Sunset Blvd. (3*)

Stripped down just doesn't do it for me, especially when the subject is Hollywood glamour, no matter how faded.  Sure, there's a lot to admire about the high concept production of Sunset Blvd. that now has much of the audience at the St. James Theater jumping out of its seats, and yes, Nicole Scherzinger's pull-out-the-stops vocal performance of "As If We Never Said Goodbye" does induce goosebumps. But in the final analysis the show is "a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/Signifying nothing." 

Or perhaps I'm just too literal.  Let's start with the casting.  As talented (and hunky) an understudy as Diego Andres Rodriguez is, he's WAAAAAAY  too young to play the sneering, seen-it-all Joe Gillis, and featured performer Tom Francis (whom I didn't see) is only 25, too.  The age (and attractiveness) difference between Rodriguez and Scherzinger, whose own youth significantly undercuts the premise of Billy Wilder's 1953 masterpiece, needs to SEEM a lot greater than it does.  And no knock to Grace Hodgett Young, who sings beautifully and delivers the only believable dramatic performance as Betty Schaefer, but she ain't no ingenue. Even if exploding convention is the point of this adaptation, Broadway's third, doesn't the story have to be SOMEWHAT believable for the audience to empathize with its disillusioned and deluded leads?  And despite the unexpected reality induced by the gimmick that opens the second act (IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING!?!?), West 44th Street is no Sunset Boulevard.

Now for the intriguing concept rigorously executed under PERFECT lighting in which a couple of chairs are the ONLY props, and the ONLY costume changes occur on stage (SELDOMLY):  silent films, Norma Desmond's comfort zone, WERE black and white and over-emoting WAS the thing.  But the former gets old pretty quickly and the latter, especially when blown up to movie screen-size close-ups on an otherwise bare stage (making the microphones look as big as drones), evokes ridicule, not pathos.  Director Jaime Lloyd, who's not shy about promoting his Svengali role, also wants it both ways, with a blood-red Grand Guignol finale that recalls the prom scene in Carrie, minus the heartbreak.  

We gave the world/New ways to dream/Somehow we found/New ways to dream sings Norma, more than once, about the birth of the movies.  Call me old-fashioned, but Lloyd is more successful in conjuring nightmares which, in our current political climate, makes his show more resonant than entertaining for people who prefer traditional musicals. 

A Wonderful World (4*)

As a teenager whose musical tastes (and politics) were shaped more by Laurel Canyon than New Orleans, I never had much interest in Louis Armstrong before his death in 1971, the summer before my first year in college.  His ingratiating smile had made a bigger impact than his jazz genius. I couldn't really explain my dislike, but I can now, thanks to A Wonderful World:  it was phony.

A jukebox musical probably isn't the most reliable reflection of the historical record, but in this case the imagined truth probably is pretty accurate.  Who knows if Satchmo crossed paths with Stepin Fetchit in Hollywood (which, no surprise, is where the production's razzle dazzle soars highest) but the advice the established star gives to the musical newcomer seems sound for the 1930s:  remain as non-threatening to the white world as possible if you want to get ahead even if means becoming "the laziest man alive."   Armstrong responds with "When You're Smiling," one of his best known songs, after Fetchit assures him that his Black audience will understand and forgive his indulgence of racial stereotype.

In fact, racism forms the very pointed backdrop for Aurin Squire's well-structured book.  It tracks Armstrong's life through the lens of his four wives, including Lil Hardin (Jennie Harney-Fleming, terrific), whose Chicago polish and go-getting influence seems to have contributed most to his success.  After Lil dresses Armstrong in a tuxedo, we never see him out of one until late in the show while he and Lucille Wilson, the wife who finally got him to settle down, are watching television coverage of the Little Rock Nine.  The real Louis emerges and he's no longer smiling.  He criticizes Ike, then president, even after his manager has told him never to talk politics, and sings a version of the "Star Spangled Banner" unlike any you've ever heard.  Armstrong suddenly finds himself in the entertainment wilderness until he records "Hello, Dolly" and the smile returns.  Even I couldn't object when it was directed at Barbra Streisand in the movie.

Apparently that's not how many of his fellow African Americans felt.  Times had changed, and many viewed Armstrong as an "Uncle Tom," almost as embarrassing as Stepin Fetchit in a Black Panther era.  A Wonderful World strives to revive Armstrong's reputation by providing context for the persona he developed and which has aged poorly.  As much as I enjoyed the show, I don't know how successful it will be, particularly when, judging from Wednesday's matinee, the audience is primarily white baby boomers still not quite old enough to remember Armstrong from his jazziest years.   Will anyone else even care?

It's also possible no single actor is up to the task of re-creating Armstrong's time-specific charisma.  Although I didn't see James Monroe Igleheart (who co-directed the production) in the role,  James T. Lane, who performs at matinees, certainly reminded me of the man I remember from television but how can anyone convincingly cover a life over five decades, not counting a brief, maudlin stint in heaven?  

Don't get me wrong, I love the title song (thanks mostly to a 2002 cover k d lang and Tony Bennett) but Armstrong's world seemed anything but wonderful, and ending the show on that note only seems to reenforce his now maligned survival strategy.  Perhaps it would be better just to listen to Armstrong's early recordings and read a detailed biography which is exactly what A Wonderful World has inspired me to do, no insignificant achievement.   I plan to visit his and Lucille's house in Queens, too.

Whale Fall (4*)

The immersion in a long vanished world that Elizabeth O'Connor provides with Whale Fall proved to be the perfect distraction from current events, while still reminding me how distant politics can affect all of us, no matter how detached our lives from their reality.

A dead whale washes up on the shore of a tiny island off the coast of England between the two world wars, marking a change of seasons in the life of Manod, an intelligent and highly observant adolescent girl who already has rejected an implied marriage proposal.  She resides in a cottage with a father who earns his living as a fisherman,  the sole job available to men when they're not farming their land, and a wild child sister who speaks only the native tongue, Welsh.  The girls have lost their mother to illness, a condition Manod hopes she can escape thanks to a world she has glimpsed through borrowed books.  Theirs is a hard but not unhappy life, almost completely determined by the vagaries of nature.

A pair of British ethnographers with a camera and a recording device--neither of which Manod ever has seen--show up not long after the whale to study life on the island. They hire Manod to interpret for them, each with a different agenda that ultimately exploits their employee who naively takes them at their word.  O'Connor superbly conveys both their charm and menace as she explores how research and technology can be misused.  

A little heavy on metaphor, this lovely novel nonetheless tells a timeless coming-of-age story distinguished by its poetic close-ups of the natural world. I chose to read it because of my own experience with beached whales on Fire Island and O'Connor captures the unusual experience perfectly.  Come to think of it, they could have been interpreted as metaphors, too.

Edges of Ailey & Shifting Landscapes @ the Whitney

Too bad I was never interested enough in ballet to catch Alvin Ailey in "Revelations."  The Whitney's tribute to the dancer/choreographer, one of the 20th century's greatest, definitely made me wish I had. 

Herbert Ross lured Ailey and Carmen De Lavallade from Los Angeles to Broadway to dance in House of Flowers, a 1954 musical based on a Truman Capote story.  Photographer Carl Van Vechten captured the ambitious and talented young man in a dramatic series of portraits around that time.

By 1958, Ailey had established a dance company to celebrate Black culture in America which he led for more than three decades.  AIDS killed him, along with many other members of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, memorialized here in an early section of the Quilt.

Studio 54 probably was the only place where our paths might have crossed.  Antonio Lopez designed sexy costumes for Ailey's dancers to wear the night the club opened in 1977.

While the exhibit includes filmed and live performance, the Whitney has plumbed its collection for art that inspired Ailey, or was inspired by him.  The curators really pulled out the stops, going all the way back to a Thomas Nash illustration of "Emancipation," published in an 1863 edition of Harper's Weekly, as well as commissioning some new works.

"Katherine Dunham: Revelation" by Mickalene Thomas (2024)

They've also organized the works thematically.   Judith Jamison, who died the day after my visit to the Whitney, succeeded Ailey after his death in 1989.  The company thrived under her leadership for more than two decades.

"Dear Mama" by Karon Davis (2024)

Carmen de Lavallade and Ailey were both born in 1931. His early dance partner, who married Geoffrey Holder, her House of Flowers cast mate, remains alive at 93, more than three decades longer than Ailey, a powerful reminder of how much life he lost.

Portrait of Carmen de Lavallade by Geoffrey Holder (1976)

Another obvious theme is the legacy of slavery.

"River" by Maren Hassinger (1972)

At the age of five, Ailey began picking cotton with his mother--who had been gang raped by four white men after his father left them--in a rural area of east Texas.  In 1941, they moved to California as part of the great migration seeking a better life.

"Cabin in the Cotton" by Horace Pippin (1931-37)

"Sharecropper" by John Biggers (1945)

Lena Horne was among the African Americans he saw perform in Los Angeles before moving east, eventually joining her on the stage in the cast of another Broadway musical.

Ricardo Montalban & Lena Horne in "Jamaica" (1957)

A few years after Ailey arrived in New York, Marian Anderson became the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.  His timing was perfect:  high culture doors had finally begun to open. 

Marian Anderson by Beauford Delaney (1965)

I recognized many of the artists whose works are included in the exhibit

"Dancer" by Barkley Hendricks (1977)

"The Emperor of the Golden Trumpet"
by Romare Bearden (1979)

"The Lizard" by Romare Bearden (1979)

"African/American" by Kara Walker (1998)

Figure Study by Jacob Lawrence (ca 1970)

"Souvenir IV" by Kerry James Marshall (1998)

. . . but several others were completely unfamiliar, including Lorna Simpson whose "Momentum" (2011) includes pirouetting dancers painted gold. 

Ralph Lemon's "On Black Music" notebook drawings (2001-07) knocked me out.  I'm guessing this is Tina & Ike Turner

. . . and the "Hardest Working Man in Show Business."

"Orangeburg County Family House" by Beverly Buchanan (1993)

"The Way to the Promised Land (Revival Series)"
 by Benny Andrews (1994)

I checked out "Shifting Landscapes," another exhibit, too, not expecting to like it much. Wrong!

"Empire state of mind/Flaco 730 Broadway" by Aaron Gilbert (2020)

"Man with Face Creams and Phone Plug" by Salman Toor (2019)

"My Roots" by Carlos Villa (close-up, 1970-71)

"Ghost Forest Baseline Y" by Maya Lin  (2022)

"BugSim (Pheromone Spa)" by Theo Triantafyllidis (2023)

"Merman with Mandolin" by Mundo Meza  (1984)

"A Universe of One" by Maria Berrio  (2018)

Whitney Museum-"I Don't Need You To Be Warm"
by Dalton Gata (partial, 2021)

Poland Top 5

#5:  Pierogen Plus

#4:  Solidarity!

#3:  Gdańsk Waterfront

#2:  Auschwitz/Birkenau

#1:  POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Bonus Mention:  Meet Some Poles

More Poland

Mila 18

Our Class

Gdansk:

Baltic Jewel

Early Morning in Gdańsk

Museum of the Second World War

Sopot

World Capital of Amber

Kraków:

Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory

Wieliczka Salt Mine

Kraków Stare Miasto

Museum of Pharmacy

Papal Hometown

DaVinci Woman

Warsaw:

Warsawa Welcome

Warsaw Rising

(Faux) Old & New

Neon Museum

American Gothic

I hoped an exhibit of a Puerto Rican artist's work at the Museum of the City of New York would keep me from brooding too much about the election results, unaware the institution was also chronicling the unlikely 1972 presidential candidacy of Shirley Chisholm. Everything old is new again I guess, except this time the guy on the right won.

 

As I've often said, history for most people begins with their birth so the candidates listed on the state's presidential primary voting machines (Chisholm, Hubert Humphrey, Edward Kennedy, John Lindsay, George McGovern, Edmund Muskie and George Wallace) probably won't resonate unless you're a baby boomer.  But kids, at least there was a Democratic presidential primary, even if Richard Nixon did go on to defeat Senator McGovern, the peacenik from South Dakota, by more than 18 million votes, the biggest U.S. Commander-in-Chief loss in history.  Those election results were upsetting, not ominous.

 

Imagine this crew's reaction to the election of our 47th president.  It was an actual Femininomenon; only Gloria survives.

Bella Abzug, Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan (1971)

Joseph Delaney painted U.S. Representative Adam Clayton Powell and Chisholm in their roles as grand marshals of Harlem's first African American Day Parade in 1971.

But enough about politics.  Who better to celebrate the museum's centennial than Bronx-born Manny Vega?  He infuses his mosaics and drawings with the color and sounds that reflect the Puerto Rican diaspora who found home in his borough.

Manny Vega by John Ahearn (2021)

Tito Puente

Listen closely and you almost can hear the salsa in this elaborate pen and ink drawing that depicts Arsenio Rodriguez.

"Arsenio en El Barrio" (2019)

Vega displayed a strong commitment to what he called the "feminine divine" and his work often included images of his wife, sister and mother.

"Musa del monte"

Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who also hails from the Bronx, loaned a painting by Vega that hangs in her chambers for the show.  The scales of justice aren't quite as balanced as they once were.

Chango (2016)

I don't think I ever wore a mask when biking which, I suppose, is Vega's point with the title of the work.

2020 WTF" (2024)

I luckily got a preview of "Gingerbread NYC" which was about to open in another gallery.  It could just as easily be called "Eat Your Way Across the Big Apple," with landmarks from every borough, including Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

The pizza rat makes an appearance, too.

Leonard Lauder, one of the billionaire heirs to the cosmetics fortune, began collecting Art Deco postcards at the age of six, long before he acquired enough fin de siè·cle Austrian & German art to open the Neue Galerie.

The museum supplements "Art Deco City: New York Postcards from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection" with items of its own including a scale model of Rockefeller Center, footage of the Rockettes

. . .  and a copy of the inaugural program from Radio City Music Hall.

Would you believe the US Postal Service once sent a blimp to pick up mail from the top of the Empire State Building?

The display of Horn & Hardart materials really struck a chord.  I remember two of my favorite people talking about "dining at the Automat:" my mother and Andy Warhol.  For some reason I never made it inside before New York's last one closed in 1991.

Horn & Hardart (1936)

I saved the best exhibit for last.  "You Are Here," an immersive video experience, organizes clips from movies shot in New York City by various themes from "bank heists" to "hot dogs" over 16 screens. Absolutely wonderful!  And it's free on Wednesdays.  I plan to return.