Gossip Central

Hamptons Journal: McArthur Binions at the Peter Marino Foundation, the LongHouse Gala, and Daniel Humm at Guild Hall

The work is detailed and geographic, tonal, you might say, like bop graffiti on brick in a Detroit abandoned building. The artist, McArthur Binions, in fact, comes from Detroit but spent a lot of time in New York meeting Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis, moving on to Chicago where he now lives and works. Artist Rachid Johnson was his student, so favored that he became part of the family, taking care of the kids. At a recent "Brunch with Bob," at the Peter Marino Foundation, he told a packed crowd awed by Binions' art, Binions refused to sell his work at the time, proclaiming it would be worth a lot someday. And Johnson who knew him only in that school setting as his teacher, thought, "This guy is crazy." Yeah, as the saying goes, crazy like a fox. This was the talk's great takeaway.

In the foundation gardens for brunch, Prudence Fairweather asked McArthur Binions if he had ever met her husband, John Chamberlain. Oh yes, that was at the Fanelli Bar. He had a large vial of cocaine. I ask, did he share? "Yes he did. It was very good."

A who’s who of artists show up at the LongHouse gala every year. The evening, honoring Kenny Scharf and Tony Bechara, is always an homage to Jack Lenor Larsen, its founder, and a celebration for nature enthusiasts who love the combo of gorgeously curated outdoor art in the leafy setting: Robert Wilson, Ned Smyth, Joan Semel, mingling among many others. The much-awarded “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” costumer Donna Sakowska said she’s been living in Paris developing a ballet series called “Etoile” with the Palladinos.

Pamela Anderson at the NYWFT Muse Awards: Keeping It Real

Voluptuous as “Baywatch” pinup, Pamela Anderson was always a muse. Just ask Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat! But this year, specifically, she is honored by New York Women in Film and Television for her work in THE LAST SHOWGIRL. At the annual Muse Awards luncheon at Cipriani 42^nd Street she greeted the over 600 guests graciously and plain-faced, an ageless beauty without the usual cosmetic accoutrements we’ve come expect of the famed and glamorous, particularly if they are sex symbols as well. Guess what? She’s all the more glamorous natural, posing on the press line in a somber tan, loose-fitting pants suit. An advocate of plant-based cooking, an earnest, healthy approach to life has become her brand.

Yes! There were veggies on the table, a baby artichoke salad with shaved parmesan, but braised boneless short ribs were the entrée of the day. Smashed potatoes had clout while messages of inclusion and empowerment were the focus of many a speech, moved forward by host Nancy Giles’ jokes about our political scene: “Therapy and medication get me by.” The humor was welcome. Speakers—among them Anderson’s fellow honorees Marissa Bode, Lisa Cortes, Amy Entelis, Versha Sharma, and producer Celia Costas, landed on the event’s theme of “Metamorphosis,” invoking Franz Kafka and Ovid, but mainly relating to their own transformative processes of becoming who they are, thanking ancestors, and encouraging women to believe in themselves.

Robert DeNiro in The Alto Knights: Holding Court in a Room of Writers

Based on a true story, THE ALTO KNIGHTS stars Robert DeNiro in two roles: best frenemies Frank Costello and Vito Genovese. Childhood pals, they hung out in The Alto Knights social club. Dapper, refined for a mobster, Costello wants out of “the business.” Scruffy and rude, Genovese wants in—that is, to reclaim his head-of-the-family position he had prior to leaving the country to beat a jail term. Costello hopes to retire with his wife, Bobbie, --Debra Messing, superb as we have never before seen her, --as Genovese contends with his wife, Anna, --Kathrine Narducci, out-of-control-good--waging a legal battle with her husband over his daily theft of her nightclub take, even as she screams professing her love for him. Married to these women, playing by mafia rules with the men, DeNiro gives a tour de force performance, his “Costello” hinting at a saintly Corleone, and his crazed “Genovese” channeling Joe Pesce.

You cannot make this stuff up, but in Nicholas Pileggi’s hands, you can supply the words, flesh out a drama perfect for the fine direction of Barry Levinson and Irwin Winkler’s expert, detailed production, a script, a part of his book Wiseguys, for these classic mob movie-makers. This is the year’s first great old-school entertainment, a nostalgia trip and high bar for films to follow.

The Jonathan Larson Project: His Words, His Music Downtown

A new musical revue, The Jonathan Larson Project, at the Orpheum Theater on Second Avenue is proof of a simple fact: there’s never enough Jonathan Larson. Sure, opening night was a fan fest, with many having sampled the work the writer/ composer left behind after his truly untimely death on the eve of his Rent’s downtown debut. Now assembled for its own entertaining evening, conceived by Jennifer Ashley Tepper, his compositions remind us all of his awesome talent.

“Not a word has been changed,” says the program. His lyrics remain topical, whimsical, pure joy. A standout was Lauren Marcus’ hilarious romp around the stage, hose in hand for “Hosing the Furniture.” Larson had contributed the song for a 1989 revue about the 1939 World’s Fair, imagining the future. According to the notes, Larson knew Stephen Sondheim would be there at the premiere. Working hard, he won the Stephen Sondheim Award. The number comes close to a forgotten American musical genre, the art song. Silly and fun, it hearkens back to an era, to a lyric like Paul Bowles’ “the best part of a picnic are the napkins.”

Larson’s “Casual Sex, Pizza, and Beer” had been written on “a junky spinet piano with missing keys that he found on the street and rolled into his first apartment.” In performance, the ensemble featuring Adam Chanler-Berat, Taylor Iman Jones, Andy Mientus, Jason Tam, and Marcus makes the song a youthful, raucous anthem. Echoes of Rent abound. Bittersweet hints of the show’s various permutations, making it to Broadway and beyond were noted, all limned in the hit 2021 movie, "Tick Tick . . . Boom" with Andrew Garfield as Larson.

White Lotus in Rajasthan: Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright

The fictive White Lotus resort in Thailand, the locus of Mike White’s mega HBO series in its third season, has nothing on the Six Senses wellness retreats in India. Seeing the staff line up to greet guests arriving by boat in episode one recalled entrée into the extraordinarily fabulously fashioned Six Senses Fort Barwara in Rajasthan—modeled after Marrakech’s La Mamounia. On a recent trip, we were treated to a cascade of bright red rose petals on a recent visit, by a staff lining up for this awesome welcome.

True, the tiger safari is a great lure. Tourists often book multiple excursions in a given day a year in advance, just in case Charger, the alpha male, feels like a stroll in this nearby preserved habitat also occupied by crocodiles, monkeys, mongooses, and spotted deer, the favored delectable dinner for tigers. Snagging a last-minute reservation, we careened around road curves in our open-air jeep, assigned to the park’s Zone 4, hoping to catch a glimpse. Not only did Charger make the scene, so too did one of his lady friends and their three cubs. We had won the safari lottery.

But just in case, the consolation prize was none too shabby: hanging in a resort featuring prana yoga, sound meditation, classes in pottery and herbal cures—plus pool, sauna, steam, and massage. If this fort had been home to kings, we were next in line.

Climbing up the 720 steps to a white hilltop temple, we encountered a wedding party. Young boys asked to take selfies with us, and the women wrapped in festive red, green, blue saris pulled us into dance. Rose petals may be a metaphor for a valentine’s love, or for the kind of connection that has no price.

Grand Central Terminal: Always in Vogue

A fashion crowd crammed into the Campbell Bar at Grand Central station this week, to celebrate Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin, covergirl of Vogue Magazine. For most of us, the issue was unreadable, in Czech, but that didn’t matter. Air kissing is universal, after all. So is the greeting, “You look great.” That applied to everyone in the room but mostly to the men in brocade jackets. And to socialite Jean Shafiroff clad in a blue straight skirt suit and booties. She usually wears a wide skirt ball gown. But with impending snow, no room for flare.

The highlight of the evening was a grand tour of the inner Grand Central station. Terminal architect Mark Saulnier led the way through the catacombs past David Rockwell chairs, so often the seat of the homeless, they are now hidden away. Looking down at the main floor, people scurrying looked like ants, and we could appreciate the central information booth had a glass top. Saulnier pointed out the a secret echo chamber outside the iconic Oyster Bar, and how the marble in front of the original ticket windows sagged with use. Sometimes when it rains, pools form, he said. All detail was remarkable, even the inner staircases with wrought iron acorns. A move is underway to restore some peeling paint, the price tag astronomical, but worth it.

Sebastian Stan, Timothee Chalamet, Adrien Brody: Among Leading Men at the Gotham Awards 2024

Old Hollywood likes their leading men handsome and debonair—think Cary Grant, Rock Hudson—but with this year’s Gotham selection of A DIFFERENT MAN for the top prize, Best Feature, a new look grabs at your attention. You have to love an awards season that starts with a celebration of –well, difference. A hit at the New Director/ New Films series, the film stars a unique protagonist, a man not without his charms, but no traditional heart throb; with a face a Cubist portraitist would love, he becomes all the rage. The film choice is a reminder that no matter how smart, suave, and elegant this start to the awards season, the Gothams still keep a discerning eye on indies.

That said, the biggest stars were in the room, eh, the cavernous Cipriani Wall Street, mainly as presenters, a great show of support; the stars know this is the night for great food and fun. A-listers: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rachel Brosnahan, Aubrey Plaza, Jessica Chastain, and Oscar Isaac were among the presenters, some nominated for their performances: Nicole Kidman, Demi Moore, Saoirse Ronan, among them, but these did not take home the prize. Gender mixed, the Gothams gave Coleman Domingo Outstanding Lead Performance and Clarence Maclin Outstanding Supporting Performance for their respective roles in SING SING.

Highlights for me included James Mangold and Timothee Chalamet accepting the Visionary Award for A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, the new Bob Dylan movie. Chalamet does not imitate Dylan so much as make the songs his own. Elle Fanning cheered her director and co-star on. She made her Broadway debut this year in Appropriate and said she enjoyed the challenges of theater, especially working with Sarah Paulson. We first met “Timmy” at the Hamptons International Film Festival. He was in a group of “Rising Stars.” I think his star has risen.

Sigourney Weaver in Christopher Durang’s Whimsical Take on Chekhov: Celebrating Theater at Lincoln Center

Some of the original cast of Christopher Durang’s Vanya, Sonia, Masha, and Spike brought this theater gem to life for the Theater at Lincoln Center gala this week, where the show began over a decade ago, before it made its logical move to Broadway’s Golden Theater winning a TONY award for Best Play. Now, taking over the Vivian Beaumont stage on a set designed for the current production of Uncle Vanya, this Chekhovian mash-up retains its brilliance, even gaining some according to Sigourney Weaver, reprising her role as Masha, a narcissistic actress returning to her ancestral home in Bucks County, PA, in time for a neighborhood costume party.

Whenever I am blue, I can snap out of it conjuring Sigourney Weaver’s image as Snow White. Act I is a sendup of Chekhovian tropes with prescient views on real estate and familiar philosophical exclamations like “I’m in mourning for my life!” In Durang’s whimsical mix master, here directed by Bartlett Sher with a scant three-day rehearsal time, the tragic—and neurotic-- circumstance of everyday life turns to high hilarity.

Weaver’s character, Masha, in fact a superstar action hero like Weaver herself (think Alien, Avatar), makes for a most vulnerable Snow White, too tall, her lips too thin, mistaken for Norma Desmond, BoPeep, a Meissen figure. Coming home to the house in which she was raised with her boy toy, Spike (Billy Magnussen in the original but in this production a fine David Hull); this cougar is at the cusp of keeping up the sexual acrobatics, humping him, while suffering this shallow hunk’s wanderlust.

Bernadette Peters’ Joke: Posh Meets Borscht Belt as Guild Hall Returns to the Rainbow Room

Guild Hall Academy of the Arts President, the painter Eric Fischl got to hone his comedy chops at this year’s spring gala, fashioning a speech on a string of cliches—thanks to A. I. That set the night off in good spirits, against The Rainbow Room’s customary spectacular panoramic views of the city now fogged in, but as Board Chair Marty Cohen observed, “When it comes to Guild Hall, there’s no such thing as bad weather.”

Sure enough, we were expecting no shows but most showed: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sunny Hosten, Fern Mallis, April Gornik, Ross Bleckner, Rufus Wainwright, and the robust theater crowd to celebrate Daryl Roth. That included her son Jordan Roth, head of Jujamcyn, clad in an elegant ensemble accessorized with his grandmother Sylvia’s matching clutch. He opened his speech with, “My mother loves gay people.” That broke the ice, as a proud, even gleeful son spoke of Roth’s collection of 13 Tony Awards and counting.

She had just signed Julianne Margulies and Peter Gallagher to a show adapted from Delia Ephron’s Left on Tenth she’s hoping to stage in the fall, with Susan Stroman—also present-- directing. As I congratulated her, Roth pulled me aside to say, she has yet to find a theater. Ah, the perils of producing!

Her pal Bernadette Peters took the stage and before singing two numbers from Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods told a joke about a frog who, upon getting a kiss from an elder gentleman, promised to turn into a gorgeous blond who would make love to him every night for the rest of his life. The man took the frog home and went to bed, explaining that at this point in life he preferred to have a talking frog.

The jokes did not end there. Howard Marks, who with his wife Nancy were also honored, with a Special Award for Leadership and Philanthropy told one about a boy who got a part in a school play. His mother asked, what part? The Jewish husband. Her reply: Couldn’t you get a speaking role?

Jennifer Holliday at the Carlyle Café

Tony award winning Jennifer Holliday makes her debut at the Café Carlyle, not far from where she starred on Broadway as Effie in 1981 in “Dreamgirls.” Singing “I’m Still Here,” Holliday channels ancestors—Barbra Streisand among them-- in a set that features selections from the American songbook. But more, she evokes a prior Café Carlyle resident, the legendary Elaine Stritch, who made this Stephen Sondheim “Follies” hit her signature song. Holliday now makes it her own, and ends her generous set with her “Dreamgirls” anthem, “And I’m Telling You—I’m Not Going.”

Great news! At 63, Jennifer Holliday in a magenta sequined sheath, uses the intimacy of the Carlyle stage to sing about love, and honor her muses, Michael Bennett and Marvin Hamlisch. Their advice brought her to the standards that make this show so special—“Taking a Chance on Love,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “In a Sentimental Mood,” “Caravan,” “Body and Sou,” to name a few. Working in a jazz idiom –scatting like Ella Fitzgerald and mixing in her R&B chops-- she’s backed by an excellent band: music director Shedrick Mitchell on piano, Eric Wheeler on bass, Charles Haynes on drums, and Jarien Jamanla on sax.

Harmony on Broadway: The Pre-Show Schmooze

The Ethyl Barrymore Theater was abuzz: Michael Feinstein, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Lorna Luft were among the theater elite at Harmony’s opening night. Sutton Foster said she was ready to be evil, stepping in to bake meat pies as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd. Judd Hirsch sat with Marilu Henner, the Taxi team to appear on The View later this week. Remarking that she last saw Chip Zien, Harmony’s narrator, on July 15, 1974—exact in her memory as she has one of those special gifts—"It was an audition,” Henner said. All this before the evening’s star, Barry Manilow, arrived.

Memory is a key ingredient of Harmony: The Holocaust’s mantra, Never Forget—echoed, asserted—but in a musical! Yes, Barry Manilow wrote the songs for this show, many years in the making about a hugely successful sestet of singers in Europe as Hitler was on the rise. Are the songs of the Comedy Harmonists ones that the whole world will sing—yes, many will live on, material for vocalists everywhere. First-rate Broadway tunes are not the only reason to see Harmony. Accompanied by his longtime lyricist Bruce Sussman, and director/choreographer Warren Carlyle, Manilow framed a tale well-timed for this moment, a memory play that insists upon an individual’s reckoning with totalitarian regimes and war. Bad things happen when bystanders say nothing.

Chip Zien’s character –based on the real-life cantor in California called Rabbi who recently died at age 98--escaped the Nazis, the only Harmonist to live to old age. Survivor guilt is the occasion for telling the past, mulling over the possibilities for a different ending. Harmony starts with the group’s auditions, youthful aspirations, and love. Beowulf Borritt’s sets form backdrops for the entertainers’ singing their way through Europe, and for the repression of Jews. But the danger, palpable now, will pass, right? Two of the Harmonists marry, Rabbi to Mary and “Chopin” to Ruth, a Bolshevik activist and a Jew. A joyful double wedding, disrupted by thugs breaking glass, recalls a Fiddler on the Roof scene. At the height of fame, they came to New York and might have performed with Josephine Baker. Onstage, in a fantasy, they do.

A highlight is a duet sung by the wives, Mary (Sierra Boggess) and Ruth (Julie Benko), “Where You Go,” after their husbands try to persuade them to leave, hoping to ensure their safety. The song, referencing the Old Testament’s Book of Ruth, resonates of the fragility of love, and their dire choices. Foils, the Catholic Mary sticks with Rabbi (his younger self Danny Kornfeld); Ruth lets Chopin (Blake Roman) know that while she may leave—better for him as a non-Jew, she will haunt him always. Played by Benko, she’s an irrepressible memory.