Wayang, “theater” in Javanese, is the word used to refer to traditional Indonesian shadow puppets. Though beautifully rendered and colored, the puppets are held up behind a screen so only their outlines are visible. These intricate plays of shadow and light are often based on romantic tales, especially adaptations of the classic Indian epics The Mahabarata and The Ramayana. Some of them also depict local happenings, current events or other secular stories. Performances are generally accompanied by gamelan, an orchestra composed of metallophones, xylophones, drums, gongs, bamboo flutes and strings. The puppets are made in various styles, with perhaps the best known being the wayang kulit, crafted from parchment-like sheets of dried water buffalo hide (kulit). As with batik, UNESCO designated wayang kulit a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” in 2003, making it incumbent upon the Indonesians to preserve this precious indigenous art form.
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Today was one of those days when I was filled with a great love for New York City. The energy is always particularly high around the holidays, the streets filled with tourists, the shops crowded and a bracing chill in the air. I was walking up Central Park South, watching dogs chasing squirrels in the park, enjoying the lovely vistas, when I came upon the sweetest sight: a couple of chefs from the Ritz-Carlton feeding the carriage horses fresh carrots (greens and all) from a big market basket. So delightful, especially since I always get a pang of sadness when I see those horses gussied up in that cheesy frippery they really don't deserve. (I think I read Black Beauty just a few too many times as a girl.) Anyway, it was an especially New York-y moment—unexpected, extravagant, poignant. And it was the perfect set-up for an exceptional day that included lunch at A Voce, a facial from the incomparable Claudia Colombo, dinner at Nougatine, A Free Man of Color at Lincoln Center, and a night at The Jane.
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photo from the new york times

Run don't walk to see Alfred Molina play Mark Rothko in Red on Broadway. This two-man play, also featuring the young British actor Eddie Redmayne (you may remember him as Matt Damon's son in The Good Shepherd), comes to us from a successful run in London. Written by John Logan (whose screenplays include Sweeney Todd, The Aviator and Gladiator), Red delivers an authentic and complex portrait of Rothko as he works on a series of murals commissioned for—but ultimately never delivered to—the swank Four Seasons restaurant. He is ferocious, pedantic and very funny, and Molina fully inhabits this character, body and soul. Redmayne does a great job of portraying his young assistant, ambitious and brash in his own right. There is no intermission, and the play moves along quite briskly. It received a roaring standing ovation the night I was there.
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