Vitaly. A magician who’s even made his last name disappear. Illusionist Vitaly Beckman: born in Russia, raised in Israel, lives in Vancouver, resembles Seinfeld, and debuts in New York’s Westside Theatre.
June 13 “Vitaly: An Evening of Wonders” opens. So how wondrous is he? “I make paintings come alive, photos become movies, bare trees sprout leaves and a picture disappear from a driver’s license.
“As I pack the props, my head is organized. Some things I ship. I use my own ways because trusting airlines is a risk. I create my own effects so if anything’s lost I can rebuild it, but I don’t travel with much equipment. Four 50-pound bags. Airports always search me. They’re very curious. Once I carried two muffins. They thought my muffins were bombs.
“Backstage my comfort zone is stretch, deep breaths, practice, levitate an apple. Some theaters are better, more equipped.
This decent size 270-seat house hasn’t great wings, but no audience member will have a bad seat.
“Women are better audiences than men. As I work I check faces, reactions, positive attitude, are they having a good time. I pick nobody arrogant or a heckler. A child, 8 or 10, is good. Always steals the show.
“If things go wrong, I cover. The unaware audience won’t know because they don’t know what to expect. If a finger ring won’t link, I might even tell a person, ‘Your ring doesn’t work. Take it back.’
“One trick took two years to perfect and only lasts two minutes. I never give up.”
Gotta see the film
There’s been more about the film “Gotti” than we ever heard about Gotti himself.
The thing’s been whacked so often — seven years, four directors, Lionsgate dumped it, a mob of producers then took it — it should be sleeping with the fishes.
Travolta: “Seeing this finally, I can’t get over it.”
Yeah. There’s a lot to get over. Trimmed by 10 minutes, this thing with Pitbull’s score opens June 15.
Bits & pieces
Jim Bouton, ex-pitcher, whose controversial book “Ball Four” once aggravated the Yankees, coming to the stadium’s June 17 Old-Timers’ game — with 54 relatives . . . Ingrid Bergman’s twin daughters are Isabella Rossellini and Ingrid Rossellini, whose new book is “Know Thyself: Western Identity from Classical Greece to the Renaissance.” Pia Lindström gave the cocktail party. Primola fed them dinner.
Dead are alive
At the Hamptons this summer: Richard Nixon, David Frost, Elia Kazan and Marilyn Monroe. Sag Harbor’s Bay Street Theater is resurrecting the dead.
“Frost/Nixon” has Harris Yulin as the “not a crook” and BBC’s Daniel Gerroll is frosty Frost.
“Fellow Travelers” stars Wayne Alan Wilcox as Arthur Miller, Vince Nappo’s Kazan and brunette Rachel Spencer Hewitt, in a blond wig, plays Marilyn.
Please pay attention
Loretta Swit plus her animal watercolors at Jue Lan Club . . . December’S book “The Company Store” a k a “Both My Grandfathers Were Coal Miners” is West Virginia James Fragale’s homage to homestater’s killed underground . . . A blindness foundation raised more than $1 million. Steve Wynn donated. Sara Bareilles performed. Former Gov. Paterson applauded . . . How Elton John got started: “I answered an ad.” He met lyricist Bernie Taupin, and they’ve since worked together 50 years.
Sunday. Broadway’s Tonys.
A thrill to see Botox and collagen and Juvederm and dermal fillers and facials and electrolysis and lasers and Spanx and toupees and tanning and corrective makeup and borrowed clothes and loaned jewelry and implanted teeth and padded bras and contact lenses and sculpted noses and manicured fingers and special lighting and Vaselined lenses and careful televising and forced smiling and a week starving and rehearsing ad-libs and the practicing congratulations and the giving best performance of their careers all appearing together.
Only out of New York, kids, only out of New York.