Classical Theater of Harlem’s handsome staging of Three Sisters, directed by Christopher McElroen, on a set that could double as a rug showroom with patterned oriental designs mirroring the intricacies of plot. That the audience sits on either side of the action makes for a most engaging involvement with family and visitors, busy, dancing, coming in and out. With Chekhov you are assured of stories that turn on hidden love affairs, happiness and its lack, dreams and desires, fulfilled but mostly thwarted, the vagaries of economic fortune, the wisdom and folly of age—old or young, and real estate. This 3 Sisters features a dynamic cast including Sabrina LeBeauf (remember her from The Cosby Show), Amanda Mason Warren, and Carmen Gill in the title roles Olga, Masha, Irina. Earle Hyman is stately as frail Ferapont, and Roger Guenveur Smith, dashing as Vershinin. Daphne Gaines plays the bossy and backstabbing sister-in-law Natasha. When asked what she found likable about her character, she assured us that it was her sense of order. And it’s true, as in life itself, the play offers a whirling panorama, a family in flux, and succeeds in finding its satisfying center. Bravo.

In 1924, the Gershwin brothers ruled on Broadway and so when the estimable series Broadway by the Year featured the musicals of 1924 at Town Hall last Monday, renditions of “Fascinating Rhythm,” “The Man I Love,” “Lady Be Good,” “The Half of it Dearie Blues,” “I’d Rather Charleston” brought down the proverbial house. And the classics of the American songbook did not end there: you cannot help but giggle hearing the endlessly parodied “Indian Love Call” beautifully performed by Marc Kudisch and Sarah Jane McMahon, not to mention “The Mounties” in full Mounties regalia. Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do” performed by James Barbour and “All Alone” by Jeffry Denman—this is what makes this series, M.C.’d by Scott Siegal who provides so much information, the evening is a master seminar in American cultural history-- so popular. He promised 1931 in 5 weeks. 

Guild Hall’s 24th Academy of the Arts Benefit will take place Monday night at Cipriani 42nd Street. M.C.’d by Marshall Brickman, a most hilarious host, the evening will honor the lifetime achievements of Candice Bergen, Ken Auletta, and Jennifer Bartlett, and philanthropic endeavors of Donald Zucker. The premier arts institution of East Hampton, Guild Hall never fails to provide a great night and excellent programs all year.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Oscar Night

While Rex Reed extolled the pleasures of watching the Academy Awards in bed in pajamas, pizza in hand in his recent Observer column, New York members of the academy had a more thrilling night in mind. The annual dinner at the Carlyle Hotel drew Oscar voters and winners Patricia Neal and Geoffrey Rush, nominees like Sylvia Miles who came with painter Hunt Slonim, Shirley Knight, Burt Young (Miles' onscreen husband in Abel Ferrara's Go Go Tales), and other actors such as Elaine Stritch, Lisa Eichhorn, Denis O'Hare, Celia Weston and Tovah Feldshuh, opening in the play “Irena's Vow” in a few weeks. Geoffrey Rush soon to star on Broadway in “Exit the King” has been spending a lot of time in New York lately, especially in the elegant Carlyle, he said, inspired by Elaine Stritch who performed there and lived upstairs. How bohemian!, he exulted. The resident of Melbourne said they love the Academy Awards in Australia: when Russell Crowe wins, they cheer one of their own. If he gets into a fight, they remind the world he was born in New Zealand. Rip Torn came with his wife Amy Wright, just back from Berlin, from the  premiere of a new movie, “Happy Tears,” directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein. He plays the slightly demented father of Parker Posey. I'm lucky to have had such a rich career as a character actor, said this nominee for his work in “Cross Creek”. People ask me what acting is and I say, my adult education.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Valentina, Charlotte Ronson, Lela Rose: Fashion Week 2009

When Jason Wu and Isabel Toledo dressed Michelle Obama, their stock skyrocketed. Creating red carpet looks for rock stars spells recognition, so why doesn't the name Valentina ring the same bell as say, Valentino? Her designs for Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Katherine Hepburn may not be on your radar, yet. Just as Fashion Week went full throttle on Friday at the Bryant Park tents, on Thursday night the place to be was the Museum of the City of New York where fashionistas inched past Mary McFadden and Hamish Bowles to see Valentina's gowns, including a classically draped “goddess” gown of Grecian white silk jersey d'albene, and a one-shouldered, red gown designed for prima ballerina Vera Zorina, a wife of George Balanchine. Wisely, the museum's Curator of Costumes and Textiles, Phyllis Magidson, selected dresses from Valentina's estate after her death in 1989, and has added pieces to the collection ever since. The exhibition includes photos by Cecil Beaton and Horst P. Horst, and adds to the mystery of why the name of this hugely talented immigrant from the Kiev region of the Ukraine is not on everyone's lips. These are the vintage looks the truly fashionable embrace. Even without direct reference to this icon of fashion, the long evening frocks worn by the pony-tailed, models on Friday in the tents evoked her tradition. 

All it took at the exhilarating Charlotte Ronson show was the music-sister Samantha is d.j.--“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Take the A Train,” “Paper Moon,” “Blue Skies,” and other classic pop tunes from the American song book, to put you in the mood for this house's particular twist on American classic design. Riffing on her own previous work, updating plaids, paisleys, deco prints, leather with slit elbows, cut out shoulders and waists, accessorizing with artillery belts, high heeled open toed booties, the collection has grown to an elegance beyond her beginnings that seemed mostly designed for the college set. Not that there's anything wrong with that culture weaned on grunge. Now so versatile and sophisticated, these designs will work for savvy women at every age. The cheering crowd included Lindsay Lohan in a sweater with cut out shoulders, as well as Ann Dexter-Jones and Sean Lennon. Another designer to watch is Lela Rose whose show on Sunday buzzed up a notch, and it's not just that Jennifer Love Hewitt sat front row. The designer's collaboration with Payless is paying off, bringing the attitude of a new economy to the tents, without sacrifice to style

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Kevin Bacon in HBO's Taking Chance

While our country is consumed with economic woes, to the point where Iraq and Afghanistan seem like hangovers from a bygone era, here is a movie of a true story that is sure to bring our men and women overseas back into the foreground. Kevin Bacon plays Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, a marine who volunteers to escort the remains of a 19 year old fellow marine, Chance Phelps, home for burial. The not often noted details of the care and preparation our dead military are accorded in their final journey represent the best of American pride. Thank you for your service is the movie's refrain. I warn you this is a triple hanky event, and well worth the emotional investment when it airs on February 21 on HBO. Think of the serious Kevin Bacon in his role in the excellent Frost/Nixon, the epitome of dedication to the fallen, almost tragic, Nixon. Now mix in the stern resolve of Clint Eastwood, whose expression and lean physicality he channels frequently. At the recent premiere in the Time Warner Center attended by cast and crew, Bacon was accompanied by his wife Kyra Sedgwick in dazzling red. If the couple was put out by the publicity for having fallen victim to a certain Ponzi scheme, only their enthusiasm for this film was evident. The parents of Chance Phelps and the actual Michael Strobl were present too. Director Ang Lee was in a tete a tete with Bacon at the post-screening dinner at Porterhouse. Perhaps a collaboration is in the works for this versatile actor who at one point early in the '70's starred as a male prostitute in Paul Morrissey's Forty Deuce. A five marine color guard stood at attention. One uniformed and decorated corporal who identified himself only as Sean said he had served in Iraq twice. This father of 2 will deploy to Afghanistan in May. Finding the movie accurate to his experience, Sean could especially relate to one scene: on a plane, a young woman texts a friend about the “hot soldier” seated beside her. Smiling, Bacon's Michael Strobl corrects her reminding us all to pay attention to the nuance, not soldier, he says proudly, marine. 

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Patrick McMullan Celebrates 20 Years of Interview

Downtown came uptown Tuesday night, to the legendary Elaine's for a photo fete for Patrick McMullan's 20 anniversary with Interview Magazine. “It's like seeing my life flash before me, “ said Sylvia Miles, and indeed the old Warhol crowd: Brigid Berlin, Marisa Berenson, Pat Hackett, Vincent and Shelley Fremont graced the black leatherette banquets that replaced the restaurant's tables and posed for pictures with the new garde:Lydia Hearst, Kenny Kenny, Patrick McDonald. Interview editor Glenn O'Brien, gossip columnist Liz Smith, party doyenne Peggy Siegal, New York Social Diary's David Patrick Columbia joined in the lively schmooze. This being almost fashion week, Patrick's son Liam told me he will be launching a clothing line and showed me how he transformed a simple jacket into an eye popping yet elegant piece with a flip of the trim. But the night was all about the pix. Snapping away with Patrick's crew was Ron Galella who brought his lovely wife Betty. Of course you remember Galella's contretemps with Dylan, Brando, Jackie Kennedy, Sean Penn, eh, everybody . . . None of that past was evident for the photographer celebrities used to shun at this group hug at Elaine's

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

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Meyer Lansky Off -Broadway

The FBI once asked Mrs. John Gotti, what does your husband do for a living? He provides, she said. Would Mrs. Meyer Lansky say the same, I wondered, as Mike Burstyn performed as Lansky, about the Jewish gangster, a show that opened last Thursday directed by Joseph Bologna at St. Luke's Theater. The popularity of The Sopranos, Godfather, Goodfellas, and other pop culture representations of the mafia aroused an outcry from the Italian American community, enraged by the stereotype. Will there be a geshrei, Is it good for the Jews? Well, until recently, that archetype, the Jewish gonif, got little press. Jews who ran with the mob were few. This one-man show, written by Bologna and Richard Krevolin, gives Lansky a back-story, from the pogroms of Poland to the Lower East Side. His personal down journey comes from earlier family tragedy, from his father's rejection, becoming a classic immigrant story. With quotations projected from Merchant of Venice and The Wandering Jew, this historic figure joins a tradition of outsiders. Even his fondness for pastrami on corn rye washed down with Dr. Brown's cel-ray soda, did not guarantee him the right, indeed accorded every Jew, to Israeli citizenship. In Mike Burstyn's nuanced portrayal, Lansky is charming but impatient, bossy and entitled. A self-writ-large, he seems “normal” in a Jewish sort of way but comes undone demanding to speak to Golda Meir, to remind her of all he did in trafficking arms to the homeland. After the standing ovation, Jerry Stiller, Fyvush Finkel, and other stars of Yiddish theater who came to cheer Burstyn on, had a nosh of Second Avenue Deli chopped liver and black & white cookies. Alas, no pastrami, but chopped liver is no chopped liver. Said the ebullient Burstyn, “Maybe I'll do a show called 'Bernie.'”

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Pink Panther II

Hot pink cotton candy was freshly spun into paper cones and carte blanche ruled at the concession stand: that's right, goobers, raisinettes, twizzlers for everyone at last night's posh premiere of The Pink Panther II at the Zeigfield Theater. This is the movie for you if you love madcap sightgags in your caper flicks. Based upon the Blake Edwards classics that starred Peter Sellers as Clouseau, this Pink Panther fused the trademark animation of that crazy pink pussy with Steve Martin's slapstick reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin with a lot of Mission Impossible in the score. The crowd of mostly preteens went wild as Clouseau literally burned down a Spanish resto called La Plata de Nada twice, while the grownups enjoyed the priapic visuals. Especially good in this fine cast speaking goofy Franglais were Lily Tomlin, Emily Mortimer, John Cleese, Jeremy Irons, Alfred Molina, Jean Reno and Andy Garcia who posed for cellphone pix with fans in the Zeigfield lobby. Garcia is the Italian part of "the dream team" assembled to restore valuable artifacts including the Pink Panther diamond to their rightful museums. Bungling his way through to the happy end, Steve Martin is impossibly hilarious. This being a snowy night, we bypassed the lavish after party at the Plaza's Rose Room and headed uptown for the warmth at Elaine's.

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

Pink Panther II (trailer)

Gary Snyder's Spontaneous Mind

In beat circles, “third mind” echoes a collaboration between the writers William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, a book entitled “Ouevres croissees” celebrating the union of two, creating a third that is an entity unto itself. To go along with the Guggenheim Museum's inspired exhibition “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia 1860 -1989,” a visual exploration of the influence of Eastern thought on Western art, the poet Gary Snyder was invited to give a reading on Friday night. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Snyder is famous for having introduced haiku to the beat poets in the early 1950's, especially to Jack Kerouac who recounted his experience in his novel “The Dharma Bums” and wrote his own “Book of Haikus.” After presenting Japanese and Chinese translations and some poems of his own, Gary Snyder signed books. One fan asked him to sign a beautiful old volume of his translations of 24 of the 300 poems the Chinese poet Han Shan is supposed to have written. Han Shan means Cold Mountain. Just then, as Snyder was defining spontaneity as he was signing the book, a man in watch cap broke the line. It was Brice Marden whose drawings from his “Cold Mountain” series is featured in the show spiraling up the Guggenheim's famous ramp. The two men chatted for a while and photos were snapped, and then Snyder turned back to signing and completed his thought: “For real spontaneity, the mind has to be ready, prepared. I always have to explain that to people.”

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura