Marji and I spent two days on the Great White Way last week and had a blast!!!

COME FLY AWAY
Twyla Tharp choreographs Frank Sinatra, again. This time it’s all over the stage with a 17-piece big band and a vocalist. She was unnecessary. Those dancers’ bodies were freakily “musicular”-musical and muscular! The women were amazonian while the men hoisted, stalked, or were just plain bowled over. The songs sizzled while the dances evoked giddy good times, lust, loneliness, jealousy– and yes of course, romance.

(Thus we craved late night steak frites and pastry at soho bistro BALTHAZAR.ooh la la!)

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
We witness blonde bombshell movie actress Scarlett Johansson’s Broadway debut in Arthur Miller’s overwrought classic. She blows us away. She’s heartbreaking and exudes old-fashioned innocence. Liev Schreiber and Jessica Hecht give serious emotional heft to what might have been melodrama in lesser hands. All that Italian angst sent us out in search of pasta.

(Pre-theater linguini a la vongole and tiramisu at La Masseria. “La vita” is certainly “dolce.”)

GOD OF CARNAGE
Two couples sit down for a polite discussion to settle their kids schoolyard spat; things inevitably devolve into a primitive, darkly comic, alcohol-fueled debauch that reminds us we are animals after all. Jeff Daniels, Lucy Liu (making her Broadway debut) Janet McTeer, and Dylan Baker fuel the onstage carnage that won James Gandolfini a Tony.

By 9:39 PM we hit the Henry Hudson Parkway and head home, not nearly satisfied; we settle for Cary Grant’s biography on audio tape, secure in the knowledge that somethings are still right with the world.

Good night–
and stay tuned!