"Oh, Mary!"

 

      At last! "Oh Mary"! Everyone has loved this Broadway show and some of our friends have seen it more than once so expectations were high but it did not disappoint. The fictional, wacky story about Mary Todd Lincoln written by and starring Cole Escola is running at the Lyceum Theater, which was built in 1903 and is like a great ancient vaudeville theater. We had good seats in the first row of the mezzanine so a wonderful view of everything including the ornate ceiling, walls decorated with molded plaster swags and sculptures of three muses high overhead at the very top of the proscenium arch. It was the perfect setting for the old school madcap hijinks that followed.  

     Escola has said that this play is about a woman with a dream that no one around her understands and also what if Abraham Lincoln's assassination wasn't such a bad thing for Mary? The result is hysterical. One gag, one funny bit after another, and it felt good to laugh, along with the entire theater, for 90 minutes straight. Escola throws themself into the role with the most extreme facial expressions and body contortions. Also, I found Conrad Ricamora as Mary's tortured husband Abraham Lincoln to be just as funny. The entire small cast was excellent. At one point I was laughing so hard doubled over that I was afraid I was distracting the guy sitting next to me so I tried to rein it in. It's such a gift to be able to write a piece that creates joy like that. This play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has been nominated for numerous Tonys. I hope it wins. And I want to see it again immediately.

A Great Season in New York City Museums - 4 Things to See Now

This spring has really turned out to be a banner season for New York City museums. After Covid, I think the museums are going all out to attract visitors, and there are some wonderful things to see in New York now. Taken together as a whole, New York offers an astonishing display of the best of the best - there really is no place like New York! In the order in which I saw them, here my favorites that I recommend. And you can see how they are related --

 

The Newly Renovated and Expanded Frick Collection 

The West Gallery 

The Fragonard Room 

     The Frick Collection has always been a favorite spot of mine, and now, after a lengthy and expensive renovation and expansion overseen by Selldorf Associates, it reopened this spring. I was lucky to get a tour of it before it opened to the public as I was researching a story I wrote for Frederic magazine (read my story here). On the afternoon that I was visiting, actress Christine Baranski, who is currently in the series "The Gilded Age," came through looking smart in a pantsuit. I wanted to catch her eye and say, "What do you think? This is the real Gilded Age!" but she didn't look like she was open to chitchat. 

     The building was originally built as the home for the Frick family and then converted into a museum after family members died, per Henry Clay Frick's will. Now it was been renovated and expanded. The grand staircase, which used to be closed off with a velvet rope, is now open so one can happily ascend  to the second floor where the former family bedrooms are now gallery exhibition space. On the second floor there is also a a new gift shop and cafe. The whole thing feels much more opened up and the Frick seems like more of a substantive museum, a bigger destination. It's greatest pleasure is the art collection hanging on the walls. To enjoy the masterpieces purchased by Frick in this stunning setting is really a treat.

 

"Sargent and Paris"

In the Luxembourg Gardens

Paul Helleu Sketching with His Wife 

     A couple of weeks after the Frick reopened, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened "Sargent and Paris," featuring the work of artist John Singer Sargent, also of the Gilded Age. Organized by curator Stephanie Herdrich, it examines the decade when the young 18-year-old painter arrived in Paris and began his career. His rise was quite meteoric as it ends with the renowned portrait of "Madame X", which, with her low cut dress, fallen shoulder strap, and arrogant attitude, was felt to be an unsuitable portrayal of a married woman. The painting scandalized Paris and prompted Sargent to move to England. 

   In England, Sargent painted some of my favorite works including the big, blowsy, gorgeous "Wyndham Sisters" and the simple, poetic garden scene "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose," but here in this show based in Paris you see the beginning of his great taste and eye for elegance and style and color. Sargent had such a beautiful vision of the world and it's a great comfort to be in its presence.

"Amy Sherald: American Sublime"

    On a whole entire floor, The Whitney museum downtown in the Meatpacking District has mounted an exhibition of paintings by Amy Sherald, who famously did the portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama. Sherald, who was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1973, did not see many people pictured who look like her in the annals of art history and so she set about painting portraits of every day Black Americans.

   After looking at a number of the portraits, I noticed that the artist renders the skin in gray, rather than natural skin tones. She did this, she has said, to draw attention to the individual rather than the shade of their skin color or race. Like John Singer Sargent, Sherald has a wonderful eye for clothes and details, and I loved the colors and prints and patterns in this show. I found it very uplifting in the current dark and disturbing political climate.

"Superfine: Tailoring Black Style"

Also centered on a Black theme, back uptown at the Met, the Costume Institute has just opened a new show celebrating the Black dandy, and how Black men have used clothing as self expression and protection since the 18th century. I have not seen this one yet but plan to soon! It of course opened with the Met Gala on the first Monday in May, organized by Anna Wintour and Vogue. Attended by musicians, movie starts, athletes and artists, the night raised $31 million. The Costume Institute has not mounted a menswear show in 22 years. The reviews have been great and I'm looking forward to it. There is always something wonderful new to see in New York City.

"Live With the Things You Love"

Carter and I at her book party at the Double RL store.

"Live With the Things You Love" on my mother's antique wood dining table from upstate New York.

 

   My great friend Mary Randolph Carter, who is called Carter, has written a new book entitled "Live With the Things You Love...And You'll Live Happily Ever After" (Rizzoli), and TD and I recently had the pleasure of attending her book party hosted at the Double RL store on West Broadway in Soho. While Carter has had a big creative director job at Ralph Lauren, she has also authored popular lifestyle books and this is her tenth. Carter's great passion is for antiques, vintage items, family heirlooms and fun finds she calls junk. She advocates for interiors that have meaning and warmth, and she has a great eye for mixing bright, cheerful colors like an artist. Everything goes back in time and shares a romantic aesthetic. When I worked at Ralph Lauren, I loved visiting her in her office which, though it was on Madison Avenue, felt like a trip to a house in the country with its wonderful antiques, soft textiles, piles of book and magazines, and vintage art on the walls. Not much is new and shiny in Carter's world. In one interview she recounted how her husband Howard was begging to replace creaky, wobbly porch chairs with something from Target that "no one will kill themselves on." Nothing suitable had yet been found. 

The cheerful kitchen in Carter's country home.   (book photos by Carter Berg)

 

     I share Carter's love of antiques and vintage items. To me, they speak with a simplicity and a softness and a comfort. They have a history, they have a life that's more interesting than something new. Perhaps my favorite book by Carter is called "For the Love of Old." It gave me the courage to eschew the new and shiny for things that go back in time. The antique pieces that we have in the apartment are dear to my heart including our dark wood dining table that my mother found at the renowned Bouckville Antique Show in upstate New York when I was growing up and gave to me. At the end of our living room we have a beautifully shaped Empire table that was given to my great grandparents on their wedding day in Herkimer, New York, in 1886. Catty corner to that I have my great grandfather's very large and rustic wood tool box that he used while railroad engineer on the Adirondack Line railroad. In front of the couch is a small, green, slightly rusting metal coffee table which is actually a factory table that I found at the sorely missed Chelsea Antiques Garage. It cost $25. I thought it would be temporary but it has stayed because it is the perfect size and color. 

 Her colorful porch for summer time relaxing.

 

     Carter's new book continues to inspire with the homes of thirteen artist and friends who are similarly passionate about living with antiques and pieces that are rich with sentimental value. Her voice supports my love for the old. When I doubt myself and consider that an antique should be replaced by something new, I think, "No, Carter would approve."

A Lost Beloved Thing

Last summer, when TD and I took a memorable trip to Italy for my nephew's wedding on Lake Como, we flew from JFK airport on a Sunday night for an all-night flight to Milan. I find going through the airport TSA check point to be stressful -- it seems like you wait in a long slow line to get up to security and then suddenly it's a mad rush to get your belongings into a plastic bin -- and then what needs to come off? Your shoes, your belt, your jacket, your phone, your watch, your wallet? Sometimes it seems that the requirements are different. The guards were yelling to move along faster. I took off my things and as I approached the scanner, TD, who was behind me, said, "Do you have your cross on?"

   Ah, my cross.  When I was in high school, my father gave me a silver cross on a chain that I have loved these many years. My father, who passed away in 2017, didn't give me many personal gifts and this one was perfect so it was highly unusual. He had picked it out in a store in downtown Utica ­– a small silver asymmetrical medallion centered by a cross. On one side the medallion is cross-hatched and the other side has the texture of modeled clay. It was simple but interesting and modern but timeless, and I have cherished, and not lost it, for approximately 50 years. The only jewelry I wear is my wedding ring from TD, a watch that belonged to my brother Eric, and my father's cross.

   At the airport, I quickly slipped the chain and cross off my neck and threw it into the black plastic bin. On the other side of security, we hurriedly gathered our things and put them back on and continued to the gate for our flight.

     The next day around mid-day in the hotel in Milan, I felt my chest for my cross on the chain. It wasn't there. In a panic, I rifled through all my pockets and knapsack looking for it. Had I already taken it off and put it somewhere in the hotel room? I didn't think so but I searched the room and through my pockets again. I couldn't find it anywhere and I flashed back to Ted speaking to me at security and slipping it off my neck.

     I had left my cross in the plastic bin at JFK International Airport.

     My heart sank. I had managed to hold on to that cross for 50 years and now it was gone. And I felt terrible. Why hadn't I put it in a safe pocket in my knapsack where it wouldn't get lost? I was distraught and angry at myself. This had the potential to ruin the trip.

  After a while I opened my laptop to see how to report a missing item at JFK. I found an email address and rather hopelessly sent off an email to TSA describing what I lost and where and when I lost it. Three days later I received an email back that said TSA did not collect lost items for the particular terminal we were in. For that terminal, I had to submit a report on an app.

    Oh dear I thought, the black hole of an app. On the app I submitted a lost item report. It asked for a photo or drawing of the item so I got out a pad of paper and sketched my cross 

    I took a picture of it and uploaded it to the app and sent it off. 

   30 minutes later I received a message back from the app. 

   They had my cross. 

   I literally could not believe my eyes when I read it. I thought maybe it was a mistake but how could it be when my drawing was so specific. In that vast, cavernous airport terminal, someone had found and retrieved my little silver cross. And the emailing and app from my hotel room in Milan had worked. Honestly, it felt like a miracle. I was so happy and relieved. It said for $50, they would FedEx it to my home so a few days after we returned from Italy, I received my silver cross in the mail and slipped it on my neck. I really am so grateful to TSA for being organized, and amazed that when it works, technology really works. And thankful to have a small piece of my father back.