On the Town With Aubrey Reuben
Where All the Stars Shine Brightly!
December 14, 2013
12-10-13
Honoree Alan Menken and wife Janis at the York Theatre Company 22nd
Oscar Hammerstein Award Gala at the Hudson Theatre Ballroom. 145
West 44th St. Monday night 12-09-13
Off-Broadway, The
(Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence, by Madeleine
George, celebrated its opening night party at
Heartland Brewery.
Love, Linda, is basically a one woman
cabaret show, in which Stevie
Holland (who
wrote the book) tells the life of Mrs. Cole Porter,
singing many of her husband's famous songs. Three
musicians accompany her. The opening night party
took place at Al Bustan restaurant. Among the
opening night guests were Sheldon
Harnick, Charles Strouseand Marni
Nixon.
The York Theatre Company 22nd Oscar Hammerstein
Award Gala was
a splendid affair. Alan
Menken and W.
David McCoy were
honored at the Hudson Theatre. Among the
distinguished performers and guests were Bernadette
Peters, Norm Lewis, Zachary Levi and Beth
Fowler.
Kinky Boots Director/choreographer Jerry
Mitchell, and cast members Annaleigh
Ashford, Stark Sands and Billy
Porter received
their well deserved caricatures at Sardi's.
Cast members of A
Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, headed by Jefferson
Mays, had afternoon tea at Downton Abbey's Tea &
Biscuits Food Truck on 50th St. after their
Wednesday matinee performance.
I joined them.
MoMA is presenting Ileana
Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New December 21,
2013-April 21, 2014, an exhibition of some 40
works that the legendary galley owner in Paris
(1962) and New York (1970) collected and presented
in her art galleries.
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There is a wide selection of works
by the modern masters like Jasper
Johns, Claes Oldenberg,
Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and be sure to see one of
my favorites, Pink
Panther, by Jeff
Koons, a beautiful porcelain of Jayne
Mansfield.
MoMA is presenting Dante
Ferretti: Designing for the Big Screen until February 9, 2014. I saw Aviator,
by Martin
Scorsese. USA/Germany, 2004, a splendid film about a certain time
(late 1920s to 1947) in the life of Howard Hughes. Leonardo
DiCaprio is impressive as
the mentally disturbed genius of the airplane industry, and his
involvement in the movie industry in Hollywood. Cate
Blanchett received an
Oscar playing Katharine Hepburn, a one time lover of Hughes, as did Dante
Ferretti for his
sumptuous design. The entire cast is terrific, and I enjoyed every
minute of this wonderful film.
The Past, by Asghar
Farhadi, Iran, 2013, will open at Film Forum on December 20, and is
about two Iranian men married to two French women In Paris. One (Ali
Mosaffa) returns to his wife (Berenice
Bejo) after a four year absence to grant her a divorce. The second (Tahar
Rahim) is living with the other man's wife, while his own wife is in
a coma in a hospital after an attempted suicide. Also, living in an
untidy house, are three unhappy children. All the actors give fine
performances, but the film is overlong and depressing.
Opera in Cinema from Emerging Pictures
presented La Traviata,
by Giuseppe
Verdi, from the opening
night at Teatro alla Scala, December 7, 2013. The singers were
magnificent. Diana
Damrau as Violetta was in
perfect voice, powerful when required, and softly mellifluous in her
dying scene. It was an outstanding performance. Her two male colleagues, Piotr
Beczala (Alfredo) and Zeljko
Lucic (Germont), also
sang brilliantly. The orchestra, under the baton of Daniele
Gatti, played the music
splendidly. It was a great night for singing. The staging and sets by Dmitri
Tcherniakov were another
matter. The sets for the two party scenes were minimal, with dancers
missing from Act II. The final act was ridiculous with only a chair, and
Violetta lying on the floor instead of a bed. The staging was also
absurd. Violetta and Annina sharing a cigar in the first act, Alfredo
being pushed across the room by Germont in the second act, and everyone
leaving Violetta to die alone in the final act, contributed nothing to
the wonderful masterpiece that Verdi composed.
12-12-13 Cast members of "Kinky Boots"
(L-R) Director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Annaleigh Ashford. Stark Sands.
Billy Porter. restaurant owner Max Klimavicius receive their caricatures at
Sardi's. 234 West 44th St. Wednesday afternoon 12-11-13
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