I don't imagine there's anyplace in the world more interesting to be at this moment, unless of course you are not interested in the press. The lounge this early AM at Cathay Pacific Airways is alive with what is left of the London tabloids, the TVs blaze the Murdoch/Cameron hearings...

The most fascinating thing about Catch Me if You Can is why all those gifted people would want to make it into a musical. The movie on which it is based was an episodic caper about a charming young con man, played by Leonardo di Caprio, and was redeemed by...

For many years I held in my heart the idea that I am a serious human being, concerned with higher issues, especially those involving my country. Thus it was that I avoided watching American Idol. But because I have a beloved friend who is hooked on it, I made the...

So as it turns out, youth is not everything. The 83rd Oscars, revitalized as it was supposed to be, so the young would feel the same attachment to it as the older, was arguably as boring an awards show as has hit, or, rather, leaned against, the airwaves. Anne Hathaway...

As one whose childhood was brightened by what seemed the great original American art form, my heart lifted by the brilliant lyrics of Frank Loesser, Yip Harburg and Cole Porter, my soul tintinnabulated by a sense of personal destiny because I had the same birthday as Irving Berlin, I have...

A genuine thrill shot through me shortly after the beginning of the staged Brief Encounter at Studio 54, when the leading lady, Hannah Yelland as Laura, stepped through the ribbons of curtain and became a part of the set behind, and I thought "This is going to be real theater."...

Continuing my ongoing quest to ascertain that I haven't lost my mind, I made my way to the Museum of Natural History today, which is featuring a new exhibition, "The Brain." The museum was a favorite of my childhood, probably the only one, as I can't remember my mother taking...

Far be it from me to look a Pulitzer Prize in the mouth, but the tiny off-Broadway play that brought Alfred Uhry one has been blown into great size, starring the towering Vanessa Redgrave and the glowering James Earl Jones. He is as convincing as always, having metamorphosed in one...

Well now that Oprah has rounded up Hubbell and Katie and those of us who sigh for the Seventies can stop holding our breaths, only one great question is in the air: who will be Oprah's final guest? I would like to propose Happy, a Yorkshire terrier, who had a...

There seems to be cosmic design in the fact that today is not just Armistice Day, but also Kurt Vonnegut's birthday. I celebrated it as such for all the years (not enough) that I knew him, and until he died a couple of years ago. I see no point in...

In this tumultuous city (New York) with all its restaurants and food editors and savvy eaters, anything good would be assumed to have been written and overwritten about. So it was with the greatest surprise and pleasure, that my Bichon, Mimi and I chanced on a discovery on the way...

Having admired John Lahr more than any theatre critic since Kenneth Tynan, reading his hat-in-the-air, excitedly laudatory review of 'La Bete', I could not wait to get to the Music Box theatre. To begin with, Mr. Lahr and I share a piece of affectionate history, both of us having had...

Like many of my friends, I cannot remember a bleaker time in the political history of this great nation. But the other night at the Union Square Theatre, I had a true epiphany. The production was a one-man show by an artist of such dazzling gifts that I felt a...

With all of the world changing, and so much of it being angry, what was fabulous about St. Tropez remains so: the light on the softly rippling Gulf of Grimaud, the matchless sunsets. A few clouds catching the waning rays, turning a radiant pinkish orange, purple around the edges, And...

There is little doubt in anyone's mind that Meryl Streep can do anything. She can learn perfect German, be a middle-aged Italian, a mysterious English woman in another century, or Julia Child, letter and recipe perfect. But she cannot make a silk comedy out of a sow's
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There is little doubt in anyone's mind that Meryl Streep can do anything. She can learn perfect German, be a middle-aged Italian, a mysterious English woman in another century, or Julia Child, letter and recipe perfect. But she cannot make a silk comedy out of a sow's screenplay.

I have long been an admirer of David Mamet, as most people would be who admire rapid-fire dialogue, twists and turns and the ultimate realization that most people have their own agendas, are weighted down with self=interest, and no reluctance to betray. Good is not a given in Mr. Mamet's...

A mild wind, chill around the edges, blew alongside the structure at 221 West 57th Street, beneath those big metal rods that hold up buildings that await demolition. And with that wind, papers blew, used cups and candy wrappers, notes that people had written each other when people still wrote...

In the Next Room, or the vibrator play

Arguably the worst, most over-rated new play of the season (which is not too young, but there's time for a worse one) is the Lincoln Center production of In the Next Room. Set in the 1880s in the living room (and the...

When even the Germans say the people of Hamburg are cold and distant, you have to pay attention. Last night at the Teatro del Fenice was the Venice debut of choreographer John Neumeier's Tod in Venedig, a ballet performed by the Hamburg Ballett, based, they dared to say, on Thomas...