Is It Chilly? Poem by gershon hepner

“Is it chilly? Do I need
bracelets? ” asked the ingénue,
who was going out to feed
where the better people do.
“Though it’s chilly, I would think
just a ring would be enough, ”
said her partner, with a drink,
reparteeing off the cuff.
So they went off to reparty
with the people whom they’d met
at other parties, à la carte,
fashionable, the smartest set,
valiant, though no longer virtuous
as they were before sixteen,
now, however, far more courteous,
flexible as plasticine,
till the time for bedroom games
when the ingénue, not silly,
took the ring off, lit the flames,
with a greeting hardly chilly.

Ben Brantley reviews “Regrets Only, ” a play by Paul Rudnick with Christine Baranski, who starts as the socialite Tibby (“Have a Play Full of Zingers? You Know Whom to Cast, ’ NYT, November 20 2006) :
Hank is a wildly successful, gentlemanly designer with a passing resemblance to a real designer who was also wildly successful and gentlemanly and had an alliterative name: Bill Blass, who died in 2002. (Having known Mr. Blass, I can say with some authority that the parallels, like much of “Regrets Only, ” are strictly on the surface.) A hitherto apolitical animal, Hank — whose lover of many years died only months before the play begins — finds himself stirred to righteousness when a member of his intimate social set, a big-time lawyer named Jack McCullough (David Rasche) , agrees to consult with President Bush on the drafting of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. What makes the situation especially thorny is that Jack is married to Hank’s closest confidante, Tibby, a professional partygoer and perfectly groomed clotheshorse. (The alarmingly productive William Ivey Long did the sociologically accurate costumes.) Tibby is played by Ms. Baranski, in a long-overdue return to the New York stage. Oh, rats, I just can’t help myself. There’s this moment, see, when Tibby, dressed to the teeth, and Hank are about to leave for a swanky night on the town. Tibby asks Hank: “Is it chilly? Do I need a bracelet? ” Pretty good, huh? But Ms. Baranski’s deadpan blitheness makes the questions sound worthy of Wilde. No more giveaways, I promise. Anyway, Jack’s involvement with this proposed amendment forces Hank and Tibby to rethink what defines a marriage and, for that matter, a friendship.


11/20/06