Gossip Central

The Nether’s Shades of Gray at the Lucille Lortel Theater

If art has the freedom to display human foibles in the extreme, the “ick” factor of Jennifer Haley’s play The Nether, the MCC production that opened this week at the Lucille Lortel theater is through the roof. On first view, the stage is a somber gray, an interrogation room where an investigator named Morris (Merritt Wever) pushes middle aged men to near tears questioning their online languishing in a virtual paradise called The Hideaway. By the time doors open onto sunlit verdant gardens, and the baby pink of a child’s bedroom in this quick 80 minute tour de force, the suggestion of edenic innocence is as welcome to the audience as this splendid, if non-existent place is to Mr. Sims (Frank Wood) and Mr. Doyle (Peter Friedman). Morris demands to know the server, information that the men are loathe to deliver, lest they never see “Iris” again.

Alexa Ray Joel: Piano Girl at Café Carlyle

“Do you want me at the piano,” Alexa Ray Joel asks in a kitten voice several times during her set at the Café Carlyle. Eager to please, in her low cut dress and cascading curls, she sings her own compositions, with one or two exceptions she’s tailored the lyrics to: “How Lovely to be a Woman,” her favorite song Ann Margret sings in Bye Bye Birdie. Aside from her father, Billy Joel, Randy Newman is her favorite songwriter; Stevie Wonder is her favorite singer. Joel pays homage to all of them and covers Gypsy’s “Let Me Entertain You,” with a line about “My mom’s too damned pretty.”

Where’s the Meat? Deli Man: The Film

If you are Jewish, you want your son to be a doctor. But think again. Ziggy Gruber, the “deli man” among several featured in Erik Greenberg Anjou’s new documentary, Deli Man, will do just fine. Trained for cordon bleu at the Culinary Institute, the young Ziggy was so attached to his grandparents, he went into the family business, and now, successfully situated in Houston, the deli restaurateur of his dreams and married to his masseuse, he is worth way more than his weight in chopped liver. Dimple cheeked, Ziggy is a Jewish boy in the great Jewish tradition: he honors his ancestors, and the crude and heimish cuisine of his people.

Daniel Boulud’s Whiplash Flashbacks

J. K. Simmons’ music teacher from hell may earn him an Oscar, but he is also having an unanticipated nightmare effect on anyone who has had rigorous training, no matter what the field. We’ve seen movies about cordon bleu culinary school. Can cooking school really be as severe as the blood-letting in Whiplash? Last week Daniel Boulud explained his edible tribute to those rigors. After having seen Whiplash on the airplane from Japan, he had flashbacks to severe culinary masters. Creating his dinner for the East Coast Academy of Motion Picture Arts members for Oscar viewing tonight—this is the third year he is hosting—his dessert team created a confection called “Drums:” Saint Honore, Yuzu, and Raspberry. According to Oscar prognosticators, Whiplash may not have a chance at the top award, but, believe me, this is one winning dish.

Christopher Wheeldon: On Choreographing Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale for the Big Screen and Directing An American in Paris for Broadway

Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, one of the bard’s problem plays with its themes of wrong-headed leadership and outright cruelty, may not seem a likely source for a ballet, but choreographer Christopher Wheeldon thought otherwise. In the play, King Leontes’ (Edward Watson) jealous rage leads to the deaths of his young son, his wife Hermoine (Lauren Cuthbertson), and her unborn baby. Just as operas are now brought to audiences in state-of-the-art films, so too will The Winter’s Tale follow the highly successful ballet of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland onto the big screen. Featuring commentary by Christopher Wheeldon, composer Joby Talbot, and designer Bob Crowley, the film of The Winter’s Tale is exquisite, at once accessible and richly absorbing.

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem: No Way Out Jewish Style

The injustice of women trapped in unhappy marriages by husbands who refuse to let them go has long been acknowledged in religious Jewish communities. If a woman cannot get a “gett,” she is not officially divorced, and therefore is not free to remarry, continue with conventional domestic life, perhaps remarrying. Shlomi Elkabetz, director of the movie Gett: The Trial of Viviane Ansalem, says that in Israel, the situation is even more egregious because there is no civil recourse as there is in the United States, but then again, in observant circles, the result is the same: the woman remains a social outcast, the husband free to do as he wishes.

Benjamin Scheuer’s The Lion at the Lynn Redgrave Theater and Williamstown Theater Festival Gala

When Benjamin Scheuer walks onto the Lynn Redgrave Theater stage, picking up an acoustic guitar, announcing he’s 10 years old, you believe him. He is about to tell his story in song, accompanying himself with several guitars, instruments he mastered at his father’s knee. His one-man show, The Lion, follows him through a Freudian mind field, coming of age under the tutelage of this strict father and finding his own roar; you weep at his misfortunes, particularly loss and then survival, which Scheuer has managed to express so beautifully in his music.

Rosie O’Donnell Takes on Brian Williams at the Athena Film Festival

The irrepressible Rosie O’Donnell could not help herself. Coaxed to do stand up on the not funny subject of her heart attack by HBO’s Sheila Nevins, the television star created a routine that is more than the heartfelt in its title, “Rosie O’Donnell: A Heartfelt Standup,” it’s a PSA for women, a wake-up call to the astonishing fact that the leading killer of women is not breast or ovarian cancer, but heart disease. After a special screening at the Athena Film Festival, a panel of doctors weighed in on heart health for women offering tips for prevention. O’Donnell created a mantra for detection, HEPPP: Hot, exhausted, pain, pale, puke, which she made into an infectious ditty. When someone in the audience told her own heart story, O’Donnell strained to find a place for H, an added symptom of heartburn.

Texas in Paris: The Odd Couple at Saint Peter’s

Paris may be exotic to many, but two visitors touring with their music in 1989 had opposite takes: for Osceola Mays, (Lillias White) untrained singer from Dallas formed by gospel at church and a history of slavery, Paris was a place that did not discriminate for her color. She never wanted to leave. For John Burrus, (Scott Wakefield) white rodeo cowboy who had been there before, during the war, the concert series was a job working his guitar, in Western regalia, pointy boots, wide-brimmed hat, and cowboy shirt. A more unlikely pair you will never meet but for the York Theater production at Saint Peter’s that brings them together. Alan Govenar’s Texas in Paris tells a little known story of these two, brought to Paris to entertain; Govenar deftly teases out their world, creating a dialogue about race, justice, and class in America. Director Akin Babatunde makes the music dovetail beautifully. That the two come to understand each other is no surprise, but the fine performances are this entertainment’s miracle.

HBO’s Sheila Nevins Between Awards: An Interview

What an impressive record of documentaries on the subject of addiction! Then again, what an impressive record of documentaries! Last week, Phoenix House honored President of HBO’s Documentary Films Sheila Nevins at Cipriani 42^nd Street. With Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones by her side, Nevins had a ringside seat watching the reel of her green-lit films, from her comprehensive 9-part series, Addiction, to Wishful Drinking, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty, and others from a stunning decades long career. Many film insiders were abuzz, fresh from Sundance where HBO’s controversial new non-fiction film, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, premiered to a packed house. This weekend she is to be awarded at the Athena Film Festival at Barnard College, in tandem with a screening of Rosie O’Donnell: A Heartfelt Stand Up, and a panel about women and heart disease. I had the opportunity to talk to Sheila Nevins about her awards, and HBO’s current documentaries. For this veteran television producer, what appears to be a crazy busy time may just be business as usual.