Epiphanies and Masochism

by Sedgwick Clark

An Irresistible Concert  

So soon after declaring my relief at being able to put my concert calendar on hold in the summer, Le Poisson Rouge presented a program too irresistible to miss, with three well-known chamber musicians at the top of their form: violinist Harumi Rhodes, cellist Caroline Stinson, and pianist Molly Morkoski in Ravel’s Sonate posthume pour violon et piano, Messiaen’s eight Préludes pour piano, Takemitsu’s Distance de Fée for violin and piano, Debussy’s Sonate pour violoncello et piano, and Piazzolla’s Verano Portena for piano trio, from The Four Seasons.

One of the best concerts I heard all year.

A Modest Epiphany

There’s a moment in Woody Allen’s new film To Rome with Love when a woman lost in Rome and late for an appointment drops her cell phone down a sewer grate. The unison gasp of horror from a full house at Lincoln Plaza Theaters was my biggest laugh of the evening.

Masochism on Broadway

Tracie Bennett’s all-stops-pulled portrayal of Judy Garland’s last three months of drugs, drink, and depression in Peter Quilter’s End of the Rainbow at the Belasco Theatre is a study in masochism—although whose I’m not sure—and she relives it eight times a week. Most of us raised on The Wizard of Oz are aware that Garland’s brief glimpse of the rainbow ended in tragedy, but for many, this Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf treatment may be too much to bear in a night on the town.

Bennett is remarkably convincing, the supporting cast is first-rate, the five musicians are excellent, the restored Belasco is a beauty to behold, but this is definitely not Mary Poppins.

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