Bedos, Richard, Fonda, Rich and Chaplin in All Together.

Jane Fonda’s first French-speaking film in 40 years finds her leading a joyous ensemble of septuagenarians in a sweet, thoughtful and spirited examination of how to grow old with dignity and pride in a regrettable era when senior citizens have been reduced to the status of a political agenda. At 74, Ms. Fonda is a testament to the benefits of exercise, the stimulation of cognitive effort, up-to-the-minute cosmetics, a healthy lifestyle—and the money to afford them all. She is glorious at any age, in any language, and is a class act on the screen who is always welcome. 

In All Together, sensitively directed by Stéphane Robelin from his own intelligent screenplay, five close friends for 40 years who begin to sense, feel and smell their own mortality decide to bypass the cruel third act that awaits them, circumventing the inevitable horrors of the retirement home by moving in together. Jeanne (Fonda), born in America but living in France for most of her life, looks young enough to be the others’ granddaughter, but she’s an academic dying of an unspecified terminal disease who keeps her condition secret and confides in no one. Her husband, Albert (Pierre Richard), is a celebrated photographer in the early stages of Alzheimer’s who is losing his touch, balance and memory. Their friends Annie and Jean (Geraldine Chaplin and Guy Bedos) fight constantly, their outbursts fueled by the futility and frustration of Jean’s eroding virility as a left-wing political activist. He still finds plenty of passionate causes to protest, but nobody pays much attention to the anger and drive of an old man; even the police refuse to arrest him for disturbing the peace. The odd man out in their group is Claude (Claude Rich), a randy bachelor who still clings to his dwindling reputation as a lady-killer. His libido is still active, but his heart not on par with his sex drive. Climbing the stairs to visit a prostitute, he suffers a stroke. Gathering around his bed in the hospital while his grown son demands that he move to a pensioners’ home, the friends make a life-altering decision to move into Annie and Jean’s spacious home. If anything worse happens, Jeanne rationalizes, “we could all help each other cope.” In France, the movie is called And If We All Lived Together, which is probably a better title. From the day they all transport their books, music, creature comforts and boxes of belongings to the new house, the trajectoryfollows them through the experiences of aging—both funny and touching—with affection and compassion. Clearly they need each other to keep going. And the thread that links them is Jeanne’s handsome dog walker Dirk (Daniel Bruhl, who played the German war hero in Quentin Tarantino’s unforgettable Inglourious Basterds), an ethnology student who is studying them, culturally and domestically, for a Ph.D. dissertation he’s writing on senior citizens. Nothing of portentous profundity happens to address the Big Issues—Annie turns the garden into a swimming pool for her grandchildren, Albert’s dementia grows, and Claude bribes Dirk to fill a prescription for Viagra—but the inevitably sad ending is leavened by a sense of community that continues even after death. The acting is solid, and the maturity of vision mixed with humor should appeal to the same audience that turned The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel into such an unexpected runaway hit. Jane Fonda may be the marquee value, but she does not act like a star. Admirably, she fits into the veteran ensemble like the seasoned pro she is, and in All Together, she’s only one of the many important and diverse pieces of a jigsaw devoted to Ruth Gordon’s premise that age is only something they stamp in your passport.

rreed@observer.com

ALL TOGETHER

Running Time 96 minutes

Written and Directed by Stéphane Robelin

Starring Guy Bedos, Daniel Brühl and Geraldine Chaplin

3/4

Jane Fonda (Getty Images)

With so many ballyhooed movies coming out this fall, it’s hard to keep up with the classics on our “To Watch … Someday” list—who has the time to sit down with the Criterion Collection when there are so many premieres of flicks we actually want to see? Tonight the Darby celebrates the odd coupling of classic cinema and a downtown party as Jane Fonda hosts a tribute to her Oscar-winning film Klute. The paranoid drama features Ms. Fonda as a call girl on the run—but don’t fret, tonight’s klatch is all about fun. Celebrity ringleader Andy Cohen is billed to emcee the evening, interviewing the featured icon as well as stand-up raunch-tress Sandra Bernhard, who will be leading an auction for Ms. Fonda’s Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention.

The Darby, 244 West 14th Street, 8pm, tickets and information can be found at gcapp.org/klute.

Fonda in Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding.

Jane Fonda is always a welcome antidote to the hackneyed drivel of today’s movies, even when she’s relegated to sharing the screen with also-rans like Jennifer Lopez and Lindsay Lohan. In her career zenith, she could always be counted on to bring both complexity and nuance to the least deserving roles. At 74, she hasn’t forgotten a thing. With a wonderful, careful and admiring director, she gives even a routine picture unbridled energy, craft and an extra dash of class above and beyond the script. All reasons to embrace Bruce Beresford’s warm, polished, feel-good comedy Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding. 

Jane plays Grace, a beautiful remnant of Woodstock, an aging hippie in upstate New York who long ago surrendered the ties that bind free spirits to conventional social acceptance. She tends her kiln, barters for supplies with her art, grows chickens while holding war protests every Saturday. She’s a vigilant flower child who has given up nothing including her marijuana plants. She grows it in a specialty plant-lighted room perfect for weed. This is not autobiographical material. When the hippies were blowing in the wind, Jane was living in Paris, married to Roger Vadim. But she is a perfect Grace. Like I said before, she has forgotten nothing—including the ability to bring even a homespun character with obelisk jade earrings and macramé Feng Shui.

Culture shock looms when Grace’s successful, anal retentive Manhattan lawyer daughter Diane (Catherine Keener), in the middle of a nasty divorce, arrives in Woodstock to visit the estranged mother she hasn’t spoken to for 20 years, bringing along her two children, Jake (Nat Wolff) and Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen), who have never met their grandmother. The reunion packs an instant wallop. Diane is appalled to find her mother sleeps around at will and plays town matriarch to what’s left over from the Flower Power movement, as well as local fertility goddess and revered dope dealer. She welcomes frequent visits from naked men in the middle of the night and dances once a month around a bonfire, playing weird instruments and howling at the moon. Instead of Diane’s feared negative effect of her mother’s liberal personality on her kids, they adjust quickly and embrace their eccentric grandmother’s force of nature with relish. Diane resists her mother’s primitive lures, but the kids discover a liberating energy they didn’t know they had. In no time, vegetarian Zoe falls for a handsome butcher (Chace Crawford). Jake becomes attached to a young waitress and turns into a filmmaker. Even Diane meets a handsome, hopelessly corny, guitar-playing carpenter (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who sings, writes songs and rekindles her lost interest in romance. While Grace reminisces about Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and threesomes with Leonard Cohen, her grandkids become enchanted with a way of life before their time. In time, they want to be just like her. Everyone learns something, in follow-the-dots movie predictability, but you like the characters so much you want them to smile and find peace in new beginnings and fresh family bonds. They bring their own hang-ups and learn to change gracefully. They all read too much Walt Whitman, and I would have liked it more if it wasn’t manipulated by so many of those old songs from the 1960s that seem so naïve and simplistic now. Still, it’s pleasant watching this uniquely cool grandmother share her pot with her uptight grandkids and encourage them to lose their virginity, presenting them with the raw material they need to look into their own souls.

Pop songs, beautiful bucolic scenery and the joy of watching Jane Fonda fizz in a fun role that looks like a no-brainer are elements that a skilled director like Australia’s polished Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) blends with perfection. Best of all, there is Jane Fonda, whose total investment of heart and soul lights up every corner of the screen. She is so much a part of Grace that you can only wonder if placing Ronald Reagan’s autobiography next to The Cannabis Grower’s Bible wasn’t her own idea. “Maybe he’ll learn something,” says Grace. Or is it Jane Fonda talking? No matter how you slice it, she still has a lot to give, and in  Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding, she gives it all she’s got.

rreed@observer.com

PEACE, LOVE, & MISUNDERSTANDING

Running Time 96 minutes

Written by Joseph Muszynski and Christina Mengert

Directed by Bruce Beresford

Starring Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener and Elizabeth Olsen

3/4

Jane Fonda, future Nancy Reagan on film. (Getty Images)

Lee Daniels, director of Precious, is currently in Cannes promoting the thriller The Paperboy, but he's already planning his next film, an adaptation of a Washington Post article on a long-serving black White House butler who lived to see the election of Barack Obama. Early reports indicate that the butler, Eugene Allen, is to be played by Forest Whitaker and his wife by Oprah Winfrey, who likely needs a distraction from her OWN cable network. Matthew McConaughey, in Mr. Daniels's Paperboy, is to play John F. Kennedy, somehow (but his accent is pure LBJ!); John Cusack is to become the latest actor to assay the part of Richard Nixon; Alan Rickman and Jane Fonda are playing the Reagans; Nicole Kidman is playing an unnamed role that we'd wager a President's salary will be Jackie Kennedy.

It's all very strange (a Brit playing the iconic Reagan? Jane Fonda playing a demure conservative?) but Lee Daniels has a knack for making peculiar casting work--his directing won Mo'Nique an Oscar and Mariah Carey newfound respect, and John Cusack as Nixon has a peculiar sweaty genius to it. He'll be the one who wins an Oscar for this, right?

Ms. Scaglione is svelte, pretty and has that charming way about her that foreigners often have where she never seemed to understand what anyone was saying and seemed to always be saying things that came out funnier than she had intended them.

She was introduced to The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg, the designer Ralph Rucci, Harper's Bazaar editor Glenda Bailey and persistently peppered with questions.

Has she seen much of New York? She has not, as most of her time is spent either rehearsing, performing or sleeping.

Where is she staying? In the Theater District, but she's currently looking for a place in the West Village.

Has she seen God of Carnage, or Our Town, or Jane Fonda in that, um, whatever it's called?  No, no, and no.

"Well, have you seen Mary Stuart?" demanded Peggy Siegal, the publicist hosting the event.

"No, but I have seen Mary Poppins," the demure Ms. Scaglione replied across the table as everyone listened intently.

This is Ms. Scaglione's first time in New York. She was cast for the role of Maria by director Arthur Laurents and producers Kevin McCollum, James Nederlander, and Jeffrey Seller, through a video she made for YouTube. 

"I was performing Hairspray in Argentina at the time and I had recorded a video of a tango dance for YouTube," Ms. Scaglione told the Daily Transom. "It was circulating around and I guess when Arthur Laurents was looking for Maria his friends in Argentina told him, 'Well, look at this video and what do you think about this girl.' It was crazy!"

But, Ms. Scaglione said she didn't feel pressure performing the classic despite being one of the only actors, performing alongside Matt Cavenaugh and Karen Olivo, plucked from overseas.

"It's a challenge, but I don't feel pressure like something heavy. It's more like something amazing," she said.

Ms. Olivo was also a last-minute find for the producers. She was playing one of the lead roles in In the Heights—also produced by Mr. Sellers, Mr. Nederlander and Mr. McCollum—when the role of Anita remained vacant with rehearsals just a week away.

"I was one of the only women in New York that they hadn't seen. They said, 'We haven't found anyone. Can you just come in so that we can rule you out and say we've seen everyone?'" recalled Ms. Olivo. "In the back of their minds they told me they always thought I would be perfect, but they didn't want to take me from one of their shows to put me in another. But they had already gone overseas to find Josefina and they were afraid they would have to do that again. Then I came in and, for actors, you don't go into an audition room unless you're going to get it, so I went in there to get it."

Ms. Olivo said she was nervous at first about playing Anita.

"When I originally heard about the show, I didn't want to do it because no one would be Chita [Rivera] and no one can be Rita [Moreno]. They really achieved the role," said Ms. Olivo. "But when I met Arthur Laurents, he said he didn't want to do a version of West Side Story that anyone's ever seen before. If I actually tried to do an impersonation of one of these ladies, it would have been out of place."

Mr. Seller was nearby sipping a margarita. How did he think the musical was going so far?

"We didn't fuck it up!" he exclaimed. "That may have been the scariest thing for me is that we don't fuck it up. My history as a producer has really been doing new musicals. It's a hard task, but you're not having to live up to someone's expectation of what it used to be—their ideal. But everyone who comes to West Side Story has a preconceived idea of what it should be based upon their own romantic notion of their memory from the movie or seeing the show on Broadway as a child."

But it seems to be working out, according to Mr. Seller.

"The audiences are fantastic for musicals right now." he said. "In this world where Internet piracy has ruined the recording business and is taking huge chunks out of the movie business, there is one business that thrives as well as it ever has and that is the theater, where you still have to buy a ticket, show up, sit in a seat and watch the show."

Ms. Fonda, furthermore, is playing a terminally ill musicologist, Dr. Katherine Brandt, who’s dying horribly of Lou Gehrig’s disease—and she still looks wonderful! In fact, she seems to grow more and more attractive the closer her increasingly frail character comes to its last gasp. From walker to wheelchair to sayonara-it’s-been-swell, the dignified, forever beautiful Ms. Fonda resolutely endures.

That is more than can be said for the play. Written and directed by Moisés Kaufman, 33 Variations is a shamelessly manipulative stew of Lifetime Movie mixed with ghoulish biopic, pseudo-historical drama, a splash of Amadeus and faux art. And all in the name of refined Highbrow Culture at the theater!

Of all the choices Mr. Kaufman might have made, why, I wonder, did he choose a heroine dying of cancer? His ailing Dr. Brandt is obsessed with solving the mystery of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, the work that obsessed the ailing composer. (Aha! They’re both sick!) She travels courageously to Germany to unlock the secret of the Variations and, in sub-Stoppardian manner, the playwright crisscrosses his drama in time, revealing Beethoven struggling for years with his ineffable “33 Variations.” (The live piano accompaniment by Diane Walsh during the action is exceptional.)

But Zach Grenier’s overripe performance as an irascible, blustery Beethoven is a loud cartoon, and Mr. Kaufman—best known for his docudramas (including The Laramie Project)—might have resisted the deaf jokes. He might also have skipped his coy—and horribly old-fashioned—romantic subplot involving Dr. Brandt’s partially estranged daughter and an emotionally dim male nurse wracked with torment about holding hands on their first date.

The intrepid Dr. Brandt’s line about Beethoven—“I didn’t know he liked soup”—only serves to remind us that the play is no Wit. Margaret Edson’s brilliant 1998 metaphysical drama of ideas, with an unforgettable performance by Kathleen Chalfant, explored a professor’s death from cancer, the life of the mind and the eternal mystery of great poetry. By comparison, I’m afraid that the arty pretensions of Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations amount to little more than showbiz.

ARE OUR TIMES too serious for Noël Coward? His patented brand of brittle flippancy for dire times is thought to be eternally witty. To sing stoically as the boat goes down is the master’s nonchalant, stiff-upper-lip credo.

“Let’s be superficial and pity the poor philosophers,” as Elyot puts it in Coward’s 1930 masterwork, Private Lives. “Let’s blow trumpets and squeakers and enjoy the party as much as we can, like small, quite idiotic schoolchildren.”

If Coward’s very idiotic 1941 Blithe Spirit were nearly as good as Private Lives, I might still be enjoying the party. But I’m not so certain that either Coward’s farce or its current revival at the Shubert Theatre are quite enough cause for celebratory trumpets and squeakers.

Michael Blakemore’s strangely subpar production opens by sending the wrong signal with a recording of “Someday I’ll Find You.” The signature Coward song from Private Lives only reminds us further of what we’re about to miss. Other musical interludes from the hallowed Coward songbook follow—accompanying quaintly captioned introductions to each big scene. But they only slow the action when it should be dancing on air—hot air—while the dated songs themselves give off the nostalgic whiff of an anemic Palm Court recital performed by three little old ladies in evening wear on a drizzly day in Frinton-on-Sea.

Coward’s self-described “very gay, very superficial comedy about a ghost” concerns marriage and infidelity, the intervention of a mad medium and a supercilious upper-class novelist who’s haunted by the ghost of his first wife (and then his second). The revival has its compensations—Angela Lansbury’s adorably nuts Madame Arcati among them—but, alas, Coward’s creaky brand of arch frivolity left me imagining a new song, titled “I’m Not So Terribly in Love With Noël Anymore.”

The master could write dialogue—as he put it happily—“by the yard,” and he wrote Blithe Spirit in six absinthe-drenched days to settle a few pressing debts. But I’m with John Gielgud (no less), who commented with customary tactlessness after seeing the show on its opening night: “I thought it was terribly overwritten. It was a good joke, but he spun it out too much.”

Mr. Blakemore—the veteran director whose production of Michael Frayn’s classic backstage farce Noises Off is legend—has faltered uncharacteristically here. Coward’s plays demand a superior carriage trade production, yet the set design of Blithe Spirit’s spiffy upper-class drawing room is forlornly drab. And Mr. Blakemore hasn’t, as yet, got the comic timing of his distinguished ensemble right. Frivolity is best taken lightly. But the pace of the piece is too labored, the comedy too broad.

Madame Arcati (the role originally played by the sublime English eccentric, Margaret Rutherford) traditionally steals the show, and Angela Lansbury’s madcap Arcati is no exception. Though very occasionally seeming uncertain, the legendary actress sails on regardless, and what appears to be her own manically balletic version of Nijinsky’s Les Noces is a riot.

But the glamorous Christine Ebersole, who possesses an innate comic flair, isn’t quite right as the ghost of the upper-class Brit, Elvira, while Jayne Atkinson’s priggish Ruth is on the earnest side. Rupert Everett, swaggering indolently about the place as supercilious Charles, is an ideal Coward actor, however. (An ideal Wildean one, too). Mr. Everett knows how to be stylishly, effortlessly superficial, as if to the manor born. Plus, he can balance a cup of tea on his knee with a piece of cake.

THERE'S JUST ROOM for a word—and a rave—about the revolutionary production of Thornton Wilder’s iconic Our Town (1938) at the Barrow Street Theatre in the Village. It’s a model of everything fine that can be achieved in a revival of a mythic play.

Its gifted director, the Chicago-based David Cromer, who also plays the Stage Manager, brought us the wonderful and modest Off Broadway musical Adding Machine last season (which reinvented Elmer Rice’s 1923 Expressionist play). Now his intimate staging of Wilder’s apparent potboiler has made the frequently staged play shatteringly fresh.

How the new production appears to exist simultaneously in time past and present is some kind of theater miracle. This is no Our Town as a comforting slice of folksy Americana. (Wilder never intended it to be that.) The production’s rhythmic, unfolding picture of small-town American life is extraordinarily real and immediate, and its abiding spirit still speaks to us. The sentiment is honestly earned; the utterly natural acting of the splendid ensemble is admirably artless.

This is a great production that takes us to the heartbeat of Thornton Wilder’s original tragic intention. And it takes us there quietly, without fuss. In its vast simplicity and force, Our Town is exhorting us all to live every minute, every second, every day of our lives as if we are blessed.

jheilpern@observer.com

Ms. Parton--dressed in a snug sparkly top, with her voluminous blonde hair and heavy pink eye-shadow perfectly in place--was late. At 15 minutes past curtain call, as the lights outside the theater had begun flashing with threatening regularity, Mr. Hanks (son of Tom) had already snuck inside through the stage door—head down, pea coat collar up—and author Joan Didion, actress Marcia Gay Harden and playwright Tony Kushner were already inside.

Ms. Parton was Ms. Fonda’s co-star in the movie Nine to Five nearly three decades ago and wasn’t going to miss her return to Broadway. Incidentally, Ms. Parton was rushing over from the Marquis Theatre just a few block away, where she’s working on getting Nine to Five the musical ready for its Broadway opening in the spring.

“I’m over there rehearsing for my musical, she’s over here tonight, so I said, ‘I got to run over and see her,’” said Ms. Parton. “So here I am!”

A few minutes before Ms. Parton arrived, the Transom found a timid Moisés Kaufman, the writer and director of the play that lured Ms. Fonda, who is 71, back to Broadway after a 46-year hiatus. In 33 Variations, Ms. Fonda plays an American musicologist who obsesses over Beethoven’s Variations.

“I have a dream cast,” he told the Transom.

“Jane is just very involved,” Mr. Kaufman continued. “But not in a way where she wants to take over! On the contrary. She’s a real collaborator because she’s been in so many collaborative relationships. She makes suggestions.”

The actress playing Ms. Fonda’s role in Nine to Five, Stephanie Block, was also chirping about how great it is to have her predecessor back in theater.

“She came to our show in Los Angeles and gave us her blessing. She said, ‘Oh, I’m so glad that line is in there’ or ‘I’m so glad you did that this way!’” said Ms. Block, who admitted to watching the film incessantly to get ready for her role. “When an actor really gets it right as Jane did in the movie, you certainly want to make sure that you take little pieces of it.”

Rosie O’Donnell, wearing a skirt with ankle-high Doc Martens, was nearby answering reporters’ questions, which ranged from her thoughts on Donald Trump’s finances (“I have no thoughts about it”), Madonna’s new boyfriend (“she should make herself happy and it looks like she does”), and Michelle Obama’s sleeveless dresses (“she should be sleeveless all the time!”).

She exclaimed: “And look, Rose McGowan is here!”

Ms. McGowan recently had elbow surgery and was still recovering. “I can’t even hold a fork right now, so I have to keep doing my physical therapy and work up to my sword,” she said. (Ms. McGowan is working on the film Red Sonja, about red-haired comic book hero who carries a sword.)

Then, prompted by another round of the theater’s lights, the actress said “Oh, I guess really do have to go in,” and teetered on inside.

But if, to some theatergoers, Colin Hanks starts the play as “Tom Hanks’ son,” he’ll be his own man by the time he takes his curtain call. Mr. Hanks quietly shines onstage, with a loose-limbed lanky warmth and comic timing that holds your gaze, even among an impressive cast that, in addition to Ms. Fonda, includes Zack Grenier, Samantha Mathis, Erik Steele, Don Amendolia and pianist Diane Walsh. He’s clearly having a ball up there, and it is infectious.

A few days later, Mr. Hanks slipped into a nondescript coffee shop near the theater in Times Square. The 31-year-old looked like your basic cute-boy Manhattanite, in a heavy coat and thick tortoise-shell–framed glasses. He rode the subway up from his West Village apartment unnoticed—in fact, he said, he’s hardly ever bothered by strangers—despite increasingly prominent roles throughout the past decade, in teen-TV-favorite Roswell; in movies including Orange County, King Kong, W., and The House Bunny; and, extra awesomely, his turn as Father Gill last year in Mad Men.

But perhaps there’s this, too: When was the last time you saw Colin Hanks in a cheesy Hollywood party picture or read any sort of gossip about him? Perhaps seeing stardom up close is the best education on how to classily handle fame. Take note, future tart and tartlets!

It’s a busy time for Mr. Hanks: Just one day after 33 Variations premieres, he’ll be walking the red carpet for his starring role in The Great Buck Howard, a sweet and funny film out in theaters March 20, in which Mr. Hanks plays an assistant to an aging mentalist (à la the Amazing Kreskin) played by John Malkovich. If he’s exhausted by the grind, it doesn’t show; he’s effortlessly friendly and charming, and when he talks about his Broadway debut, it’s with the unabashed enthusiasm of a high-school drama club geek.

“It’s fucking Broadway! I mean … there’s just no other way to describe it,” he said. “It’s got that thing, you know? It doesn’t matter if it’s The Little Mermaid or Waiting for Godot … you just want to soak it up as much as you can—come to places like this”—he waved a long arm to encompass the clattering dishes, paper napkin, his oatmeal and Diet Coke—“or you go to Sardis. This is a tradition I want to be a part of.”

Mr. Hanks started acting in middle school while growing up in California, the oldest son of Tom Hanks and his first wife, Samantha Lewes, an actress and producer who passed away in 2002. “It was always something that was really fun, something I loved,” he said. “Obviously people just instantly assumed, Oh that’s what he’s going to do. But it wasn’t that for me. It was just fun.” It wasn’t until college at Loyola Marymount University, he said, that it became a more focused ambition. “I realized I have more fun doing this than any other classes … or even just the sitting around and doing nothing. So then, you know, there was a process of saying, ‘O.K.! We’re really going to do this. And … there’s going to be some stuff that comes up … and that will be fine. It had to be the thing I really wanted to do. And the thing is, I really don’t want to do anything else.”

Part of that “stuff” is of the big, unavoidable, son-of-a-megastar variety. In The Great Buck Howard (produced through Tom Hanks’ Playtone) Hanks père plays Colin Hanks’ onscreen father. It’s brief and cool and somewhat mind-bending to see, but it isn’t the main attraction—that would be John Malkovich’s zany performance that is equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking. But, having a famous father in the same profession is the one issue that continually comes up (just ask Jane Fonda!).

“Quite honestly, I’m sick to death of the subject. It’s something that will come up until the day I die,” said Mr. Hanks. “That said, I knew going in that it was going to be the case, so I can’t say I’m surprised. The strange thing really is that I didn’t really think about it that much before, but when you’re constantly asked what your favorite color is and you give an answer, and they go, no seriously, you start wondering … ‘Oh my God, is green not my favorite color? I do like blue.’ … It’s forced me to think about things in a way I don’t think about, and that was a little frustrating starting out. But I’m glad I was able to do something with my dad. Films live forever, so we’ll forever have that. We did it, it was really fun, and I’m glad it was something that I’m really proud of.”

His Buck Howard director, Sean McGinly, noted Mr. Hanks’ special aplomb in dealing with the various pressures of the business. “He takes it all in stride,” said Mr. McGinly, via telephone from Los Angeles. “I know millions of actors and Colin is one of the more calm and un-neurotic ones that I’ve come across. And he has a lot more reasons to be neurotic than many of my friends who are tortured actors.” Mr. Hanks was the first person attached to the project, almost five years ago, and Mr. McGinly said that he was instrumental in bringing the project to the big screen, and had also become a close friend.

33 Variations, which runs through the end of May, is still changing on a day-to-day basis. “It evolves every night,” Mr. Hanks said, happily naming specific moments from the show he thinks have improved, clearly relishing the creative process and being a part of an ensemble. Rehearsals began during President Obama’s inauguration, and Mr. Hanks said the president’s words about being judged on what you build, not what you tear down, had stuck with him.

“As cheesy as that sounds, it kind of set the tone for what the whole thing is,” he said. “I’m exhausted, and there’s been so many changes, but that’s the building process … and it’s not boring! The interesting thing is that it happens in front of 1,000 people ever night.”

Five minutes before going onstage he listens to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.”

“If that song doesn’t make the hair on your neck stand up …” He shook his head and grinned. “I don’t know what it is, it’s an emotional thing, it loosens me up. I walk under the cross-under and say, “Is anyone alive out there?” just like Bruce does, and then I’m off to do the show.”

svilkomerson@observer.com

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an "obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night." She also says that her friends Jane Fonda and Naomi Wolf are extremely worried that Obama will be sabotaged by Republican dirty tricks, and that if an Obama loss indeed comes to pass, the result will be a second American Civil War.

Here's a translation of Jong's more spirited quotes to the Milan-based Corriere, as selected by Rocca.

She also laments that not all of America's men of letters share her devotion to Obama.

"Tom Wolfe and John Updike are men of the right and Philip Roth is at this point a hermit who leads a monastic life in Connecticut, far from everything and everybody."

Luckily, she said there is her and Michael Chabon, who, she says, have "taken the place of Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer respectively."

They have the same political sensibilities, she said, but a better "sense of humor."

Being married to Gwen Stefani means getting used to her untamed fashion sense, or as Gavin Rossdale puts it, "It's like marrying three different people a week, because you never know who's going to come out of the bathroom." [P6]

HarperCollins is suing Victoria Gotti, daughter of Gambino family boss John Gotti, for collecting a $70,000 book advance and then failing to pen the actual memoir. [NY Daily News]

Yves Saint Laurent was laid to rest in Paris yesterday with over a thousand guests arriving to wish him farewell, including Marc Jacobs, Christian Lacroix, John Galliano, Sonia Rykiel, Jean Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, and Claudia Schiffer. [WWD]

Jane Fonda is so over men. [P6]

Tyson Beckford likes to pick up non-famous women at New York Whole Foods markets. [The Cut]