Yearly Archives: 2012

NEW YORK ORIGINALS LAUNCH PARTY

Rizzoli Bookstore
31 West 57th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Thursday, September 20, free with RSVP, 5:30
www.rizzoliusa.com
www.newyorkoriginalsonline.com

It’s rather ironic that the first place profiled in Jamie McDonald’s New York Originals: A Guide to the City’s Classic Shops and Mom-and-Pops (Universe, September 2012, $24.95) is Domenick DeNigris Monuments in the Bronx, which has been selling headstones and mausoleums for more than a hundred years, since one of the things the book celebrates is longevity in addition to originality. “Decades ago, most small towns sold out their town squares in favor of cheaper and more convenient megastores on the outskirts of the city,” writes the man behind the Emmy-winning television series the book is named after. “People began to forget that the corner coffee shop or local shoe store provided not only goods and services, but also a small part of their community’s uniqueness and character. New York City is ironically one of the last vestiges of small-town America.” In words and pictures, McDonald, who was born in Indiana but now lives in Midtown Manhattan, visits seventy-five shops in all five boroughs, from Neir’s Tavern & Steakhouse, established in Woodhaven in 1829, to Brooklyn Copper Cookware, which opened its doors in Dumbo just two years ago. In the book, arranged alphabetically by borough, McDonald talks with the current managers and owners, many of whom are third and fourth generation, providing the history behind the shop as well as its current status. He makes stops at such honored eateries as Brennan and Carr, De Robertis Pasticceria and Caffe, Ear Inn, Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop, Keens Steakhouse, Nom Wah Tea Parlor, Russ & Daughters, and the Lemon Ice King of Corona as well as the Umbee Sunshade Company, which has been making umbrellas in Williamsburg since 1933; the Jane Hotel, which has been taking in travelers in the West Village since 1908; Brownies Pro and Sport Hobbies, a hobby shop in Port Richmond that opened in 1971; the Cameo Pet Shop, which has been selling tropical fish, birds, and other animals in Richmond Hill since, 1947; and JJ Burck Marine Supplies, which has been specializing in boating equipment on City Island since 1928. To celebrate the release of the book, McDonald will be signing copies at the Rizzoli Bookstore on Thursday, September 20, from 5:30 to 7:00, with refreshments supplied by some of the shops included in the book. Each book purchased that night will come with engraved New York City Taxi Correspondence Cards inside a hand-lined envelope, courtesy of Dempsey & Carroll, which has been making engraved stationery since 1878 on the Upper East Side.

AN AUTEURIST HISTORY OF FILM: MR. ARKADIN

Orson Welles has quite a field day directing and starring in MR. ARKADIN

MR. ARKADIN (CONFIDENTIAL REPORT) (Orson Welles, 1956)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
4 West 54th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
September 19-21, 1:30
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

Orson Welles re-creates Citizen Kane with a little bit of The Third Man in this offbeat, very strange story of a powerful man with a weird beard who has a thing for his daughter. The odd camera angles are often funny, and Michael Redgrave’s scene-stealing bit as an antiques dealer is a riot. The movie, which has appeared over the years in many different versions, is worth seeing just for Arkadin’s famous tale of the scorpion and the frog. Also known as Confidential Report, Mr. Arkadin is screening September 19-21 as part of MoMA’s ongoing “An Auteurist History of Film” series.

HEARTLESS

Roscoe (Gary Cole) rages in the background as Sam Shepard’s new play about a crazy family (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Irene Diamond Stage
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Extended through September 30, $75
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

In 1996-97, Sam Shepard was the playwright-in-residence at the Signature Theatre, presenting Curse of the Starving Class, Chicago, Tooth of Crime (Second Dance), and The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill on the Eve of Killing His Wife. He is now making his debut at the new Pershing Square Signature Center on West 42nd St. with the new play Heartless, which has been extended at the Irene Diamond Stage through the end of September. Developed specifically for the space, Heartless takes place in a Los Angeles house overlooking the San Fernando Valley, where the extremely cynical Sally (Julianne Nicholson), who has a frightening scar running down the length of her torso, has brought home Roscoe (Gary Cole, who is too young for the role), a professor more than twice her age who has just left his wife. Roscoe soon meets the rest of Sally’s crazy family, including sister Lucy (Jenny Bacon), a dour spinster who carries in a serving platter of meds for Sally as if it were breakfast, and mother Mable Murphy (Lois Smith), a wheelchair-bound old woman who says exactly what’s on her mind, no matter who it might hurt. Mable is cared for by nurse Elizabeth (Betty Gilpin), a beautiful young woman who rarely, if ever, speaks. From the start, it’s hard to get a footing on the story; in the first act, the unlikable nature of most of the characters rises quickly to the surface, although Lucy’s wry sense of humor and Mable’s ranting soliloquies eventually rescue the play from the confounding mix of reality and surrealism that hampers the second act. Heartless is a rare Shepard work with more female than male characters, with the sole male, Roscoe, seeming lost much of the time, merely a prop to engage the stronger, more powerful women. Much of Heartless actually lacks heart, which might relate to the plot but causes an uncomfortable distance between the audience and what’s happening onstage. The stand-out is Smith, trapped in a wheelchair but able to rage like a tornado, including one speech in which Mable mentions watching the movie East of Eden, a film that Smith actually appeared in, something that Shepard has said was just a coincidence.

SIGNATURE CINEMA: TSOTSI

Presley Chweneyagae is devastating in Gavin Hood’s TSOTSI, based on Athol Fugard’s only novel

TSOTSI (Gavin Hood, 2005)
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Monday, September 24, $13, 7:00
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org/tickets/production.aspx?pid=2677
www.tsotsi.com

Every once in a while, a surprise movie comes along that just blows you away; Tsotsi is that kind of film. Based on the only novel by South African playwright and activist Athol Fugard, Tsotsi is set in the dangerous ghetto world on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where poverty goes hand in hand with violence. Presley Chweneyagae is simply remarkable as Tsotsi (South African for “thug” or “gangster”), the leader of a small group of hoods who pull off petty crimes — until they fatally stab a man on the subway, sending them into a dark and deadly tailspin. When Tsotsi shoots a woman and steals her car, he finds that there’s a baby in the backseat; he considers returning it or leaving it by the side of the road, but he instead brings it home, where he decides to take care of it himself — with the help of beautiful single mother Miriam (Terry Pheto). The baby triggers Tsotsi’s memories of his own horrific childhood, which writer-director Gavin Hood shows in brief but powerful flashbacks. Tsotsi struggles to keep the baby a secret from his cohorts, much the same as he tries to keep his past secret from everyone. But things soon come to a head, and Tsotsi must decide whether to reach inside his conscience — or for his gun. Chweneyagae dominates the screen from the very first moment, his intense stare filled with anger and hate, one of the most frightening you’ll ever see. Fortunately, Hood avoids any moments of sappy sentimentality or overemotional clichés, so you never know what’s going to happen next. The pulsing soundtrack of South African kwaito music comes from “Zola” Bonginkosi Dlamini, who also plays Fela. Reminiscent of such harrowing films about troubled children as Hector Babenco’s Pixote and Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund’s City of God, Tsotsi, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, is a devastating, unforgettable story that will drive itself deep into your heart and soul. Tsotsi is screening on September 24 as part of the new Signature Cinema series, being shown in conjunction with the Signature Theatre’s New York premiere of Fugard’s The Train Driver, which continues at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre through September 23.

THE TRAIN DRIVER

Leon Addison Brown and Ritchie Coster dig down deep in Athol Fugard’s THE TRAIN DRIVER (photo by Richard Termine)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through Sunday, September 23, $25
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Athol Fugard’s year as the inaugural Residency One playwright at the new Signature Theatre concludes in triumphant fashion with the New York premiere of the subtly powerful The Train Driver, following previous productions of Blood Knot and My Children! My Africa! On a wide, shallow stage covered in sand, dirt, rocks, and garbage, Simon Hanabe (Leon Addison Brown), an old, slow-moving black man with a shovel, approaches the audience, explaining that he has a story to share. The play then shifts to a flashback as Simon, the caretaker who buries the men, women, and children with no names in this makeshift graveyard/junkyard, is approached by Roelf Visagie (Ritchie Coster), a destitute white man desperate to find the grave of a black woman and her baby, claiming that she ruined his life. As Roelf’s harrowing tale emerges in long soliloquies (wonderfully delivered by Coster), Simon (expertly played with understated simplicity by Brown) goes about his daily business, sweeping the sand, heating canned food over a candle in his dilapidated shack, and sleeping on a ratty reclining chair. He tells Roelf that they both will be in serious danger if the local band of tsotsi, murderous thugs, catches him there, where no white man is supposed to be, but Roelf doesn’t listen as he continues his search for the dead woman and child. Fugard also directs the ninety-minute show, maintaining a mood of quiet grace as day turns to night and back to day again. The relationship between the two men never falls into cliché as they drive the story to its relentless conclusion, brought together by death and white guilt. The Train Driver runs at the Signature through September 23; on September 24, the Signature will present a screening of Gavin Hood’s Oscar-winning film, Tsotsi, which is based on Fugard’s only novel.

AMERICAN GAGSTERS — GREAT COMEDY TEAMS: BILL MURRAY AND HAROLD RAMIS

Bill Murray and Harold Ramis have some serious army training in store in the quotable classic STRIPES

BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Saturday, September 15, and Sunday, September 16
Series runs through September 17
212-415-5500
www.bam.org

This weekend, BAMcinématek’s rousing “American Gagsters — Great Comedy Teams” focuses on one of the craziest duos of the 1980s, Saturday Night Live veteran Bill Murray and SCTV star Harold Ramis. In Stripes (Saturday at 2:00 and 6:50), ne’er-do-well John Winger (Murray) and ESL teacher Russell Ziskey (Rami) have nothing better to do with their lives than join the army, where they meet a sad-sack cast of characters that includes Dewy Oxberger (John Candy), Francis “Psycho” Soyer (Conrad Dunn), Elmo Blum (Judge Reinhold), Captain Stillman (John Larroquette), and the cuddly Sgt. Hulka (Warren Oates). The first half of the film, one of the most quotable of the twentieth century, is outrageously funny. Things slow down considerably in the second half, but you’ll still be laughing so hard from the earlier jokes that you’ll barely notice it. And that’s the fact, Jack. Murray and Ramis also teamed up on-screen in 1981’s Ghostbusters (Saturday at 4:30 and 9:15), the franchise starter about a bunch of goofy guys who make a living ridding Manhattan buildings of spooky demons. Joining in on the ectoplasm slimefest are Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson, with Sigourney Weaver as the damsel in distress and Rick Moranis desperately searching for the Keymaster. “This reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?” Peter Venkman (Murray) asks. “That would have worked if you hadn’t stopped me,” replies Egon Spengler (Ramis). And in the all-time sports classic Caddyshack (Sunday at 2:00 & 6:50), Ramis is behind the camera, directing Murray as Carl Spackler, the none-too-swift assistant groundskeeper at the Bushwood Country Club, which features such members as the bombastic Judge Smails (Ted Knight), the off-color Bishop Pickering (Henry Wilcoxon), and suave ladies’ man Ty Webb (Chevy Chase). When the hard-partying Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield) shows up, everything gets turned inside out and upside down, all while Spackler is trying to track down and kill a destructive little gopher. And as far as memorable quotes go, Caddyshack is the Masters champion, from beginning to end. It’s in the hole, all the way.

EDOUARD VUILLARD: A PAINTER AND HIS MUSES, 1890-1940

Edouard Vuillard, “Self-Portrait with Waroquy,” oil on canvas, 1889 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Alex M. Lewyt, 1955, 55.173)

The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave. at 92nd St.
Thursday – Tuesday through September 23, $12 (free admission Saturday 11:00 am – 5:45 pm)
212-423-3200
www.thejewishmuseum.org

Throughout his career, Edouard Vuillard surrounded himself with people in the art world, from patrons, gallerists, and publishers to poets, musicians, and other artists, men and women who ultimately populated so many of his canvases. A member of the avant-garde Nabis (“prophets” in Hebrew), which also included Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Aristide Maillol, and Félix Vallotton, the French painter immersed himself in the emerging Parisian cultural scene, attending salons, designing theater programs, and getting involved in photography. Divided into six sections — “Son, Artist, Prophet,” “The Muse and the Review,” “New Patrons and a New Muse,” “Decorative Murals,” “Later Portraits,” and “The Chateau des Clayes” — the exhibition follows Vuillard’s personal and artistic development in paintings, photographs, books, magazines, and a short home movie as he established an affinity for portraiture and interiors filled with delightful patterns and texture. A key early work, “Self-Portrait with Waroquy,” shows the artist, palette in hand, looking into a mirror, a ghostly apparition of a friend standing over his shoulder, done in earth tones, a bottle in the right foreground almost demanding to be grabbed. But Vuillard spent much more of his time painting others and not himself, displaying his impressive social circle and those who were part of his daily life, concentrating on such figures as his mother, Thadée and Misia Natanson, Jos and Lucy Hessel, and the Bloch family. In “Madame Vuillard at Table,” the artist’s square-shouldered mother is smiling in the back right of the frame, a large bottle battling for attention in the left foreground. In “Thadée Natanson at His Desk,” the subject nearly disappears into the scene. And in “Lucy Hessel at the Seashore,” Lucy is shown lounging front and center, amid brighter though still subdued colors, looking lovingly at the viewer but also at the artist; the two were extremely close for decades. “That idea of the sea and the pink tonalities conspire to give you this idea of love, Vuillard’s confession of love for Lucy Hessel,” assistant curator Stephen Brown says on the exhibition’s Acoustiguide tour. “I don’t think there can be any question that they were lovers and it went on for some forty years.” Vuillard spent much of his later years at Chateau des Clayes, the Hessels’ estate near Versailles, where he painted one of his masterpieces, “Luncheon at Les Clayes.” Using glue-based distemper and charcoal, he depicts a group of figures at one end of a round table, centered by Lucy and also including his mother, with bottles and mirrors, subjects that appear consistently throughout his work, a fine representation of his overall themes and style encapsulated in one gorgeous interior. “Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890-1940” is a fascinating examination of the life and work of a lesser-known but important artist who is well worth another look.