BRASS DIVA: THE LIFE AND LEGENDS OF ETHEL MERMAN
By Caryl Flinn
University of California Press, 556 pages, $34.95
ETHEL MERMAN: A LIFE
By Brian Kellow
Viking, 336 pages, $25.95
Two biographies of Ethel Merman in the same month? You may think that’s overkill, but you may Read More
One of the most touching tales in Amanda Vaill’s Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins is about a gift that Robbins gave to Ethel Merman when she was starring in Gypsy. A resoundingly unreflective performer whose every instinct ran counter to Robbins’ Method-driven approach to performance, Merman nonetheless submitted to his persnickety but gentle coaching Read More
As the most famous line in Broadway musical history goes, “Sing out, Louise!” And so I shall. The revival of Gypsy at the Shubert Theatre is triumphant in every way. The best backstage musical ever created touches greatness in the central performance of Bernadette Peters as the ultimate stage mother, Momma Rose. Tabloid gossip and Read More
Imagine a disco-era Ethel Merman trapped in the body of Pee-wee Herman, entertaining the likes of Liza Minnelli in the Betty Ford Center auditorium.
This twisted character, Pee-wee Merman, is proving to be the strangest star of drag auteur Michael West’s new show, Almost Live from the Betty Ford Clinic , now playing Thursdays Read More
After A.I. , Steven Spielberg’s extravagant
summer banquet, everything else at the movies is scraps. Signaling the arrival
of dog days, we have several bits of flotsam to get out of the way. Most controversial
of them all is Bully , a disturbing
but ultimately pointless little horror from Larry Clark, the overrated director
of Read More
In the forthcoming avalanche of big-budget, end-of-the-year Hollywood epics with limitless money for marketing and promotion, don’t overlook The Weekend and A Good Baby , two small, sincere, modestly financed but extremely intelligent independent films worthy of attention. The Weekend , written and directed by Brian Skeet, is a lushly photographed reverie about a group Read More
