AMERICAN PSYCHO, the musical, and the Strip House

American Psycho, the musical, captures what it was like to live in New York City at the end of the last century, when the rich got richer. The hero so to speak, Patrick Bateman, is introduced fresh from the tanning bed with a sensational number about his grooming technique (“Never put cologne on your face”). While he’s shallow and he knows it, it is the shallowness of others that drives him into a rage when he overhears vapid conversation in the Hamptons, and jealousy consumes him that his rival’s business card has a crisper font than his own. 

Patrick’s anger turns into violent frenzy—at least in his imagination. The musical departs from Bret Easton Ellis’s 1991 novel in that Patrick’s private seething results in vivid, murderous fantasies. After the bloodbath at the end of Act One, four on-stage cleaners meticulously mop up during the entire intermission. 

The smart choreography by Lynne Page and Rebecca Howell sometimes evokes the paintings of Robert Longo and is athletic, surprising, and sexy. Benjamin Walker is smashing in the lead. His nemesis, played by affable Drew Moerlein, is another perfect casting, and they are well backed by Keith Randolph Smith, Theo Stockman, Dave Thomas Brown, and Jordan Dean. American Psycho, the musical, is more gender fluid than either the novel or the film starring Christian Bale (2000, directed by Mary Harron).

A new classic, “You Are What You Wear,” rhymes haute couture designers of the 80s. Overall, the female characters are inspired—bold and sarcastic, not victims at all. (Patrick’s secretary is the one weakly written part.) Heléne Yorke as Evelyn, Patrick’s socialite girlfriend, is fresh and has great pipes, and they are believable as a couple. Solid work by Alice Ripley in a number of parts, including Patrick’s overly sedated mom. Morgan Weed is cool and Hepburn-esque (Katharine, not Audrey) as Courtney, Evelyn’s BF and Patrick’s GF.

American Psycho has an extraordinary Christmas scene in which rotating platforms present the players in surreal tableaux. There’s a birthday party (Patrick pulls a large knife from his jacket to cut the cake), a wedding, and intricate ensemble work in every setting including Patrick’s VHS cassette-lined living room and sterile office. And it’s all to a disco pulse that includes Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” and Huey Lewis and the News “Hip to Be Square.” If boy-meets-girl musicals put you to sleep—Kinky Boots, we mean you—have a truly kinky date with Patrick Bateman and his pals.

Arden (age ten) skipped the R-rated American Psycho but joined us beforehand at the Strip House for New York strip steak, goose fat fries, and vegetable sides. Steaks are grilled in salt-and-pepper char, the line-caught tuna served “black and blue” or charred on the outside, cool inside. We tried each of their delicious sauces with our steaks and charred broccoli. In her quest to compare every famous burger in town, Arden pronounced theirs juicy. (She found the goose fat fries heavy. We found them scrumptious.)

Theatre Row Restaurant Review wasn’t expecting to meet the Charlotte Brontë Society at the Strip House, but we also learned the all red, with red leather banquettes Strip House doesn’t typically have a matinee lunch crowd either, though it’s right on the edge of Times Square. The clientele is pretty much alpha males—like Patrick Bateman—closing deals over $50 chops. The lunch menu is more in our budget, listing steak au poivre, le burger, and tempting main course salads, including a seafood Cobb.

The original restaurant downtown was the memorable Asti’s, which featured performances by opera singers. (Which is what you find now at Caffe Taci, at Papillon restaurant on Saturday nights.) The son of Asti’s owner installed autographed photos of opera sopranos in the midtown location, where they hang along with autographed vintage photos of burlesque dancers. Don’t leave without trying the reinterpreted Baked Alaska with chocolate-cherry ice cream and pistachio sauce or the giant twenty-four-layer chocolate cake, so dense it is served with a steak knife. 

WOMEN WITHOUT MEN and Palm Restaurant

"Tragedy is at least interesting."

In the all-women's faculty lounge at an exclusive Protestant girls’ boarding school in Dublin, tests are scored and passive-aggressive comments traded. The 1938 Hazel Ellis play, Women Without Men, is a nascent Prime of Miss Jean Brodie with everyone vying for most popular teacher and insisting they never do. 

“The more unpopular you make yourself with the girls, the more the teachers will like you,” says the Latin teacher, Miss Strong, who always removes herself from conflict, crisply played by Mary Bacon.

Aedin Moloney (the true Irishwoman among these fine actresses) is Miss Willoughby, and what she says is always shocking one way or another. This quietly outrageous character is as close as things come to being campy fun. Another breath of fresh air is the crusty French teacher, Mademoiselle Vernier, played with exquisite hauteur by Dee Pelletier (who is French Canadian). We’d like to try one of those sugar cookies freshly baked by Mademoiselle Vernier. The formidable history teacher, played sympathetically by Kellie Overbey, is at work at her masterpiece and about to come undone.

Playwright Hazel Ellis (1909-1992)

When you look at the eight-by-ten photos of these actresses in the lobby, it’s impossible to match them to their Miss Gooch roles. The ever-changing 1920s conservative tweeds and bouffant wigs keep the eleven actresses mostly hidden. (Costumes Martha Hally, wigs Robert-Charles Vallance.)

Great ensemble acting, including the three girl students (Shannon Harrington, Alexa Shae Niziak and Beatrice Tulchin) whose mischief is severely punished. Someone is always getting punished and shamed, but the dialogue is ever witty. As the Latin teacher puts it, “Tragedy is at least interesting. It’s better than sheer dreariness.”

In Women Without Men men or their absence is never mentioned. The play premiered nearly eighty years ago in Dublin, one of two plays that survive by Dubliner Hazel Ellis (1909-1992). (The other is Portrait in Marble, about Lord Byron.) There isn't even a wiki page for Ellis. The Mint Theater Company has rescued another playwright from oblivion. 

The Palm West is the offshoot of the one on the East Side, where cartoonists could pay for their meals by leaving drawings on the walls. Frescos here includes restaurant guests Madonna, Jerry Seinfeld, James Brown (who autographed his picture) and other guests you might not recognize. Theatregoers who lunch at Palm and attend a matinee are walking advertisements, carrying leftovers in shopping bags with Palm logos.

"Are you sure they call this a Palm Sundae?"

Last time at the Palm we highlighted the attractive signature salad, with blue cheese and bacon, served in a carved, whole iceberg lettuce bowl. It's still there, with the delicious garlic-vinaigrette and other big salads including a chopped salad with sliced steak. Red meat is their specialty, and steak sandwiches, burgers and hand-cut French fries. We needed our experienced waitress, Jill, to walk us through the vast menu for the Power Lunch prix fixe, just $25, with three courses and a vegetable side thrown in. You almost won't have room for chocolate cake at the end, but can always carry it home in a Palm bag.

KEY CHANGE and DIRT CANDY

Developed at a women’s prison in the north of England, the one-hour Key Change moves quickly as actors sketch out common prison scenarios (fights for the phone), regrets (poor choice in men) and longings. The newbie, Lucy, played by Cheryl Dixon, is protected by feisty Angie, brilliantly played by Jessica Johnson, who pledges to stay out of trouble when she’s released (this is her third bout in prison).

Kelly (Christina Berriman Dawson), brings poignant humor when she acts out the abusive boyfriend or pusher in the women’s backstories. They return to a bad situation because they have nowhere else to go. The stories are sadly similar: knocked up young, no money, bad partners, petty crime, jail, prison. The eldest, Kim, well-played by Judi Earl, is waiting out her sentence with apparent good nature and skill—but don’t mess with her when she’s on the phone to her grandchild!

Key Change, by Catrina McHugh, an Open Clasp Production, won a Best of Edinburgh Award and tours prisons. It’s magic when the women’s letters from family turn into birds, so strong are the worlds of dream and fantasy. Gentle segues and two brutal fight scenes are smartly paced under the direction of Laura Lindow.

Spoken in Geordie, the dialect of Northeast England, rather than in the silky tones of Queen’s English on Downton Abbey, we missed a full ten percent of the play. A glossery of prison lingo (“zoppie” for pharmaceutical drugs, a prison’s favored currency) is included in the program. For a more immersive experience, on display is a real prison cot in a six-by-eight-foot cell demarcated by masking tape that you can try out.

 

Broccoli and Potato at innovative Dirt Candy

On the edge of Chinatown, Dirt Candy serves vegetables in ways designed to blow your mind, and regularly succeeds. Entrées are named for the veg: Carrot (carrot sliders on a sesame seed carrot bun), Broccoli (a broccoli “dog” served on a bun, with mustard barbeque sauce) with vinegared, freeze-dried broccoli rabe leaves. Cauliflower (curried cauliflower with papaya chutney and pappadam), etc.

You arrive to complimentary hot bread in a weave of vegetable colors and flavors: carrot, beet, celery, spinach. Every dish we tried we loved, except for Potato (warm potato salad with olives, bitter greens and yams) which had good textures but tasted bland at room-temperature. The limitations of titling the dishes simply is apparent in Brussels Sprout Tacos (no, thank you). Rutabaga torte was a revelation, a ginger and sage mille-feuille layered with smoked cream cheese and mustard, and topped with candied rutabaga.

Amanda Cohen, chef and owner, wants you to taste something you’ve never had before, and all safe and healthy. (To avoid crazy prices, Cohen’s food for the most part is not organic.) The margaritas are refreshingly different: mezcal, infused with yellow and guajillo peppers. Each drink and dish is Instagram worthy. Although the restaurant’s name, Dirt Candy, evokes an earthy bowl of beans perfumed with garlic, in none of the dishes did we taste even a hint of garlic. Beans were part (a minimal part) of only one vegetable entrée (Fennel). Lemon, yes. Ginger, yes. But nowhere did we taste soy or injudicious use of sugar, salt, pepper, or peanut. Desserts include the lauded Onion Chocolate Tart and Carrot Meringue Pie with Sour Cream Ice Cream.

The servers were great and the ambience too. We prepared to leave a big tip, only to find that Dirt Candy, an innovator in all matters, embraces the new ban on tipping that a few restaurants have adopted. (A twenty-per-cent gratuity is added, divided among wait staff and the kitchen.)

SCHOOL OF ROCK, the musical, and Tender

School of Rock jettisoned Jack Black’s film career in 2003. Can anyone top his performance as Dewey Finn? I hear that Alex Brightman slays it, throwing himself into the highly physical part and losing one or two pounds per show. We saw his understudy, Jonathan Wagner, who comes very close to Jack Black and even looks like him. NYC students will especially appreciate the saga of parents pressuring kids to get good grades and kids wanting to explore private artistic passions. In a kids-to-parents song “If Only You Would Listen” substitute teacher Dewey asks, “What makes you more angry than anything else in the world?” Katie (Evie Dolan, age 11) answers, “Being over scheduled.” The dialogue could be way wittier, but perhaps Andrew Lloyd Webber and Julian Fellowes are the perfect team for serviceable children’s musicals. “Stick It to the Man” and “You’re In the Band” were a lot alike, but Arden, our young critic, rocked out to both. Spencer Moses is delightful as Dewey’s best bud, Ned. A shout out to young back-up singer Carly Gendell, with her groovy dance moves—it’s no surprise that she’s played Annie. Parents be warned: the music is loud all the way through. Children in the cast bop, stomp, and punch energetically—and yes, they really do play their own instruments.

Steak and sushi are on the lunch and dinner menus at Tender Bar and Grill in the Sanctuary Hotel near the theatre district in midtown. The tangy, wild ginger-edamame appetizer was a winner, but the flatbread pizza was unremarkable. Atlantic salmon burger was our favorite on the 3-course, $29 pre-matinee prix fixe. Tender is a sports bar with giant screens, exposed brick walls and teal blue leather banquettes, with pop music (but the volume is kept low) and kid-friendly. Arden raved about the steak.

China Doll with Al Pacino and The Four Seasons

Al Pacino at the stage door, photo by Denise Korey

 Al Pacino plays Mickey Ross, a well-preserved big shot now in love with a much younger woman, referred to as Miss Pierson (who never appears). “She could have any man she wished, but she chose me.” Old Man, young wife, new life: “the ultimate fantasy of wealth,” Mickey instructs Carson, his assistant, played by tall and clean cut Charles Denham. Other times Mickey has no illusion that Miss Pierson loves him for any reason other than his money.

Mickey and Carson spend the day working mainly on the telephone (bluetooth devices) in Mickey’s luxurious skyscraper apartment with a view of only the sky (fab set by showboat Derek McLane). On prominent display is a model of the private jet Mickey bought for Miss Pierson, who is in Canada to pick it up, finding that the plane was impounded as a lien against taxes and crashing Mickey's plans.

David Mamet wrote China Doll specifically for Al Pacino, who is now seventy-five. Pacino is no longer the jangly kid in his cinematic debut, the 1971 Panic in Needle Park, but don’t tell him that. Pacino acts all over the place with great verve and generosity. It's impossible to watch him for long without smiling. Even if the two-hour China Doll were a total piece of shit (and some critics have suggested that) you still want to see this play.

Directed by Pam MacKinnon, specialist in the most difficult characters, the ending is so shocking that the audience gasps.

Plans are afoot to move the Four Seasons downtown in 2016. It may never compete with where it has been since 1959, the Seagram Building on Park Avenue and 52^nd, the epitome of postmodernity. The interior is designed by the building’s architects, Philip Johnson (of the Glass House) and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The vast, sweeping Pool Room has stellar acoustics and is flatteringly lit, which renders it cozy in spite of itself.

The Grill Room was all men in suits. The Pool Room was more romantic, with couples side by side on sleek Mies van der Rohe sofas, holding hands. Menu and the flowers around the gurgling pool change seasonally. A good value $59 three-course prix fixe drew out the pre-matinee lunch to allow for basking in the iconic architecture, in the auspiciousness. My charming waiter said President Barack Obama announced his candidacy at the upstairs private Four Seasons dining room.

You can imagine Mickey Ross and Carson, or Don Draper and Peggy Olson, in the Grill or Pool Room, ordering the celebrated rare bison filet at $72. On the relatively thrifty prix fixe, pappardelle with oxtail-mushroom ragout was rich and memorable, following a tender “ewe blue” and quartered Bibb lettuce salad.

It was a hard choice in primi, secondi and dolce—every dish sounds amazing. Chocolate-pecan cake with a near-cookie texture and wave of Ganache ended the meal in a salted caramel flourish (photo above). And this is as surreal as it sounds—and you have to see it to believe it—the towering clouds of pink cotton candy studded with crystallized violets that pour out of the kitchen to the tables. Cotton candy is the Four Seasons’ signature dessert all year long.

Fun Home and B.B. King's Lucille's

Alison Bechdel’s graphic coming-of-age Fun Home creates an idyllic childhood world. Each member of the family works happily on art projects in their own rooms, in a sprawling, antique-filled Gothic revival house. Circle in the Square theatre-in-the-round oddly fits the bill in creating the foundation. A girl and two boys. A mother who acts in regional theatre and an attractive father who is an English teacher and a family funeral home director (where we get “Fun Home”).

Three actresses play Alison Bechdel at various ages. Beth Malone is the present day Alison who narrates from her drawing desk. In a key scene (no pun intended), the child Alison (Gabriella Pizzolo) notes an attraction to a capable-looking girl with a ring of keys hanging from her belt—“Ring of Keys” is one of several heart-stopping ballads that will have you reaching for your handkerchief. At college, Alison has her first romance with a girl, Joan (the lovely Roberta Colindrez) and sings “I’m Changing My Major (to Joan).” It’s a sexy scene for the theatre, and over and over you admire this team for their honesty and commitment!

A sensational Emily Skeggs plays college-age Alison as the girl you wish you knew when you were in college. In coming out to her parents (by post) Alison is disappointed by their slow reaction. Then she learns why—her mother (Judy Kuhn) reveals that Daddy (lovable Michael Cerveris) has always been attracted to men, including the family’s heretofore beloved gardener. The gardener and all the young boyfriends are played by a sympathetic Joel Perez, who looks straight out of a Tom of Finland drawing.

How rare to be at a musical that shares ideas that you were never offered before. The memoir Fun Home is sad. You leave the Circle in the Square with a lump in your throat, but feeling better and more hopeful about the future. It’s very funny at times and consistently a triumph of everyone involved. Music by Jeanine Tesori, book and lyrics Lisa Kron, directed by Sam Gold, based on the graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

The James Brown Soul Revue was warming up at Lucille’s when we walked in. The sound was amazingly authentic, and when James Brown impersonator Lloyd Diamond, in a red jumpsuit, came out dancing, the illusion was complete. Fred Thomas, who leads the six-member band, was James Brown’s principal bassist from 1971 and drummer Tommy Greene also played with Brown’s original group. We were swept away by this incredible entertainment for a small cover charge over a pre-show meal. But we know that Lucille's regularly features the most impressive entertainment. What a nice way to reward yourself for starting the week on the good foot: Bluesman Jon Paris plays on Mondays with bassist Amy Madden and drummer Steve Holley.

Sunday's popular, powerful Harlem Gospel Choir brunch includes bottomless mimosas and a limitless buffet of Creole and Southern classics. At nighttime chef Wenford Simpson does a steaks-and-BBQ menu, but with flourishes, like the grilled lemon slices served with salmon, green beans, and rice. Most were ordering the hamburger plate, so that had to be very good too. 

Something Rotten! and Hourglass Tavern

Set in Tudor England, William Shakespeare is a preening and conceited rock star. Christian Borle, with flowing locks, is “the Will with the skill / To thrill you with the quill.” Rival playwrights, the Bottom brothers, (Brian d’Arcy James and John Cariani), grease the palm of a soothsayer (Brad Oscar) to look into the future and give them an edge on the next big thing. “A Musical” celebrates every Broadway musical you ever saw or heard of. The Bottom brothers approach their rich patron proposing to write the first great musical and the first ever musical: about the Black Death. Ah, the patron doesn’t much like the subject.

Anticipating Shakespeare’s next masterpiece, the Bottoms conceive of the musical “Omelette.” Director-choreographer Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon) features tap-dancing actors with tremendous codpieces (Gregg Barnes did costumes). Brothers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick wrote the score. Karey wrote the book with John O’Farrell, who is British, making Something Rotten! an American-British collaboration. It’s a huge success, yet its style may be more Broadway than West End. So far Something Rotten! has delighted audiences only on this side of the pond. 

Shakespeare used the hourglass to depict the transience of life. At Hourglass Tavern, the opposite is true. Hourglass has remained pretty much the same since the nineteenth century, has changed hands rarely, and even the staff is long term. Our wonderful waitress, Maria, has been there for twenty-five years and remembers when hourglasses were on each table for guests to use, to make sure they made their curtain.

Rather than a speakeasy, Hourglass was a narrow, 3-floor rooming house. The tiled bath on the second floor is the original, now the lady’s powder room. Check out the mirror and see a younger version of yourself. (References in Shakespeare to “glass” are taken to mean “hourglass” when more likely Will meant “mirror”).

Hourglass's weekend pre-matinee brunch features eggs with short rib hash. Roasted short ribs are great on the dinner menu, crispy on the outside, served with perfectly steamed broccoli and “homemade double butter mashed potatoes.” The basic salad has a vegetable-rich dressing, and you can add blackened shrimp to the salad.

The menu is the most versatile restaurant menu we have ever seen! There’s a $22.95 pre-theatre prix fixe. At any time at all you can create a 3-course prix fixe by adding $10 to your entrée. A picky eater child menu allows the child to design their own fussy meal for only $11. Arden, however, ordered the “Big Ass 12 oz. Angus beef burger,” served on the homemade bread and layered with vegetables. She took a few dainty bites and had the rest wrapped. We all had the rest wrapped, happily enough. Eat, drink, and be merry, as the Bard said.