-Matthew Schuerman

It could be that I have a bias against the small dramas of members of East Side co-op boards, in which case the kindly Mr. Grodin will surely forgive me. And so, I trust, will his children. And his children’s children. But who is his new play, The Right Kind of People, for—except board members of East Side co-ops? Even then, I can’t be certain.

According to Mr. Grodin, East Side co-op board members are very picky people, particularly when they live in a landmarked building as the characters in his play do. For one thing, they wouldn’t appreciate the East Side apartments onstage at 59E59 Theaters. They would take one look at them and say they simply aren’t what they’re accustomed to. No apartment in the play is worth $15 million or $20 million. Or even a paltry $5 million.

For one thing, they don’t have a view of the park. They have a view of the audience. The audience is sound asleep, or worse, nodding, but the audience isn’t to blame. The meager apartments onstage are firstly represented by a schleppy sofa with an armchair and two chairs facing out to the auditorium in a row. (A third chair may be used when necessary.) Behind is another “luxury” apartment with a small coffee table, a drinks cabinet and two chairs. The other sterile little place on view has an all-purpose dining table and several chairs.

In other unappetizing words, we are looking at a furniture showroom. No one has ever lived there, and no one would wish to. The bad showroom set is visited by various elderly white people carrying files who sit in different areas and bicker a lot about the acceptable height of dogs in their building, dogs who eat dogs, the desirable age of children, or what one character describes as “the black man in the elevator thing.” And all of that might be fine, if not the answer to the mystery of the universe, provided there were evidence of any energy or life onstage.

Mr. Grodin is in earnest, however, and so was Abe Lincoln. The playwright quotes Lincoln in the playbill: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Or as Mrs. Lincoln is believed to have replied, “That’s all very well, Abe, but what do you know about the problems of East Side co-ops, eh?”

Not as much as Mr. Grodin, that’s for sure. Mr. Grodin also informs us in the Playbill that he served on a Fifth Avenue co-op board for several years in the 80’s and 90’s. “Early on,” he writes in “A Note from the Playwright,” “a board member casually commented that a prospective buyer clearly bought his clothes off the rack. I said, ‘I get my clothes off the rack.’ The board member said, ‘I know.’ When I realized that none of this was meant to be amusing, the idea of a play was born.”

Or as Einstein said, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” The decisive line—“I get my clothes off the rack”—is repeated in the play by the bewildered new member of the board, Tom Rashman (described by Mr. Grodin cryptically in his script as “40’s, intelligent, dry wit”). Compared to Tom, most of the board members are no longer in the spring of youth. Well-meaning folk ask why theater audiences aren’t getting any younger nowadays. The Right Kind of People is an answer.

There’s Tom’s uncle, Frank, described by Mr. Grodin as “60’s, an aggressive, edgy man capable of great warmth”; Doug Bernstein, “an amiable man, 50’s, 60’s, with an easy humor and a surprising tough side”; Coles Lange—a WASP, we presume—who’s in his 70’s; and Mrs. Butler, “a highly emotional, explosive woman in her 60’s.” Then there’s Mr. Barret “a gray-haired man in his 60’s with a short fuse,” someone else in his 60’s who’s “a bulldog,” and the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg, who haven’t “in any way tried to hide their Jewishness. They are warm and friendly.”

The Goldbergs are prospective buyers. The audience giggles when they enter looking warm and friendly and, well, Jewish, to be interviewed by the co-op board. Mr. Goldberg is wearing a yarmulke. The audience knows that the sole owner of Goldberg Apparel in 25 cities isn’t going to get into the building. And so does Coles Lange, to whom the words shmatte and farmisht are a foreign language, which indeed they are.

Much comedy is meant to take place, accompanied by serious undertones. But neither happens. What happens is a snooze. It is Mr. Grodin’s intention to show us that “many of us have more biases than we might be comfortable to admit.” Mr. Grodin must speak for himself. But all he has to offer us is a sleepy impression of foolish people with too much time on their hands. The action, such as it is, also involves a lame coup d’etat when a rival board takes over the building, and a soap-opera subplot when “drily witty” Tom, a neophyte theater producer, rebels against his uncle, the “edgy but capable of great warmth” Sam. Tom’s play, a moral fable about the Civil War, is cancelled.

That’s a shame. But the civil wars within The Right Kind of People are phony little wars of yammering inconsequence. Like the perennial New York magazine story on co-ops, unfortunately, Mr. Grodin tells us nothing we don’t already know—or would care to know. Worse, he tells it very s…l…o…w…l…y.

Wasn’t it Abe Lincoln who said, “Pick up the pace, for God’s sake”? Perhaps it wasn’t Abe Lincoln. Perhaps it was me. It’s said by theater people that if you want to know the rhythm of a play, listen to its playwright speak. It isn’t a foolproof method, but to be in Harold Pinter’s company, for example, is to find yourself appearing in one of his understated plays. The reticent Mr. Pinter speaks as his characters speak, and you end up doing the same. Now, it so happens that whenever I’ve seen Mr. Grodin on television, he seems to be living on another planet. There’s a glazed disconnect going on within him in the name of “wryness.” His strange, prolonged pauses can make you feel uncomfortable, as if he’s lost the plot. He tends to speak deliberately and s…l…o…w…l…y.

I don’t know whether Mr. Grodin’s odd persona is the reason for the peculiarly slow pace of the evening. But its rhythm is beyond sluggish. It’s funereal. I’ve never known anything quite like it, particularly for what is meant to be a breezy comedy. I’ve seen Robert Stanton (who plays Tom) shine in a number of productions. But he’s strangely ill at ease here, as if he doesn’t know whom he’s meant to be playing, or why. Nor would you, if you were he. Most of the seasoned cast appear to be weirdly hesitant, too. But if they spoke at a normal pace, Mr. Grodin’s already-slender 80-minute play would last—I promise you—a merciful hour.

The director is Chris Smith, and the set is designed by Annie Smart. The Right Kind of People is believed to have been successful at the Magic Theater in San Francisco.

It could be that I have a bias against the small dramas of members of East Side co-op boards, in which case the kindly Mr. Grodin will surely forgive me. And so, I trust, will his children. And his children’s children. But who is his new play, The Right Kind of People, for—except board members of East Side co-ops? Even then, I can’t be certain.

According to Mr. Grodin, East Side co-op board members are very picky people, particularly when they live in a landmarked building as the characters in his play do. For one thing, they wouldn’t appreciate the East Side apartments onstage at 59E59 Theaters. They would take one look at them and say they simply aren’t what they’re accustomed to. No apartment in the play is worth $15 million or $20 million. Or even a paltry $5 million.

For one thing, they don’t have a view of the park. They have a view of the audience. The audience is sound asleep, or worse, nodding, but the audience isn’t to blame. The meager apartments onstage are firstly represented by a schleppy sofa with an armchair and two chairs facing out to the auditorium in a row. (A third chair may be used when necessary.) Behind is another “luxury” apartment with a small coffee table, a drinks cabinet and two chairs. The other sterile little place on view has an all-purpose dining table and several chairs.

In other unappetizing words, we are looking at a furniture showroom. No one has ever lived there, and no one would wish to. The bad showroom set is visited by various elderly white people carrying files who sit in different areas and bicker a lot about the acceptable height of dogs in their building, dogs who eat dogs, the desirable age of children, or what one character describes as “the black man in the elevator thing.” And all of that might be fine, if not the answer to the mystery of the universe, provided there were evidence of any energy or life onstage.

Mr. Grodin is in earnest, however, and so was Abe Lincoln. The playwright quotes Lincoln in the playbill: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Or as Mrs. Lincoln is believed to have replied, “That’s all very well, Abe, but what do you know about the problems of East Side co-ops, eh?”

Not as much as Mr. Grodin, that’s for sure. Mr. Grodin also informs us in the Playbill that he served on a Fifth Avenue co-op board for several years in the 80’s and 90’s. “Early on,” he writes in “A Note from the Playwright,” “a board member casually commented that a prospective buyer clearly bought his clothes off the rack. I said, ‘I get my clothes off the rack.’ The board member said, ‘I know.’ When I realized that none of this was meant to be amusing, the idea of a play was born.”

Or as Einstein said, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” The decisive line—“I get my clothes off the rack”—is repeated in the play by the bewildered new member of the board, Tom Rashman (described by Mr. Grodin cryptically in his script as “40’s, intelligent, dry wit”). Compared to Tom, most of the board members are no longer in the spring of youth. Well-meaning folk ask why theater audiences aren’t getting any younger nowadays. The Right Kind of People is an answer.

There’s Tom’s uncle, Frank, described by Mr. Grodin as “60’s, an aggressive, edgy man capable of great warmth”; Doug Bernstein, “an amiable man, 50’s, 60’s, with an easy humor and a surprising tough side”; Coles Lange—a WASP, we presume—who’s in his 70’s; and Mrs. Butler, “a highly emotional, explosive woman in her 60’s.” Then there’s Mr. Barret “a gray-haired man in his 60’s with a short fuse,” someone else in his 60’s who’s “a bulldog,” and the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg, who haven’t “in any way tried to hide their Jewishness. They are warm and friendly.”

The Goldbergs are prospective buyers. The audience giggles when they enter looking warm and friendly and, well, Jewish, to be interviewed by the co-op board. Mr. Goldberg is wearing a yarmulke. The audience knows that the sole owner of Goldberg Apparel in 25 cities isn’t going to get into the building. And so does Coles Lange, to whom the words shmatte and farmisht are a foreign language, which indeed they are.

Much comedy is meant to take place, accompanied by serious undertones. But neither happens. What happens is a snooze. It is Mr. Grodin’s intention to show us that “many of us have more biases than we might be comfortable to admit.” Mr. Grodin must speak for himself. But all he has to offer us is a sleepy impression of foolish people with too much time on their hands. The action, such as it is, also involves a lame coup d’etat when a rival board takes over the building, and a soap-opera subplot when “drily witty” Tom, a neophyte theater producer, rebels against his uncle, the “edgy but capable of great warmth” Sam. Tom’s play, a moral fable about the Civil War, is cancelled.

That’s a shame. But the civil wars within The Right Kind of People are phony little wars of yammering inconsequence. Like the perennial New York magazine story on co-ops, unfortunately, Mr. Grodin tells us nothing we don’t already know—or would care to know. Worse, he tells it very s…l…o…w…l…y.

Wasn’t it Abe Lincoln who said, “Pick up the pace, for God’s sake”? Perhaps it wasn’t Abe Lincoln. Perhaps it was me. It’s said by theater people that if you want to know the rhythm of a play, listen to its playwright speak. It isn’t a foolproof method, but to be in Harold Pinter’s company, for example, is to find yourself appearing in one of his understated plays. The reticent Mr. Pinter speaks as his characters speak, and you end up doing the same. Now, it so happens that whenever I’ve seen Mr. Grodin on television, he seems to be living on another planet. There’s a glazed disconnect going on within him in the name of “wryness.” His strange, prolonged pauses can make you feel uncomfortable, as if he’s lost the plot. He tends to speak deliberately and s…l…o…w…l…y.

I don’t know whether Mr. Grodin’s odd persona is the reason for the peculiarly slow pace of the evening. But its rhythm is beyond sluggish. It’s funereal. I’ve never known anything quite like it, particularly for what is meant to be a breezy comedy. I’ve seen Robert Stanton (who plays Tom) shine in a number of productions. But he’s strangely ill at ease here, as if he doesn’t know whom he’s meant to be playing, or why. Nor would you, if you were he. Most of the seasoned cast appear to be weirdly hesitant, too. But if they spoke at a normal pace, Mr. Grodin’s already-slender 80-minute play would last—I promise you—a merciful hour.

The director is Chris Smith, and the set is designed by Annie Smart. The Right Kind of People is believed to have been successful at the Magic Theater in San Francisco.

Remember the mangy below-stairs bar on Houston Street with all of the smoke-stained sweaters stitched together and slung from the ceiling?

For a long time now it's been a multi-stage venue on Leonard Street in Tribeca, and even had a Los Angeles arm that was partly responsible for transforming Gwen Stefani from an imitator of Selecter into an international phenom.

Now the place is rolling out little Knitting Factories all over the country. It might even start in Boise, Idaho.

“Knitting Factory Entertainment will have over $20 million in revenue with this deal,” the new C.E.O. of something called Knitting Factory Entertainment told Crain's.

How are they doing it?

- Tom McGeveran

The two sides are already patrolling the no-fly zone of intellectual discourse, spying on each other's positions and bombing select targets. So far, most of the war of words has been devoted to the effects that gay marriage would have on gays and on society in general.

Partisans of gay marriage make the case that the possibility of formal unions would have an uplifting effect on gays themselves. Gays already have available the superficial trappings: Anyone can exchange rings, write vows as tacky as those written by young men and women, and even find hip clerics to bless the proceedings. But when the sanction of law is applied, these rituals will have a new meaning. Marriage will be the light at the end of the tunnel of discrimination and pathology-a chance to act as equals, and to stop acting out.

Opponents of gay marriage fear one more blow against an already shaky institution. For while millions of marriages occur every year, millions also dissolve in acrimony and indifference, with the state clumsily trying to pick up the pieces, as represented by underpaid single mothers and ill-raised children. Family turbulence has a million causes, from the pursuit of happiness to MTV attention spans, but one great cause is the law, which increasingly treats marriage not as an institution prior to specific forms of government, but as a contract-as serious as a car loan, maybe, less serious than a mortgage. Adding new sexual permutations to marriage will make it more malleable, less sturdy.

The debate over effects is both passionate and interesting, but it's clouded by uncertainty. To know the effect on gays, one would have to know something about gays, and who knows that? The philosopher Sidney Hook once asked, "What do homosexuals do?"-meaning "How do they have sex?" Hook knew everything about Karl Marx and John Dewey, but he didn't know what used to be illegal in Texas.

We laugh, but are we any the wiser? Gays-even our gay friends, to the extent we think of them as gay-are figures of heterosexual fantasy: monsters, liberators, arbiters of elegance; the list goes on and on. Gay spokesmen hammer at the bad stereotypes and leave the positive ones alone. Every gay person knows heterosexuality better than any straight person can ever know homosexuality, because every gay person had parents. How many gays will wish to repeat their parents' marriages?

The effect of gay marriage on marriage depends on the potency of small numbers. Gays are some small percentage of the population; some fraction of that fraction will choose marriage. What splash will that drop make in the great bucket of the republic? But physics teaches us the power of interrelation: A butterfly beats it wings, and a typhoon blows in the Pacific.

The presumed effects of gay marriage will be used to persuade others, and to rationalize one's own position. It seems to me that people hold one of three basic positions.

The first is pride. Why should there be something gays cannot do? To deny them marriage degrades them in their own estimation. Never scant the role of pride in the modern world. The political scientist Francis Fukuyama, who wrote the seductive and wrongheaded essay about the end of history, expanded it into a less seductive book that made one arresting new point: The drive for self-rule in the world comes from people's notions of their own worth. Every political movement, from the noble to the grotesque to the murderous, from Polish shipbuilders to Palestinian terrorists, is fueled by pride. Gay Pride is one subset.

The second position is: Huh? It is the conservatism of incomprehension, the judgment that is made before the question is posed. Who ever heard of such a thing as gay marriage? The late scholar John Boswell wrote a whole book trying to prove that there had been gay marriages in the late ancient world. He was looking for unicorns. Gay sex, gay love, gay love poems go back to Sappho and beyond, but no one ever thought of marrying men and men, and women and women, and we won't think of it now.

The third position is politeness, the great unwillingness-seemingly liberal, actually WASP-to disoblige one's acquaintances. Other cultures divide the world into kin and enemies. We acknowledge the people we shake hands with; with them, we do not wish for raised voices or awkward scenes. We may not know what gays do, but we know gays. They are one of us.

I doubt very much that we will extend the same consideration to Mormon polygamists. Now there is a tough subculture: Harassed by the world that lynched its prophet, Joseph Smith, then betrayed by their fellow Mormons when they decided that polygamy would have to be put on ice, the diehards retreated to rural Utah, Idaho and Arizona. Every once in a while, some cantankerous old goat is hauled into court, his 10 wives in tow. Don't look for any sympathy for them if they try to take the Gay Train, to raise their social status by aping Larry Kramer. Mormon polygamists worship a god, and breed like rabbits. They are not one of us.

The great question, which none of the three positions can convincingly address, is: Are we bodies, and if so, what effect does that have? Emerson wrote about "the iron wire on which the beads are strung." He thought the iron wire that controlled our destinies was temperament. Is there also a dash of biology in the alloy? Do our bodies give us options, and limit options? Are we discarnate souls, or dying animals? And should the law care?

Sprrrring -a-ding-ding! Yep, 'tis the season when New Yorkers take to shivering at outdoor café tables, squeaky basketball starts to be edged out by sleepy baseball, and superannuated actors crawl out of hibernation to do charming local gigs …. Today, former Cybill Shepherd sidekick Christine Baranksi reads from two John Guare plays, The Loveliest Afternoon of the Year and A Day for Surprises , at the somewhat beleaguered National Arts Club . The playwright-practically the only living one we can stand -will be there, which almost makes up for the sad little buffet lunch they put out. Oops , breaking news! Ms. Baranski just got a "part in L.A." (you go , sister girlfriend), or so a publicist told us, and will be replaced by either a) Kevin Bacon's wife Kyra Sedgwick (like a sultry Julia Roberts ), or b) bulimia survivor Ally Sheedy ! Stay tuned . Later, fleshy actor Alec Baldwin opens a Selected Shorts short-story reading series at Symphony Space . Tonight's theme: "New York Stories." Low-level Thomas Beller–Parker Posey watch in effect ….

[Baranski's replacement, National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, 12:45 p.m., 362-2560; Baldwin, Broadway at 95th Street, 8 p.m., 864-5400.]

He's a gambler! Meet Andy Bellin : Vassar grad, Paris Review contributing editor and author of Poker Nation: A High-Stakes, Low-Life Adventure into the Heart of a Gambling Country (not to be confused with former Letterman writer Jill A. Davis ' recently published dirty novel, Girls' Poker Night , nor Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation ). The new book is about Mr. Bellin's total fixation with poker, which he learned on his mother's knee at age 7 and which eventually led him to drop out of an astrophysics graduate program at Wesleyan. "My father is a reconstructive and plastic surgeon in New York, so he really dug the idea of me becoming a scientist," said the author, 33, "and he took the news kind of hard. And even at the time I was working at the Paris Review , people would say, 'Oh, what is Andy doing?' and my dad would say, 'He's a failed astrophysicist.'" Well, you can't really blame him-that's what George Plimpton always tells people about himself! "When people ask about the book, I feel like such a fantastic fraud," said Mr. Bellin. "I'm so bloody dyslexic, I'm like, 'What am I doing here? Isn't there someone more qualified?' Then I realize that all I'm really talking about is poker and me ." Tonight he'll be fêted at the Paris Review , where he was originally hired in 1995 to bring the magazine "into the 21st century." Alas, we think they still have rotary phones.

[George Plimpton's house, top-secret Upper East Side location, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 207-7590.]

Thursday 21st

Sex-in Soho? Don't you feel that, more and more, Manhattan

resembles a sort of tittery 18th-century salon, with women yammering about their bra-cup sizes to all and sundry? Short-story writer and spiffy-looking freelance journalist EmilyWhite readstonight from hernewtome, FastGirls:TeenageTribes and the Myth of the Slut , part of a budding subgenre of bawdypersonal memoir/criticism/reportage that includes Leora Tanenbaum's Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation and, of course, the queasy Elizabeth Wurtzel "feminist classic," Bitch . Meanwhile, a few blocks away, under the dull glare of those maudlin, energy-inefficient Towers of Light: doe-eyed author Ben Schrank celebrates his second novel, Consent , at the coyly named bar Happy Ending. Bonus dirty excerpt! "We kiss. It's more like we're licking each other. I have her hands pressed back, above that towel bar, up against the wall." And that's on page 16, folks! Later, this scene is re-enacted live and en masse as the "wild, downtown" sorts at Paper magazine-kind of like Talk , except still in business-celebrates its "Annual Beautiful People" issue, which has actor Billy Crudup on the cover because, as editor David Hershkovits explained to us, "He's in something on Broadway." (For those who are curious, he's in The Elephant Man.)

[ Fast Girls reading, Housing Works Used Book Store Café, 126 Crosby Street, 7 p.m., 334-3324; Consent party, Happy Ending, 302 Broome Street, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 334-9676; Paper magazine party, Pressure, 110 University Place, 9 p.m., by invitation only, 226-4405.]

Friday 22nd

Wigged-out gent! Englishman-in-New-York Paul Huntley has been messing around with actors' coiffures for 50 years! Yowza. A former actor, he learned his trade in London at a wig academy , was summoned here by Mike Nichols in the 1970's to do the hair for Uncle Vanya with Julie Christie and has remained ever since, though he finds the apartments in New York City "overheated." We asked for some "hair-raising" stories. " I try very hard to be diplomatic, but there are moments when you want to, perhaps, kill someone-but in the nicest possible way," he said. "I remember in a production of Lorelei , Carol Channing hadn't actually pinned her wig on terribly well, and she came on and did a routine and suddenly it totally fell off. She didn't care, bless her heart, she didn't care, she was a trooper-she just left it lying there and continued her routine in a stocking cap." What does he consider his"crowning"achievement? " I adored Amadeus when I did it; I love 18th-century. And I suppose TheProducers , because that's rather special-those wonderful chorus girls in it who look glorious." Tonight, in the theater world's last-ditch bid for attention before the Oscars on Sunday, Mr. Huntley receives the Theatre Development Fund's Irene Sharaff Artisan Award.

[Marriott Marquis, 1535 Broadway, cocktails and ceremony, Astor Ballroom, 6 p.m., installation of original costumes, wigs, etc. to follow, Sky Lobby, 37th floor, 221-0885.]

Saturday 23rd

Feeling puckish? Strap on your knee pads for a coed "Heroes in Uniforms" hockey charity tournament benefiting Sept. 11 charities, with the FDNY, NYPD and Port Authority teams going up against National Hockey League alumni plus a not-very-coed-sounding mix of famous people, like Alan Thicke ( Growing Pains ), 90210 refugee Jason Priestley and maybe tennis genius John McEnroe . Bring extra mouth guards.

[Chelsea Piers, 1 p.m., Pier 60, 888-430-5200.]

Sunday 24th

Oh, Oscie …. So we're total red-carpet whores , but our Precious booked a ski trip to some remote part of Idaho, where we're not even sure they have TV, for this weekend-nice going, baby ! Anyway, you can practically do the Oscar routine in your sleep: There's a) Entertainment Weekly 's minor-celebrity-studded, cigar-waving party at Elaine's , slightly more fraught this year because of all the loose talk that EW editor and thinking-woman's sex symbol Jim Seymore is being kicked upstairs by those meanies at Time Inc., or b) the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' official, if slightly creaky, celebration, to be held this year at Le Cirque and hosted by movie-of-the-week veteran Dina Merrill . "Yesterday we had this wonderful tasting lunch," said Ms. Merrill, who plans to wear a sequined evening coat atop a dress designed by Peggy Jennings. "The first course was a lobster dish, and it's from In the Bedroom because the guy was a lobster fisherman; and then the main course was lamb, inspired from GosfordPark ,with golden onion rings; and then dessert was a chocolate thing that had to do with A Beautiful Mind -it's something that reminds you of your youth." Burp! P.S.: If Moulin Rouge sweeps, we're gonna stay in Idaho and open a B&B.

[ Entertainment Weekly , Elaine's, 1703 Second Avenue, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 957-3005; official Academy party, Le Cirque 2000, 455 Madison Avenue, 6 p.m., by invitation only, 388-1400.]

Monday 25th

Two Davids: If you're gay, but not in that fake-lesbian man-titillating way (see Once and Again , Kissing Jessica Stein , Ally McBeal ): straighten your shoulder pads and stride down to Washington Square for this year's N.Y.U. Fales lecture, "Mommie Queerest: Joan Crawford and Gay Male Subjectivity," delivered by University of Michigan English professor David Halperin -not to be confused with Ecco Press editorial director Daniel Halpern (although, coincidentally, it is Small Press Week). If you're avowedly, insistently, almost-protesting-too-much straight : terse playwright David Mamet reads not-yet-published work at the 92nd Street Y. Don't bring Granny if she's not fond of four-letter words!

[Halperin, N.Y.U. Bobst Library, 70 Washington Square, 6:30 p.m., 998-2596; Mamet, 1395 Lexington Avenue, 8 p.m., 415-5500.]

Tuesday 26th

Bam or vroom? Overheated celebrity "chef" Emeril Lagasse may have been kicked off NBC, but he'll be a peacock tonight in Chelsea, where he and Child magazine are hosting a party for his new children's book, There's a Chef in My Soup! The man pushes spices pretty hard, so arm your tots with Ritalin and antacid …. Meanwhile, a bit farther uptown,

Rabelaisian society ladies like Marina Rust and Nathalie Gerschel Kaplan alight on the "steering committee" (get it?) for the New York International Auto Show's gala preview; richer-than-G*d comedian Jerry Seinfeld is a sponsor, and wrap-dress queen Diane von Furstenberg one of the honorary chairs. What it benefits: the East Side House Settlement in the South Bronx, a region that would have much better air quality if they'd clear out all the cars.

[Emeril Lagasse book party, Chelsea Market, 75 Ninth Avenue, 7 p.m., by invitation only, 499-8149; New York International Auto Show, Jacob Javits Convention Center, 655 West 34th Street, 6:30 p.m., 718-292-7392.]

Wednesday 27th

Hoary performers continue to spread their "spring wings " as once-comedic actor Robin Williams , having successfully passed through the touchy-feely, sincere teddy-bear thespian phase (one can only hope) that perhaps reached its apogee in Good Will Hunting , returns for his first stand-up comedy gig in 15 years. Tonight, he tells lowbrow dirty jokes in highbrow Carnegie Hall-not bad for the former Mork from Ork, eh?

[57th Street and Seventh Avenue, 8 p.m., 247-7800.]