Gossip Central

Hamptons Journal: Celebrity Autobiography at Guild Hall/ The Tale of the Allergist's Wife at Mulford Farm

Anticipating great gusts and flooding, many Hamptonites chose the real-life drama of celebrity lives as read by celebrities over the real-life drama of storms at Guild Hall last Friday night. Matthew Broderick reading Tommy Lee's advice on what to do with a woman's “gummy bear” stole a show that also featured Mario Cantone revealing what Tallulah Bankhead did with a variety of cats and Joy Behar reading from Madonna's now out-of-print sex book. 

The entire company, including Nathan Lane, Tovah Feldshuh, Scott Adsit, Dayle Reyfel, and Celebrity Autobiography creator Eugene Pack chimed in on that ultra Hollywood scandal, the Liz Taylor-Debbie Reynolds-Eddie Fisher-Richard Burton story as told through the prism of several tell-alls. Lane was suave as Mike Todd, Behar nasal as a hotel operator, with Feldshuh as a most glamorous Liz. And I thought I heard it all in Carrie Fisher's one-woman Wishful Drinking!

Vera Farmiga's Higher Ground for Hurricane Irene

As the eastern coast of the United States gears up for a big storm due to hit on Sunday, many are stocking water, batteries, whatever in case they can't make it to “higher ground.” Coincidentally a beautiful, grace-full film called Higher Ground, directed by Vera Farmiga who also stars, opened Friday, about a woman's spiritual progression initiated by a near death experience.

Josiane Balasko Stars in The Hedgehog:

The idea of  an 11 year old from an affluent Parisian family who decides to commit suicide at age 12 because her “fishbowl” life is “not for her” does not strike me as funny, but it is a reigning conceit of Mona Achache's crowd-pleasing film The Hedgehog, based on Muriel Barbery's much beloved novel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The “hedgehog” of the title, a sad and lonely apartment building concierge played by the wonderful actress Josiane Balasko experiences an awakening thanks to her neighbor, Kazuro Ozu (Togo Igawa). The precocious preteen is watching. 

Before opening theatrically this week, the 2009 film traveled to American film festivals, winning many audience awards. I caught up with Balasko in July, for a rooftop coffee in a midtown hotel.

Hamptons Journal: Enter Laughing and Stay Laughing at Bay Street/ Seriously Bookish to Benefit the East Hampton Library

The revival of Enter Laughing that opened Saturday night at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor had me howling so hard I nearly needed my own reviving. That's because Richard Kind is impossibly funny, and Josh Grisetti matches him zany move for move in the role of David Kolowitz. A cross between PeeWee Herman and Alan Cumming, he's hilarious when he enters laughing, trying out every guffaw, hiccup, chuckle, snort, belly-wrenching hoot in his repertoire.

Classical Theatre of Harlem's Henry V: I Love It When You Speak French

 As we watch the Republicans plan their strategy for toppling the American president, the question of what makes a good leader, indeed, a good man (of either gender) is played out, not in our current political arena, but onstage at the Malcom X & Dr.Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center, at the Classical Theatre of Harlem's concise, snazzy production of Shakespeare's Henry V.

Gloria Steinem: A Bachmann Win Would Set Back the Women's Movement

For a public person, Gloria Steinem, 77, the writer and activist who is for many people the face of feminism, knows how to get up close and personal. Last week, at the Time Warner Center premiere for the documentary limning her life and career, Gloria Steinem: In Her Own Words to air on HBO on August 15, most in attendance were too young to have seen her in action in the '60's and '70's, or the historic moments that defined her career and this chapter of the struggle for women's rights: her reportage as a Playboy bunny, the founding of Ms. Magazine, bra burning, Roe v. Wade, and much more. 

Richard Prince Covers Jackson Pollock at Guild Hall

To imagine Richard Prince doing drip paintings in honor of Jackson Pollock is too linear a concept for what Prince does in Guild Hall's new exhibition, Richard Prince: Covering Pollock. The iconic abstract expressionist is pure subject for Prince's collages, repetitions in the manner of Warhol, Rauchenberg-like juxtapositions. He's evoking a whole lot more than just Pollock in this homage. 

Hamptons Journal: Tennessee Williams at 100, Dick Cavett at _____

How old am I? asked Eli Wallach playfully. The occasion was a staged reading of works by Tennessee Williams, from memoirs, letters, and scenes from his work, most memorably The Glass Menagerie in honor of the playwright's centennial year.

91, averred a reporter.

With a smile, his finger gestured up. Meeting the challenge the reporter counted to 95. His face glowed. That's it.

Do the math. Tennessee would have been only 5 years older and yet he seems to have come from a different era than this veteran actor who was quick to tell me he appeared in two recent movies: Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps and Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer.

Neal Cassady Drives Again in Magic Trip

After the American writer Jack Kerouac's On the Road hit the bestseller lists in 1957, its characters were instantly immortalized, but not as fictional creations. Much to the author's horror, they became fodder for the needy mid-century Zeitgeist, heroes of an alternative lifestyle. You can read shy Kerouac's Big Sur, an account of his nervous breakdown, to understand his terror at girls trying to climb into his window to bed him, thinking the sexy guy based on Neal Cassady was really the author. Or, you can see Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood's “archival cinema verite” documentary Magic Trip to see Neal Cassady's next chapter, as the driver of Ken Kesey's bus Further. 

Guest Post: One Night Stand Documents 24 Hour Theater

Making theater requires a lot of planning. In fact, it takes about five years to produce the average opera. Imagine only having 24 hours to write, compose, cast, direct, rehearse, and perform a show! In the documentary One Night Stand, which premiered last week at Newfest, filmmakers Elisabeth Sperling and Trish Dalton provide a behind-the-scenes view of the annual fundraising event, The 24 Hour Plays. 

During the festival, which has taken place in late winter or early spring for the past four years, volunteer writers, composers, directors and performers are put into groups and produce four separate twenty minute plays within the span of a day. And you thought your job was stressful!