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| The Hotel Pierre on Fifth Avenue and 61st Street with the shadow of the Sherry-Netherland upon it and the cornice of the Metropolitan Club (on 60th and Fifth) below. 2:00 PM. Photo: JH. |
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| Thursday, January 9, 2013. Sunny, very cold yesterday in New York. I had an Indian cabdriver, a young guy from Mumbai who’s been in this country for three years. He asked me “how long” would the cold last; he’s still not used to it. I think he was hoping I’d say, til tomorrow (who knows?). Having grown up in New England and having gone to college Down Maine where the snow piled very high every winter and the daily temp might be below zero for days, I must admit I’m used to it. But of course you never really get used to it. The only relief is to be somewhere warm. |
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| Yesterday, being Wednesday was the Michael’s lunch and that place was hot – although with the crowd coming and going through the front door, there was a frequent gust of frigid air that approached my table a few times. I took this picture of part of the room hoping to catch a sense of the mayhem (an exaggeration but still applicable) going on. I didn’t succeed because there’s no Noise Factor. The place gets as crowded on other days, but there is something about Wednesdays that makes me think of “Animal House” (another exaggeration but ...); i.e., the noise. People talking. People are always getting up from their tables and going over to other tables to talk. And there’s a lot of noise, what the adults used to call, when I was a kid, “a lot of racket.” |
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My guess is the main source of the racket yesterday was the presence of the peripatetic Dr. Mehmet Oz who was at Table One with his wife Lisa Oz, and a lot of other people, specifically Diane Clehane and Hearst executives, as the doctor is launching a magazine under the Hearst banner called Dr. Oz The Good Life. Oz was up and about quite a bit. That’s him, the taller man in the dark suit standing in front of the David Hockney print talking to another man.
The lady with the short white hair is Ellen Levine, the editorial director of Hearst Magazines. She’s talking to Dr. Gerry Imber (wearing a sweater vest to ward off the weather). He’s at table with (l. to r.) author/playwrights Michael Kramer, Andrew Bergman (back to camera) and Jerry Della Femina, Advertising genius, restaurateur and Hamptons press mogul. Behind them, you can just see the back of the head of the great Simon & Schuster editor Alice Mayhew who was lunching Paul Steiger, the great former editor of the Wall Street Journal. And to the right (behind Jerry Della Femina) is a table of women presided over by Joan Hamburg, the now legendary talkradio host. The guy with his back nearest to the camera is Luke Janklow, son of Mortand LindaJanklow and now a major mover in the Janklow-Nesbit literary agency. The man he’s talking to is Ron Delsener who’s produced all those rock concerts you’ve been going to for the past few decades. To their left are people from Oz’s table talking to people from other tables.
She brought me a copy along with a tee shirt and a cap that was made up for promoting the book and is by itself selling like hotcakes all over the world. It’s a black tee with the words “NO BS” on the shirtfront. Jill was kind of shocked that a tee is something people are clamoring for. Evidently Elton John was photographed recently wearing one. Also visiting our table was Teri Bialosky from Los Angeles who was in town with her husband celebrating her birthday. Teri reads the NYSD every day (you go, girl!) and came to Michael’s because it was a Wednesday and she figured she might see ole DPC himself. |
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| Around the room: Roger Friedman of Showbiz411 (he was with Jill Brooke) and Mykalal Kontilal who is a former owner of The Nightly Business Report on PBS; Andrew Stein; Jack Kliger (TV Guide) and Missy Godfrey; Star Jones and her pal Dr. Holly Phillips; Holly Peterson, who is coming out with a new novel, with Patricia Duff; Anthony Cename of the WSJ, Bizbash’s David Adler; Dr. Mitch Rosenthal; Dini von Muefling with Page Six's Emily Smith; Anne Fulenwider, EIC of Marie Claire; Washington power broker and media lawyer Bob Barnett with Chris Jansing; Pauline Brown of LVMH; Gordon Davis; Jerry Inzerillo; Dave Johnson of Warner Music; Robert Kramer of Adirondack Capital; Wednesday Martin; Ted Levine; Kevin Warsh; John Osborn, CEO of BBDO; Andrew Rosenberg. |
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| Last night, a friend invited me to a performance of the acclaimed Shakespeare’s Globe production of “Richard III” with the Broadway sensation of the season, Mark Rylance and the brilliant Shakespeare Globe cast at the Belasco Theatre on West 44th Street. The show is running in tandem with Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” Acclaim can be a handy but overused word when it comes to describing theatre productions, but these productions have been getting raves from everyone I’ve met who has seen them. “Twelfth Night” which I haven’t seen, is said to be one of the funniest shows people have ever seen on Broadway (really). I’ve heard that said over and over by a variety of individuals, many of whom I don’t think of as Shakespeare fans. |
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| I myself am not well-versed in Shakespeare and the few timea (very few) I’ve seen a production, it’s never got to me. “Richard III,” which I was entirely unfamiliar with – had never read, never seen – is an extraordinary production. Mark Rylance has been getting a lot of media attention because of his performance but it is a big cast and every single individual is wonderful. There was a line on West 44th Street extending well around the corner to Sixth Avenue, waiting to get in (they already had their tickets). A huge crowd. It was sold out, obviously, and the audience profile ran from early twenties to mid-eighties, and everyone was waiting patiently with great enthusiasm.
When you enter the theater, the all male cast is on stage donning costumes, wigs, etc. The men who play women are so totally believable as women that you’re not sure they aren’t, even though you saw them making up and donning costumes. Richard, the truly evil, psychopathic man who would be king after murdering his brother and his brother’s children is scary, so scary he gives you the creeps in much the same compelling way that Hitler did. The theater was sold out. I don’t know how difficult it is to get tickets for this limited run but if you love theatre, or if you love Shakespeare, you’ve never seen anything like this. The last great sensational Shakespeare production on Broadway was in the mid-1960s was Richard Burton as Hamlet. I recall the production (with co-starred Hume Cronyn) because Burton had that magnificent voice which was compelling and he was also deeply involved with Elizabeth Taylor and they were a sensation to the public everywhere. But this production of “Richard III” is different. This is a perfect example of why Shakespeare still resonates with any audience, four centuries later: you can’t stop watching for even a minute, even a second. It’s a limited run, so run and get your tickets. |
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Contact DPC here. |