Honeymoon in Vegas and Wolfgang's Steakhouse

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Photo by Ruven Afanador for Vanity Fair

Based on the film written and directed by Andrew Bergman, in which a sweaty Nicholas Cage tried to pay off a gambling debt with his fiancée, Sarah Jessica Parker. As long as you ignore the woman-as-chattel theme, you’ll have a great time at Honeymoon in Vegas. The onstage orchestra sets the mood with a terrific overture.

Tony Danza is suave as the casino owner Tommy Korman, in mourning. Betsy Nolan (Brynn O’Malley) is a dead ringer for Tommy’s late wife and a Vassar-educated teacher to boot. O’Malley has an edge that makes Betsy believable. It’s stunning when she appears as a mirage of Tommy’s less impressive dead wife, with crazy hairdo and manicure, chewing gum and sunbathing in a bikini.  

Rob McClure’s sweet Jack Singer stumbles his way to heroic, but first wins the audience singing “I Love Betsy.” When shopping at Tiffany’s for Betsy’s ring, his mother’s ghost (Nancy Opel) hilariously rises from a display case. Jack’s manipulated into playing poker with Tommy, who suggests as payment for a huge debt a chaste weekend with Betsy. Insulted, Betsy ends their engagement and stalks off with him.

Tommy secretly plans to marry her himself at a 24-hour Nevada chapel, but first spirits her away to his private island in Hawaii. The orchestra changes into Hawaiian shirts for this part. Jack follows them and proves his mettle by skydiving and by resisting the local women. Despite Catherine Ricafort’s vibrant voice and selling of the song, “Friki-Friki” is a road bump.

Lyrics and music by Jason Robert Brown are otherwise so clever that you follow every word. Choreographed showgirls and Elvis impersonators add zing. Sleazy, cheesy Vegas denizens are expansively portrayed by David Josefsberg, Michael Saldivar and George Merrick and all of the others. Honeymoon in Vegas is a very classy production.

Head waiter, Matt

Wolfgang’s is a high roller’s steakhouse. The Times Square location has tall windows and unusual spaciousness. It’s light and airy any time of the day. Park Avenue Wolfgang’s has an amazing vaulted tiled ceiling. We’d like to visit all the locations and compare them architecturally. They're always open; lunch and dinner served seven days a week including holidays.

Mouth-watering smells hit as you walk in, and a one-page menu makes the choices seem manageable. That’s a little deceptive, because it’s hard to skip extravagant appetizers, like the specialty Canadian bacon strip that would be a main course in any other country. Chunky crab cake comes with a cool and delicious herb sauce that we’d like the recipe for. Tomato sauce, horseradish on the side, accompanies the seafood platter and is also a fine sauce. Steaks and lamb come perfectly seared and tender, with brilliant flavor. Baked potatoes the size of footballs and chipped German potatoes lead as side dishes. Another favorite with guests is creamed spinach that is pure spinach (without cream). Their famous Schlag with dessert is so fully whipped, the way it's done at the Wisconsin State Fair, that you can cut it with a knife and fork, and it’s served in the size of the snow bank outside.

On the Town and Carnegie Deli

On the Town has music by Leonard Bernstein and a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. You've probably seen the 1949 MGM movie filmed on location. Sailors on a 24-hr shore leave must see the whole city and find a date. The Manhattan women they meet are not a bit shy and include a taxi driver, an anthropologist, and a dancer. These sailors could not possibly get more lucky. If anything dates the tale, it's perhaps how gosh golly happy they feel, and that happiness is contagious.

Bernstein's music performed by a full orchestra is so fresh that the songs feel new. Written several years before his West Side Story, On the Town might be the sparkier of the two, you think, after seeing this stellar production. Dancing choreographed by Joshua Bergasse is spectacular. The pas de deux with Megan Fairchild and Tony Yazbeck in Act II made us forget the Gene Kelly version. Alysha Umphress, the taxi driver Hildy, is a hoot in "Come Up to My Place" and the careening ride around town with her new love interest, Jay Armstrong Johnson. The scene in the Natural History Museum, Elizabeth Stanley's "Carried Away" with her new supplicant, Clyde Alves, is the coolest version of this female empowerment number that we may ever see, and "Lonely Town" was never more haunting. Jackie Hoffman in her many hats, who this reviewer met during her Second City days, was perfectly silly.

Could have done without the American flag curtain and "Star Spangled Banner," but maybe that's just us. On the Town is playing in the massive Lyric. Thin menus attached to the seats offer seat service at intermission for drinks and snacks. We'll have two Brooklyn lagers, a large Brooklyn Popcorn, a bag of North Fork Chips, and Tate's chocolate chip cookies, please.

Not much of an appetite after dinner, a mile-high pastrami sandwich at the non-kosher Carnegie Deli. You might know this tourist hotspot, which opened in 1937. It never fails to be a warm and friendly slice of Manhattan, around the corner from Carnegie Hall. (The joke goes, out-of-towner asks, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer: "Practice.") There are wheeler dealers here and also just simple folks like us, who come to share a sandwich, complimentary pickles, coleslaw, and sterling conversation with native New Yorkers. It's relatively expensive, but you can have lunch for an entire week on sandwiches and salads made from ample leftovers. Carnegie Deli's mustard is particularly good, and they deliver, so ask for extra mustard and pickles.

Side Show and Joe Allen

Set in the 1930s and based on the Hilton sisters, Daisy and Violet, conjoined twins, Side Show opened and tanked after a matter of weeks, just as it did in 1997 when this full-blown musical premiered. Side Show is teeming with powerful love songs, however it is doomed by its subject: the darkness of the lives of side-show performers. A corny subplot involves a forbidden love interest. Jake, a black man, appears in the circus as the “cannibal” and is their one true friend. David St. Louis is absolutely gorgeous when he sings of his love for Violet. He's sure to get a Tony nod in spite of the show's closing within minutes.

Erin Davie as Violet and Emily Padgett as Daisy are marvelous and deserve Tony noms too. Violet and Daisy are discovered by a vaudeville producer who helps them create a name for themselves on the stage. Additional love interests are the producer and dance captain. Robert Joy is evil Sir, the Joel Grey-ish sideshow manager with fancy manners. We embrace his demotion to coffee boy for MGM when the sisters go on to appear in a movie. The lighting by Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer was dramatic and memorable.

The story has great heart and it’s engrossing in spite of a slow pace. Side Show has reportedly been successful in regional theater. The creation of Bill Russell (book and lyrics) and Henry Krieger (music), you have to give them credit for taking “difference” as a theme and running with it. 

Joe Allen descends the stairs and has breakfast while reading the drama criticism in all of the newspapers every morning. He has a soft spot in his heart for the plays that close on Broadway. His star-studded restaurant is decorated with posters of plays and musicals that have bombed. The poster of Side Show is at the framers' shop now.

The actors who eat at his restaurant are the ones appearing, for however long, in plays nearby. It does not feel touristy, 'though undoubtedly many tourists who love Broadway gravitate. Waiters are attentive and get you out in time for the curtain. The diners who really enjoy Joe Allen stick to a few dishes on the menu. House-made paparadelle is pretty delicious, and the dark crusty bread in the bread basket accompanies it well. Lobster roll is really good, but especially the Joe Allen hamburger, served medium-rare, with toasted bun and pickles, has a dedicated following. The spinach side dish is fluffy and a triumph. Popeye would adore this place. But the best is that at Joe Allen's bar or table area, you mix with marvelous New Yorkers. 

Here are the charming actor types enjoying Joe Allen's at the table next to ours. When they were posing for a group selfie we intercepted this group portrait. Wait, isn't that a phenomenal stage and screen actress we all know standing in the back row? 

Posters behind them include that brief sensation, the musical based on Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's.

The Nutcracker, The Trocks, Chocolate Room and Buvette

In Alexei Ratmansky’s interpretation of George Balanchine's The Nutcracker™ rather than starting in the parlor, the curtain rises on a scene in the kitchen where mice are scattered about. Justin Souriau-Levine as the small, mischievous mouse who hides in the soup pot is superb.

The story unfolds to a more traditional telling, but American Ballet Theatre’s mixes fantasy and reality. There has been some criticism of the male bees pollinating the dancing flowers. It’s fun and unexpected. Richard Hudson designed both the gorgeous costumes and set, with Clara’s sky-high bed and the dramatic lopsided house we see at the beginning and the end. Ratmansky’s production moves permanently to the West Coast for the holidays of 2015.

We left humming Tchaikovsky. "Did it entirely hold your attention?" I asked 9-year-old Arden. “It would probably be better for ages 10 and up,” she said.

After the Nutcracker, we went to the Chocolate Room for a post-show treat. Close to BAM, it is open late (11pm). The dense three-layer chocolate cake that Oprah raved about is simple and not too sweet. My daughter’s favorite was the black bottom butterscotch custard with a strata of bittersweet chocolate and whipped coconut cream. The friendly staff offers chocolate samples while you wait.

 

Arden thought that Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo could be funnier. Of course, she’s grown up seeing men in drag on the stage, and The Trocks could not sustain the gag for her. With only a limited exposure to Russian literature, she’s forgiven for missing the humor in the troupe’s stage names, like Natalia Notgudinov and Ida Nevasayneva. (All the dancers have Russian bios in the Playbill.)

Seeing men en pointe was a sensation when the company started forty years ago. Robert Carter, who dances the lead swan, has been with the Trocks for twenty years—long career for a ballet dancer, and he’s still got it. Go For Barocco with music by Bach opened the second act and is a strong piece more focused on the dancing and less on being funny. Laszlo Major who plays a very male male in Le Corsaire Pas de Deux is stunning  and can turn like a dream. The Trocks have a loyal fan base and are sure to continue for many years to come. 

While most NYC restaurants are staffed by actors, Buvette, not far from the Joyce Theatre, has a wait staff full of writers. The first to get a book contract moved on. Waverly is in the midst of writing her novel, and Beck behind the bar is starting his.

What is it about Buvette? The tiny bistro is constantly packed, serving small plates off a petite menu. Cassoulet ($16) is colorful and warming, served in a round deep bowl. Salad beets were condensed in flavor and well seasoned. Brandade de Morue is served in a glass container with the toast standing up in it. About the only choice for a child was the Croque Monsieur ($12). Buvette's waiters did seem especially articulate when, instead of asking, “Are you still working on that?” they say, “Are you still enjoying that?”

The Dog in the Night-Time and the Osteria al Doge

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In the Night-Time begins when a neighborhood dog is killed and an autistic, 15-year-old boy tries to find out who is responsible for the crime. Christopher is highly intelligent and passionate, but ill equipped for such a task. As a savant, his awareness of numbers and facts is heightened, and he can't stand to be touched. We empathize immediately with his struggle with everyday interactions.

The story is told through narration and the ingenious set. Walls and floors are a grid pattern and become alive with secret compartments, train platforms, glowing boxes and a tube map as Jonathan’s search leads him to London. The dramatic scene in the station where he’s misplaced his pet rat is the sort of terror most of us hope never to witness in real life. Jonathan recites prime numbers to calm down and continues his search. At one point numbers take over the set as they take over his mind.

The actors are really good and Alex Sharp as Christopher is superb. We root for our hero in his honorable struggle for the truth, and we are anxious that he makes it back home. Based on the incredible book by Mark Haddon, which was popular with teens and adults alike, the unlikely but successful staging by the National Theatre of London received seven Olivier Awards including Best Play and is still running on the West End.

Venetian restaurant Osteria al Doge (translation: unassuming restaurant favored by the bigshot) is smack in the heart of the theatre district and dramatic whatever the time of day. Like a lot of great restaurants, the Doge has recently added a weekend brunch—Sunday brunch is after all when most New Yorkers like to go out to eat. Most of the time, the Doge is abuzz with happy theatergoers, like before Wednesday’s matinee.

Sit at a table in the romantic wraparound mezzanine and you get a sweet view of the hanging Latin candelabrum and the entire room. Seafood, meat and risottos are good value here, gorgeously presented, in big portions. Salads are heaping and colorful, and pastas deliver, such as the tender, ribbon-thin pappardelle made in-house. Individual pizza that overlaps the plate had a doughier crust than usual (note: next time ask for it extra-thin and burnt around the edges). To finish, espresso with a selection of gelato and biscotti. 

A Delicate Balance and Frankie and Johnnie's

John Lithgow and Glenn Close in A Delicate Balance

Agnes and Tobias’s luxurious house (scenic design by Santo Loquasto) has alcoholic sister Claire living upstairs. But never mind, a martini “dividend” is always on offer, even in the morning, from a well-stocked liquor caddy next to the black marble fireplace.

John Lithgow plays Tobias with restraint and muffled charm. He is nicer than he should be, and he can’t help it, as when sister-in-law Claire requests a drink. His best friend and the irritating wife, Harry and Edna (Bob Balaban and Clare Higgins) turn up and ask to stay over, because of an unexplained “terror” back home, and Tobias can't say no nor do anything to set a departure date. Lithgow is lovable in the part of unconditional friend, and he's the best at striking a delicate balance.

Glenn Close’s Agnes is admirable rather than lovable. Others have played Agnes as passive-aggressive. This Agnes stands by her man, even though she expects more of him. Close is unexpectedly just a little bit boring. Perhaps it is not Glenn, but the part of Agnes. You want her to let it rip, but she never gets the chance. (See Glenn Close fully expressed in the 1991 opera film "Meeting Venus," by Istvan Szabo.)

Martha Plimpton is daughter Julia, who arrives home after her fourth marriage has collapsed and expects more sympathy than she gets. We’ve loved Plimpton in films and on television, but on stage she is truly amazing. Her angry Julia provides catharsis in a play reined in by politeness, and she also grounds the play.

As to Lindsay Duncan as Claire, she makes a beautiful entrance, drunk and contrite. Thereafter, the audience liked everything she did. Even her “Are we having our dividend?” and “By golly, that’s a good martini,” got belly laughs.  The only thing that dates Edward Albee, perhaps, is his tolerance for drinkers. 

Albee lives in a loft in Tribeca and continues to refine his plays, as he did a couple of seasons back adding a cell phone to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Albee has certainly earned his dividend. Pam MacKinnon directed both.

Across the street from the Golden sits a small chophouse, Frankie and Johnnie's, that has been booked every night of the week since the 1920s when it was a speakeasy. One of the oldest restaurants in town, it is full of nooks and crannies, including an intimate upstairs bar papered with photos of celebrities who have dined there, including Thelma Ritter. Nothing has ever changed. You enter a snug time capsule.

The menu lists clams casino, lamb with mint jelly, creamed spinach, big portions, and huge grilled steaks. Your waiter wields a rubirosa pepper mill. "Would you like your steak medium rare?" he suggests. And who would not? The $47 sirloin had a delectable thick charred crust. Caesar salad was old-fashioned, eggy and salty with anchovies, and there was a generous bread basket. With potatoes made eight different ways, the French fries were chewy and just outstanding. In all but price, F&J's compares to the dreamy era of "Mad Men." 

It is bustling and full of good cheer that dates back a long, long time to before you were born. Say hi to waitress Roxy for us. During Prohibition, one gained access with the password "Frankie?" and the person on the other side of the door responded, "Johnnie." 

Brasserie Magritte and St. Therese: The Show

Brasserie Magritte is a loving homage to nearly everyone's favorite artist. The ceiling is a bright mural of clouds. There is a chandelier of floating bowler hats. Art on the walls includes work by a contemporary Belgian photographer that restages the paintings of René Magritte (1898-1967). Every detail is so charming, including the optical illusion placemats.

Chef Shohn Donaghy and the staff are from Belgium. Sausages are made on the premises. Mussels are steeped in a beer butter sauce and come with a cone of twice-fried crispy frittes, served with garlic mayonnaise as well as catsup. Belgian beef stew and rabbit and duck are in beer reductions. Brasserie Magritte regularly holds a mysterious 14 Strangers Dinner in its back room, with fourteen diners who have never met and an array of their classic Belgian dishes. (Our names are on the waiting list!) Background music is a carefully curated selection of mostly jazz and Edith Piaf. A massive chalkboard lists the Belgian beer served, each is served in its own exquisite stemmed glass. Significantly, Heineken cannot be ordered there. "There are just too many other great Belgian beers," said the manager.

      A short walk from the Upper East Side Brasserie Magritte brought us to Our Lady of Good Counsel Roman Catholic church. No, not to pray, but to attend a traveling show based on the short but influential life of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897). St. Thérèse was born into an aristocratic family. Although she died at the age of twenty-four she left behind an influential autobiography and is known as the saint that writers evoke to cure writer's block. In sleepy St. Patrick's Cathedral, her small altar near the apse is a hive of activity with blocked writers of all faiths making offerings and kneeling to light a votive candle. 

St. Thérèse is evoked by opponents of the death penalty for her radical belief that a person may do something bad, but it doesn't mean he's a bad person. She found evidence to prove that there is some good in everybody. Michel Pascal, a remarkable singer, offers a chance to touch her brown robe and to view up close a reliquary of Thérèse’s hair. He takes you behind the closed doors of her Carmelite convent and makes you feel "closer to her than you have ever felt before."