The Observer spoke with Mr. Flynn, and with the actor Gabriel Byrne, who is making his theater-directorial debut with James X, currently showing at New York’s The Culture Project.

Leaning on a seat next to the stage after a breathtaking performance, Mr. Flynn explained the sort of effect he is looking to have on the audience, or, as he prefers to call it, the public.  “We’re not here to confront them or to traumatize them, we’re not here to soak them down or to give them a sentimentalized version of the Magdalene Laundries.”

In the play James X – a pseudonym given to protect his identity – sits in the foyer of a courtroom, where the play takes place, waiting to be called in to give evidence to the “Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse” (a real Commission set up in 1999 by the Irish Government). James recounts the story of his life, using a legal file that chronicles his time in and out of various institutions; occasionally he glances forebodingly in the direction of the courtroom.

Mr. Flynn characterized the investigation into child abuse in Ireland as “a trauma turned into a big tragedy, because everybody loves a tragedy.”

In telling his story, he mimics nuns, priest, and judges, and re-embodies his former self: a young boy taken far away from his parents and admitted to Letterfrack industrial school for stealing a toy. He was put in jail as a teenager and then, later, admitted to a mental institution, and reached adulthood as an unstable alcoholic.

When it was finally published in 2009, the report from the actual Commission – commonly called the ‘Ryan report’ – was much-criticized. Mr. Flynn calls it a “whitewash”. No prosecutions arose from what some called Ireland’s Holocaust. He believes the essence of the report is wrong to begin with. “Essential they’re saying ‘it’s not all bad’,” he said. “Well it is, there’s nothing good in it.”

He would know. He spent 18 months at Letterfrack industrial school, the same school the fictional James X is sent to as an adolescent. Although it’s a work of fiction, Mr. Flynn said, James X has “a certain measure of truth in my life, but it’s made up of the consummate of other people.”

The play is as exhausting as it is brilliant. Throughout his harrowing monologue, Mr. Flynn wreaths on the floor, runs in circles and loudly clenches his teeth.

In drama, subjects like child abuse often tend to devolve into pathos, but James X never strays into that territory. Mr. Flynn’s breakneck delivery is almost rap-like in its cadences: “We are fretting, crying, upset. Half-awake, half-asleep. Scattered sheep of Little Bo Peep. My little Brother’s got his shoes on the wrong feet. Me sister forgot to put her knickers on. Her communion dress is in the pawn. The bell for school is long since gone.”

You can almost smell the black smoke and feel the wind in your face as he recalls running through Dublin and hopping on the backs of trucks: “I run and I dash. Run faster than birds. Faster than the fastest fast.”

As James’ time in court approaches, the rigidness builds in his physicality and you get a feeling that the stream of conscious life story is not what it seems to be. He abruptly stops telling it, and shifts gears. “This is my statement,” he says solemnly, “This is my truth. The real story. The story I came to tell.” Stepping forward, towards the audience, he reads the account of what really happened to him. In that moment he undergoes a transformation: from court jester to real person. When finished telling us – the public - his statement, he turns and leaves the foyer.

“It’s exciting for me as a performer, exciting for me as a artist, as a politician and as an advocate of the rights of children and the rights of those who were wronged,” Mr. Flynn told The Observer, “to be able to bring that issue out into the open clearly honestly with integrity without them becoming ‘victims’, ‘survivors’ or any of the old bullshit tags they attach to people.”

It’s fitting that a play dealing with some uncomfortable facts of Ireland’s past should be directed by Mr. Byrne, the country’s cultural ambassador. “If you want to connect with an audience you can’t go down the road of using sentiment,” he said, in a telephone interview, of the play’s rawness. (Presumably he would know a bit about psychological nuance, from starring as the therapist protagonist in the HBO series In Treatment.) For James X is the latest in a long line of work that he has helped create in his ambassadorial role, including conceiving and curating the first Irish film retrospective at The Met. It is a job that Mr. Byrne does virtually for free, taking only a small stipend for travel expenses.

“There’s no equivalent to him in New York,” Mr. Byrne said of Mr. Flynn. “Its like Kristin Quinn morphing into Eric Bogosian.”

Various incarnations of James X have existed down the years, including a stand-up routine,  Mr. Flynn believes that at the core it’s “the honest truth of the story that’s most important.” After performing this piece over an extended period of time, in hindsight does art help fill a gap in any small way, where the Ryan report and others have failed? “Art passes the message on to the public,” Mr. Flynn said. “It’s a companion, but art doesn’t heal you.”

Mr. Byrne puts it more directly. “When I go to see a play, most of the time I say to myself ‘Yeah it’s a good performance but its not the truth.’ What you got last night [at the play] was the truth. That’s what people want from theatre. They want to come out saying: ‘Fucking hell what was that?!’”

sduffy@observer.com

The Usual Suspects legend Gabriel Byrne scooped up one of the last remaining units at exquisitely designed and detailed 211 Elizabeth Street. The debonaire, salt-and-pepper haired actor paid $3,360,225 for the two-bedroom, two-bathroom Roman and Williams-designed bespoke beauty which features Calcatta gold marble in the bathrooms, a wood-burning fireplace (rare in a new buiding) and sleek herringbone parquet floors. The Irish actor has gained recent critical acclaim for his turn as psychotherapist, Dr. Paul Weston in the HBO drama, In Treatment. The originally Los Angeles-based show now shoots in New York which may explain the Miller's Crossing star's NoLita purchase. The apartment was listed by Stribling's Sean Turner and Mary-Ellen Cashman. Filed: 4.30.10

Former House of Representatives member from Connecticut's second district, Sam Gejdenson and wife, Betsy Henley Cohn bought an apartment at 470 Park Avenue for $2.195 million from the estate of Odette Sharow. The high-floor, herringbone parquet floored apartment was listed with Sotheby's Royce Pinkwater and was once the "front, best rooms of a full-floor apartment." Filed: 4.30.10

Michael Rashid Kizilbash, creative director at the advertising firm Juice Pharma and his wife, senior vice president of program development at A&E television, Nancy Dubuc Kizilbash, sold their Chelsea apartment at 775 Sixth Avenue. David and Pamela Baker bought the four-bedroom, top floor corner loft for $1,762,500. The sun-drenched loft which features "enormous tilt and turn picture windows" and wide-plank floors boasts a "pin-drop" quiet master suite which includes a deep jacuzzi tub. It was listed by Halstead's Richard Orenstein and Debra Ortega. Filed: 4.29.10

Tuesday: 90210
Donna Martin integrates? Nostalgia gets a boost this week as Tori Spelling becomes the latest former 90210 star to return to Beverly Hills for the reboot. Apparently, Donna has been off in Japan becoming a famous fashion designer with her husband, David Silver, but a rough patch in their blissful union has caused her to return stateside. Brian Austin Green won’t be making an appearance during the episode, but both Diablo Cody and Ben Lyons will. If the idea of Diablo Cody, Ben Lyons and Tori Spelling sharing the screen just made your head explode, you’re not alone. [The CW, 9 p.m.]

Wednesday: What Happens in Vegas
Speaking of Ms. Cody… we’ve been pretty much addicted to all things “Fempire” since reading that ill-begotten New York Times Style section piece on the screenwriting club-for-girls. For the uninitiated, “The Fempire” includes Ms. Cody, Dana Fox, Lorene Scafaria and Liz Meriwether, and for some reason, their exploits both fascinate and repel us on a daily basis. (Ms. Cody’s interminable Twitter feed might also have something to do with this.) Ms. Fox, a Stanford graduate, is responsible for What Happens in Vegas, a standard romantic comedy that actually gets lifted out of the doldrums by its exceptional cast. In addition to always-charming megastars Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, What Happens in Vegas features under-the-radar people like Rob Corddry, Zack Galifianakis, Andrew Daly, Lake Bell and Jason Sudekis, proving that the line between mainstream Hollywood and niche comedy is blurrier than ever. [HBO2, 6:15 p.m.]

Thursday: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Director Stanley Kramer, best known for overwrought audience pleasers like Inherit the Wind and, later, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, wanted to make the ultimate comedy, so he cast a litany of stars—Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, Spencer Tracy, Carl Reiner, Milton Berle, Sid Ceasar, Mickey Rooney and many others—for this jokey caper. Predictably, the results are overwrought (and overlong), but there is something bizarrely transfixing about watching Hollywood royalty take pratfalls for three hours. [AMC, 8 a.m.]

Friday: Prison Break
After four seasons, two prisons, countless red herrings and one decapitation-that-wasn’t, Prison Break returns this week to begin its slow march toward the great television heaven in the sky (the series finale will air on May 15th). We would never go as far as Stephen King, who called the illogical series one of his favorites, but it will be missed. Despite massive flaws, Prison Break was always good for a laugh, or, at the very least, an exaggerated eye roll. Here’s hoping the series ends with everyone on a spaceship to Mars. Oh wait, that already happened on another show… [Fox, 9 p.m.]

Things start off this Sunday with the two-hour series premiere of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Based on the best selling books by Alexander McCall Smith, Ladies’ stars R&B singer Jill Scott as a recently divorced Botswanan woman who opens her own detective agency. (The title, in this case, is very literal.) Ladies’ appears to be the type of series that we see so little of on HBO—a light-hearted procedural that won’t be caked in Shakespearean tragedy; that the pilot was co-written by Love, Actually’s Richard Curtis and the late Anthony Minghella should tell you all you need to know about Ladies’ tone. Additionally, cinephiles should take note: Mr. Minghella directed Sunday’s pilot before passing away last spring, and it represents the last chance anyone will have to see new work from the Oscar-winner.

The following Sunday brings the return of In Treatment. We’ll admit we never got on board with season one—the five-night-per-week commitment was too steep—but we’ll try again in season two. This time around, the series locale has shifted to Brooklyn, affording Golden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne the chance to analyze a whole batch of new patients, including Hope Davis, John Mahoney and Milk’s Alison Pill. HBO has wisely decided to focus the half-hour drama down into two nights instead five, a scheduling maneuver that increases the chance of us watching by ten-fold. The early reviews have been solid, with special attention being paid to Mr. Mahoney, playing a corporate CEO replete with secrets (talk about good timing). However, we’re most interested in Ms. Pill’s episodes, where the talented actress stars as a 20-something recently diagnosed with cancer. Spoiler alert: Those sessions are going to be sad!

As if all that weren’t enough, on April 18 the much-discussed adaptation of the Maysles brothers documentary Grey Gardens comes to HBO with Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore starring as Big and Little Edie Bouvier Beale, respectively. The preview alternates between high camp and soul-crushing sadness, and we aren’t actually sure what to make of Ms. Barrymore’s accent, which at once seems both over-the-top and dead perfect. Still, the chance to see Ms. Lange perform is probably worth the DVR space alone.

Of course, this is all a prelude to the summer, when Entourage and True Blood return with new seasons. This year they’ll be joined on the HBO roster by Hung, a new series from Sideways director Alexander Payne. Hung stars Anne Heche, Jane Adams and Thomas Jane, playing a high-school gym teacher with a really big … well, think about the ending of Boogie Nights and you can probably figure out where this series is going. As they say, “It’s not TV, it’s HBO.”

It’s George Bush’s final State of the Union (All Networks, 9 p.m.). Incidentally, the one year when the networks are scrambling for programming and therefore probably welcome the intrusion is the one year where no one could care less. The failing economy, Iraq, and his legacy will more than likely be on the agenda. Watch and wait for the presidential candidates to trip over themselves trying to respond first.

Speaking of wastes of time, it can’t replace an actual new episode, but Gossip Girl Revealed (CW, 8 p.m.) should satisfy your weekly fix for the posh adolescents. In the show’s new time slot, it promises plenty of bonus features—commentary, deleted scenes, profiles—and a re-airing of the pilot. Sadly, this is meant as an introduction to the uninitiated and harkens the beginning of repeats. Oh, they’re too young to die!

Bonus: Hackensack! Livingston! Edison! Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (FOOD, 10 p.m.), in what must have been its most daunting challenge to date, shows you were to grab a bite, if you dare, while traveling along the New Jersey Turnpike.

TUESDAY

Sure, there’s American Idol (Fox, 8 p.m.), but if you’re looking for a poor performance to enliven your spirits look no further than Rudy Giuliani’s tonight while competing in the Florida Primary. His “firewall” is looking more like a deathtrap. Now, that’s entertainment!

Gabriel Byrne follows in HBO’s long tradition of shows built around therapy with In Treatment [9:30 p.m.]. It’s on every night, which a different “client” taking up each half-hour episode. Tonight, it’s Alex’s (Blair Underwood) turn on the couch. He’s a cocky Navy pilot who’s had a “disastrous” mission in Iraq, but acts like nothing is wrong. Hold him, Gabriel, and tell him “It’s not your fault.” (See: Monday night.) That should work.

WEDNESDAY

It’s a night of bad reality. (Isn’t that every night? Ha!) Crowned (CW, 8 p.m.) finally crowns its “winners,” while MTV’s Making of the Band 4 (8 p.m.) kicks off. (Do they keep trying until they succeed? Because that is the only reasonable explanation for a fourth season.) There’s Wife Swap (ABC, 8 p.m.) whose premise sounds like a bad Henny Youngman joke. (Take my wife …) And, of course, more Idol (Fox, 8 p.m.) But all of these pales in comparison to a repeat of the Lost season three finale (ABC, 9 p.m.), which paves the way for …

THURSDAY

… the beginning of the fourth season! The big night commences with Lost: Past, Present and Future, a look back at the first three seasons. What it can’t really tell you is the future of the show, since not even the writers know that, as they are on strike. So far, there are eight episodes in the can. Before the strike, the plan was to have three more sixteen-episode seasons, with the finale slated for 2010. In order to meet that schedule, there is a chance that this season will be abbreviated. But if—and it’s a big if—the strike ends in the next couple of weeks, the network is hopeful they can run it in its entirety. Here’s hoping! Nonetheless, tonight’s episode (9 p.m.) offers a respite, however small, from the ravages and degradations of the strike. Finally, it will feel as if 2008, as far as TV is concerned, has finally begun. Take that Idol.

FRIDAY

NBC has put together a nice little Friday night with the game show 1 vs. 100 (8 p.m.), Friday Night Lights (9 p.m.), and Las Vegas (10 p.m.), all new. At the moment, there is little competition, with the rest of the networks’ shows in repeats. But this idyll won’t last for long. CBS is set to launch primetime episodes of The Price Is Right starting Feb. 22. Who they’re going to get to “come on down” is another story.

On Mondays, Paul meets with Laura, a stunning young woman played by Alias’ Melissa George (think Angelina Jolie’s sensuality crossed with Jennifer Garner’s girly innocence) who claims that she is in love with him. On Tuesdays, he spars with Alex (Blair Underwood of Dirty Sexy Money, Sex and the City and … L.A. Law!), a cocky Navy pilot who needs to confront the atrocities he committed in war, but who is also skeptical of therapy. On Wednesdays, Mia Wasikowska arrives as Sophie, a quick-witted teenage girl who has a peculiar relationship with her gymnastics coach; she is seeking a psychological assessment for an insurance claim after getting into a bicycle accident that broke both of her arms. On Thursdays, he sits down with an unhappy couple: a moody, suspicious husband played by Josh Charles (remember the 90’s cutie who swooned over ladies in Dead Poet’s Society and got naked with a Baldwin in Threesome?) and his wife, a career woman played by Embeth Davidtz (she was the art dealer in Junebug), who are trying to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy.

On the show, Paul is sagacious and soothing in his sessions. But when he meets with his own therapist (played by Oscar winner Dianne Wiest) on Friday evenings, he is troubled and egotistical. Mr. Byrne, best known as crooked cop Dean Keaton in Bryan Singer’s 1995 crime drama The Usual Suspects, seemed to emit all of those characteristics on a chilly afternoon last week at the HBO offices overlooking Bryant Park. He wore a sharp black suit and a pink shirt, which brought out the red hue of his Irish, ruddy skin and sharpened his fierce blue eyes. He has an intense presence that makes your pulse speed up as he speaks in his lilting Irish brogue about “erotic transference,” intimacy and revealing one’s most inner secrets. But when he leans back in his chair and intertwines his fingers, his giant Celtic ring glowing on his ring finger, he emits a warm calm as he waits for the next question. He is listening.

“The idea of revealing who you are to another person is a fundamental need in all human beings,” Mr. Byrne said. “The act of listening to another person is emotionally draining. It’s also one of the greatest compliments you can pay to another person, is to say they can really listen, to really hear what they’re saying.”

Many of Paul’s patients on the show don’t want him to just sit and listen. They provoke him, prod him, and demand approval or validation of their decisions to confirm their sanity. But Paul must remain composed. He calmly sits in his chair, almost stoical, to help them find answers to their problems within themselves.

“Who we become when we’re confronted with authority figures is interesting,” Mr. Bryne said. “Whether it’s a father figure, mother figure”—his Irish dialect makes “figure” sound like “figger”— “people have the need to be approved of, the need to please. I would imagine that would get in the way of therapy, that you can actually find yourself saying, ‘I need to impress this person … make them approve of me, make them like me.’”

Of his own character, Mr. Byrne said: “Basically, he’s a man in midlife crisis, for want of a better description. He’s a human being, with all of the emotion and complexities and the vulnerabilities and the frailties of a man in his middle age. [Paul’s patients] are all talking about more or less the same issues that he is dealing with. What are those issues? The issues that kind of unite everybody, patient and doctor, man and women. It’s love, sex, intimacy, family, relationships. They’re the things that we all struggle with.”

IT’S TRUE, THESE are universal problems—many of which we’d all like to ignore. So HBO is taking a risk in hoping viewers of In Treatment will have the patience (and dedication) to leap into each patient’s small, disturbing world each night of the week for nine weeks.

The show is based on an Israeli television program that became a ratings skyrocket and swept the country’s television awards (from best drama series to best actor and actress). HBO is hoping to find similar success in a country where self-help books dominate the bookstore shelves and an ever-increasing number of its citizens have sought help from a professional therapist. And that very success rests largely on the appeal of Mr. Byrne, whom audiences will watch each night for more than two months as he listens to his patients.

Mr. Byrne isn’t worried about his convincingness as a shrink. He says his favorite pastime is listening. The eldest of six kids born to a Guinness brewery factory worker and a nurse in working-class Dublin, he comes from a country with a culture based on people having their own little therapy sessions over beer at dingy pubs and watering holes.

Mr. Byrne studied at a seminary for a short time to become a priest. (The Catholic Church’s confession is one of the early models of a therapy session. “Only they offered penance, of course,” Mr. Byrne explained.) But he soon skedaddled to university, to study archaeology and linguistics. (Again with the listening!) He was a bullfighter and a Spanish teacher before becoming an actor at age 29. He didn’t come to the States until he was 37 years old.

Mr. Byrne recently relocated from his Brooklyn Heights home for a temporary move to Tribeca, which seems to drown out all of the pleasant city dialogue he loves so much. “God, the noise of it,” he winces. “At all hours and the soullessness of it. It feels like a very dislocated place to me, of guys in striped shirts living in lofts, walking on treadmills at 10 o’clock at nighttime and garbage trucks making this horrendous, grating noise at 1, 2 o’clock in the morning. Brooklyn is like the countryside in comparison.”

Mr. Byrne feels most at home in Brooklyn’s cafes, especially a spot between State and Atlantic, where he pretends to read the newspaper while actually listening in on conversations, lovers’ spats and old men prattling on about whatever is in the news. “So much of my life isn’t really about acting at all,” he said. “The time I spend acting is very small in comparison to the time I spend loping about aimlessly, sitting in cafes.

“Isn’t it one of the great, of the last, free pastimes to sit and watch other people be just people and what they do?” he said with a wry smile. “I love earwigging, just listening in on conversations. I’ve perfected the art.”

In Treatment premieres
Monday, Jan. 28, at 9:30 p.m. on HBO.

New feminist trend? We've noticed lately that Manhattan women, who used to be-let's face it-rather lupine and self-absorbed , have been teaming up and cleaning up ! Take a) power hostesses Cynthia Rowley (clothing designer) and Ilene Rosenzweig (writer); b) nannies-turned-joint-authoresses Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus ; and c) Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt , who co-wrote and co-star in the motion picture Kissing Jessica Stein , which opens today sans fancy premiere because the skinflints at Fox wouldn't fork up. The plot: Tired of the dating grind, a straight female New York journalist, played by Ms. Westfeldt, answers a personal ad from another damsel, played by Ms. Juergensen … va-va-va-voom! Ms. Westfeldt, the blond one , is from Connecticut ; Ms. Juergensen is a bonny brunette from Flatbush . They are "around 30" and in committed heterosexual relationships. "My boyfriend recently asked me if I had any proposal fantasies," said Heather. "He did ?" squealed Jennifer. How did H&J meet? "It was a theater workshop in the Catskills," said Jennifer in breathy girlspeak, "a kind of camp, a lab. It was very, very by-the-seat-of-your-pants-it was a wonderful spontaneous environment-and we were bunkmates!" How does the collaboration work? Jennifer: "We kind of bounce off each other ; we like to embrace life and we're both curious, and if we notice something that we're both intrigued by, it's like, 'Wow, hmmm-look at that!'" Heather: "We really came at this with such naïveté that really served us well, because if we hadn't been that way, we would've been so discouraged. I think the wide-eyed 'why not?' energy is helpful with filmmaking, because it's so impossible ." What's next? Jennifer: "We are actresses first. The dream would be that the Steven Soderberghs and Cameron Crowes and Ang Lees of this world would just want to cast us-that would be the ultimate crazy dream -but in lieu of that, we'll just keep writing our own rules!" You go , sister girlfriend(s)!

[777-FILM.]

Thursday 14th

Called to the carpet: If the shelter mags are to be believed, New Yorkers are responding to the terrorist incursion of Sept. 11 thusly: They're gardening more, they're eating great big piles of mashed potatoes, and they don't like feeling the cold floor beneath their feet. Today, the Stark Carpet Corporation begins a warehouse sale: up to 80 percent off hand-knotted rugs, needlepoints, sisals, broadlooms, Orientals, Tibetan rugs, Berbers, Kilims, Dhurries, stair runners-personally, our Precious likes the feel of a nice white shag under his pedicured paws …. Later, if you're in the mood for one of those "parties in a store," where you go for the free plonk, never win the raffle, and have the unsettling feeling all night that you are part of a marketing strategy cooked up in some midtown boardroom: furniture manufacturer Mitchell Gold opens a "store-within-a store" at Stark rival ABC Carpet & Home.

[Sale, Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, 10 a.m., 752-9000; Party, 888 Broadway, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 914-767-0964]

Friday 15th

The sweet stench of success: O.K., so last night was also the posh opening night of Sweet Smell of Success on Broadway with John Lithgow , but we still don't understand why anyone would monkey around with the movie, and we especially don't see why they would put that chap from Third Rock in it, but this is revival city, honey! (See Oklahoma, The Crucible, Our Town , 42nd Street , I Love You, The Producers, etc.) Fortunately, the 1957 movie version of Sweet Smell , starring swish Tony Curtis , is beginning a two-week run tonight at the good old reliable Film Forum.

[ Sweet Smell of Success , play, Martin Beck Theatre, 302 West 45th Street, 8 p.m., 239-6200; movie, Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, 727-8110.]

Saturday 16th

Be their Gest? Plucky little songbird Liza Minnelli weds manager-producer-studmuffin David Gest tonight in front of a guest list that could keep The National Enquirer busy for years: Michael Jackson, Mia Farrow, Liz Taylor …. Bring the happy couple a $475 punch ladle from Tiffany's, then thwack her on the rump with it for good luck as she saunters down the aisle. Meanwhile, a mere half-mile south, the Empire State Pride Agenda hosts its "Night of 100 Parties" for lesbian and gay civil rights. Hey, they may not have Whitney Houston, but they do have D.J. David Knapp from Atlanta, back by popular demand! We're betting Mr. Gest pops by for a post-nuptial cordial.

[Minnelli-Gest nuptials, Marble Collegiate Church, 1 West 29th Street, we can't say exactly when; Empire State Pride Agenda's "Night of 100 Parties" fund-raiser, Altman Building, 135 West 18th Street, 8 p.m., 627-0305.]

Sunday 17th

Byrne, baby, Byrne! So today is St. Patrick's Day, and you were so caught up in the Minnelli-Gest affair yesterday that you totally spaced on the parade, which was held a day early this year because the holiday falls on a Sunday-but buck up , bronco, because New York's Irish Arts Center and darkly handsome actor Gabriel Byrne are co-presenting The Kings of the Kilburn Road , a black comedy set in modern-day London. The plot: Six Irish blokes reunite in a pub for a wake. "This is about a rough, tough area in London which is so tragically close to Ireland, but so tragically removed," said I.A.C. artistic director Pauline Turley in a charming semi-brogue. "The characters are all played by 50-year-old Irish men. We brought the entire cast over from Ireland; we have them in a hotel. Gabriel's such an intellectual, such a passionate, wonderful person-he has really been our guardian angel. When we gave our dinner dance, he was physically on the phone saying, 'You have to support this great institution.' He wrote a letter, he gave us his whole Rolodex, he auctioned himself off." So he'll be there tonight? "Unfortunately, he's in Australia filming right now." Somebody tell Nicole Kidman!

[553 West 51st Street, 7 p.m., 206-1515.]

Monday 18th

As we bear down on the Oscars next week, the Broadway people seem to be putting on even more "razzmatazz" than usual, don't they? Tonight, increasingly ashen actor Matthew Broderick hosts a tribute to Julie Harris , veteran actress not to be confused with Julie Andrews . Meanwhile, in midtown, a pride of divas-Zoe Caldwell, Lea DeLaria, Sandy ("I can fly!") Duncan, Rue McClanahan, Bebe Neuwirth, the un-diva-ish Cynthia Nixon, Bernadette Peters, the Rockettes, Chita Rivera, etc. -put on a big show: kicking and performing and singing and dancing. It's called Nothing Like a Dame , and it benefits the Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative of the Actors' Fund of America. So far, this appears to be an Eve Ensler–free zone . (And no, Nathan Lane is not among these divas-like any true diva, he's going to be at the Julie Harris thing.)

[Julie Harris tribute, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center at 65th and Broadway, 7 p.m., 413-5101; Nothing Like a Dame , St. James Theater, 246 West 44th Street, 8 p.m., 840-0770.]

Tuesday 19th

Grapes group grope! Three ways to be "lightweight literary" tonight: 1) don something burlap and hit the big P.E.N. American Center centennial tribute to John Steinbeck , with playwright Arthur Miller ( bonus points if you can spot his Raphaelite-tressed daughter Rebecca ), oral historian Studs Terkel and priapic Paris Review editor George Plimpton (he just never quits, does he?); 2) Alan Furst putters in from Sag Harbor to read from his new thriller, Kingdom of Shadows ("This will be a big event . Lots of free Absolut vodka on hand," faxed a publicist); 3) authoress and blond babe Andes Hruby reads from her saucy new novel, The Trouble with Catherine , then relaxes at an exclusive, invitation-only book party at a bar around the corner. Bonus dirty excerpt (and more proof that those Penthouse "Forum" letters had a profound impact on 21st-century literature:) "I could feel him wanting me, pulling me tighter and starting to lust after me with his confidence. I surrendered, but as I slipped my tongue across his teeth I could feel my throat tighten …. He began cursing at me and then demanding to know if I was going to be his good little girl or just his fuck toy."

[John Steinbeck tribute, Alice Tully Hall, Broadway at 65th Street, 8 p.m., 721-6500; Alan Furst, Lenox Hill Bookstore, Lexington Avenue at 73rd Street, 6:30 p.m., 472-7170; Andes Hruby reading, 600 Fifth Avenue at 48th Street, 6 p.m.; party, Jack Rose, 771 Eighth Avenue at 47th Street, 7:30 p.m., by invitation only, 366-2223.]

Wednesday 20th

Call us cranks, but we feel rather venal about the vernal equinox , which occurs today at 2:16 p.m. The United Nations will ring a Peace Bell, school kids will try to balance eggs, and a sudden profusion of ladies in "fashionable" yet almost universally unflattering peasant blouses will promenade the avenues. It's also Earth Day, which means that a certain strain of Manhattan man is going to decide it's O.K. to expose his pasty legs in shorts and Birkenstocks , and bring a Frisbee to "toss around with the guys" at lunch time-and there's always one "sporty," tawny girl they invite along to join them, but it's never the Eight-Day Week, even though we can secretly run a sub-seven-minute mile!

V-Day Invasion! Last weekend we had a female-empowerment-fest at Madison Square Garden, with a splashy benefit reading by a slew of B-actresses of that profoundly overextended "sensation," The Vagina Monologues, which The New York Times can't help writing about because it's the only politically correct way for their writers to make "ribald" references …. And so today we get the anti-feminist backlash, as Bride's magazine stages a profoundly tacky "Marry Me Day" in Times Square. Live proposals on the big Astrovision screen! "For some people, it's not the way they want to get proposed to," said a publicist. "But for others, the more watching, the better." It's enough to make Fashion Week look positively deep by comparison. And speaking of that and anorexia: Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors and Catherine Malandrino-she who recently saddled up some cowboy chic-all show today…. Question for overwrought conspiracy theorists: Is there a link between Madonna's cowboy garb in her "Don't Tell Me" video and the Bush White House?

[Marry Me Day, Island in Times Square, 12:30 p.m., by invitation only, arrive by noon to secure V.I.P. credentials, 286-7053; Ralph Lauren, 387 West Broadway, 10 a.m., 434-8000; Michael Kors, tent at Bryant Park, 2 p.m., by invitation only, 221-1950; Catherine Malandrino, studio at Bryant Park, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 840-0106.]

Sticky balls! If your special "someone"-or "someones"- is (or are) out of town, and you don't want to spend the evening on the couch alone with the cat nibbling bon-bons and watching the Barbra Streisand concert, all is not lost! Option 1: the "Red Ball," which raises money to fight liver and pancreatic diseases and abused children, with the most motley assortment of co-chairs we've ever seen: Diana("Michael's Ex")Douglas Darrid, Barry ("Just Call Me Mr. Diane Von Furstenberg") Diller, suave baseball fellow Keith Hernandez, wee socialite Casey Johnson, songwriter and fun tabloid cover girl Denise Rich and Chita Rivera (a dancer? a banana?). What it'll cost ya: $750, minimum. Option 2: If you're beginning to feel that recession pinch, apply the Guggenheimlich mane-uver! Yes, the museum is throwing a "Day Ball" to benefit … itself! Your $150 at the door gets you "swanky sweets" catered by Restaurant Associates, the same outfit that runs the Condé Nast cafeteria-or, as pretentious types put it, the "commissary" or the "commish." On second thought, the couch is beginning to look pretty good ….

[Red Ball, Grand Ballroom, Waldorf-Astoria, 6:30 p.m. cocktails, dinner and dancing to follow, 753-3999; Guggenheim Love Affair, Fifth Avenue at 89th Street, 8 p.m., 423-3534.]

Thursday 15th

More proof that once-seamy Manhattan is morphing into a nice college town: today, a 30,000-square-foot branch of the Austin, Texas–based Whole Foods Market opens in Chelsea, with all the natural and organic junk you can stuff down your greedy gullet. Alas, you missed the opening party two days ago (with celebrity space cadets William Baldwin and Serena Altschul), but today the nice folks from Stonyfield Farms hand out a consolation prize: free yogurt! Burp. If you're not the eating kind, hit Fashion Week's "hipster" (a.k.a. $200 jeans) high points: Helmut Lang, Daryl K.

[Whole Foods Market, Seventh Avenue between 24th and 25th streets, 8 a.m., 924-5969; Helmut Lang, 1 p.m., location to be announced, by invitation only, Daryl K., 8 p.m., location to be announced, by invitation only, prank their snobby stores at 334-1014 and 674-5316, respectively.]

Three magazines you would never buy but might swipe off the Stairmaster in a moment of profound boredom have parties ce soir …. If you're a Yale grad-kinda stiff, ambisexual, majored in American Studies-crash a reception for Fareed Zakaria, the new editor of Newsweek International, held at Top of the Week-the next Moomba, perhaps? Meanwhile, at Saks, spunky New York Times Magazine style editor Amy Spindler co-hosts a party for ceaselessly hyped designer Miguel Adrover (that guy who turned a Burberry raincoat inside out, and the entire fashion pack rolled over like whipped dogs). If you're a trust-funded literary brat, head to your favorite quartier, the "edgy" Lower East Side, where Open City is charging eight bucks for one drink and its 12th issue-hey wait, that's not free! Thomas Beller alert goes to DEFCON 2.

[Newsweek, Top of the Week, 251 West 57th Street, 6:30 p.m., by invitation only, 445-5325; Miguel Adrover, Saks Fifth Avenue, 611 Fifth Avenue, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 940-4242; Open City, Luna Lounge, 171 Ludlow Street, 7 p.m., 625-9048.]

Friday 16th

Jazz-ercise: You know that wrestling match over the remote control you have with your boyfriend every Wednesday (you want to watch Temptation Island, he wants to watch that never-ending, "virtuous" documentary, Ken Burns' Jazz)? Tell your man there's a reception at Chartwell Booksellers, where they're selling the photos they used in the film for $700-$2,700 a pop, and hand him your Metrocard. But do not-do not-lend him the money to buy one of the damn photos.

[Chartwell Booksellers, 55 East 52nd Street, 6 p.m., 308-0643.]

Eine Klein Nachtmusik? Fashion Week shudders to a close, perhaps literally, as hollow-eyed mini-socialite Nikki Hilton and Last Tango in Paris star Maria Schneider "strut" the catwalk for obscure designer Lloyd Klein (bring butter!). This is clearly a desperate bid to steal attention from that other Klein, Calvin, who is taking a break from hanging around the Mercer Hotel lobby in jeans and T-shirt to show his stuff today as well.

[Lloyd Klein, studio, Bryant Park, Sixth Avenue between 40th and 42nd streets, 2 p.m., by invitation only, 643-4810; Calvin Klein, 450 West 15th Street, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 292-9793.]

Saturday 17th

Weekend with the kids? You are set-load up on latte and take the Dalton-bound brats to a bright and early performance of David Mamet's Revenge of the Space Pandas-yes, the terse playwright with a penchant for four-letter words and sticking his current wife in his movies (to questionable effect) also writes for the kiddies! The plot: Protagonist Binky Rudich invents a clock which allows him to travel through space and time; he and his best friends, Vivian and Bob the Sheep, spin off the earth and land on the planet Crestview, which is ruled by the Evil George Topax and his army of Space Pandas. Sounds a bit like Pigs in Space meets House of Games. Once you've got the tykes hopped up on chocolate bars, drag them to see the babe ballerina Ursula Prenzlau in Tales from Hans Christian Andersen, kind of a Cliffs Notes of a real ballet. Do not-do not-ask the kids, "Wouldn't it be nice if Daddy married a ballerina? Wouldn't you like that?"

[Revenge of the Space Pandas, Atlantic Theater Company, 336 West 20th Street, 10:30 a.m., 691-5919; Tales from Hans Christian Andersen, Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, 1 and 6 p.m., 355-6160.]

Sunday 18th

Make your kids some organic pancakes and then take them to a tribute to the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks out in verdant Park Slope-their idea of "the country." Special guest Nikki Giovanni offers fodder for future Brown applications ….

[Central Library, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, 2 p.m., 718-230-2767.]

Monday 19th

Babe ballerinas, part 2: February is ballet month! It's like all the anorexia of Fashion Week has to find another outlet …. Kirov grad Nadia Veselova-Tencer, who migrated in 1979 to … Canada? (yes, we know Russia was grim in the late 70's-but could it have been that grim?) … directs Stars of the 21st Century, an international ballet gala featuring Bernice Coppieters from the Ballet de Monte-Carlo, Anna Antonicheva from the Bolshoi and Cyril Pierre from the San Francisco Ballet; they'll be doing their little tragic black-swan numbers. (We think ballet's better than thea-tuh; at least you don't really have to concentrate and laugh in the right moments … you can be a passive audience, and just zone out and enjoy the spectacle of fluttering tulle and throbbing packages …)

[New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue, 7:30 p.m., 870-5570.]

Tuesday 20th

Byrne, baby, Byrne! No, not the haunted, dusky sex object Gabriel Byrne, sadly…. Read on, dear reader: Brazilian artist Vik Muniz socks New York with a triple punch: a) a "public art project" called Clouds (a plane will draw a series of clouds over the Manhattan skyline, very North by Northwest); b) an exhibit at the Whitney Museum called The Things Themselves: Pictures of Dust (basically, sculptures created from dust culled from the museum's floors; bring your Electrolux!); and c) a benefit for a new documentary about himself called Worst Possible Illusion: The Curiosity Cabinet of Vik Muniz. The committee includes artist Cindy Sherman, actor Oliver Platt and former Talking Head David Byrne (a cautionary example of what happens when you break up your band too early …).

[Clouds, up in the sky above your head, call Clouds hotline at 206-6674, ext. 254, for late-breaking reports; The Things Themselves, Whitney Museum of American Art, consult your phone book; benefit screening, Village East, 189 Second Avenue, 6 p.m., dinner to follow in some artist's East Village studio, 206-6674, ext. 213.]

Wednesday 21st

What? The penultimate episode of Temptation Island? Our NYTV columnist scorns us, but we will be lost, adrift without Kaya, Billy, Mandy and all our pals. No matter, we have our own Temptation Island right here on Manhattan, except the participants are somewhat paler and softer …. And we got artists-loads of 'em! Tonight, this guy named Paul McCarthy is having an installation called The Box; visitors enter something that looks like a workshop filled with boxes, tools and "found objects" (artspeak for "trash") and then discover that the entire thing … has been set on its side! Holy cow!

[The Box, 590 Madison Avenue, 980-4575, 6 p.m.; Temptation Island, FOX, 9 p.m.]