Dorothy’s Back (w/ the Whole Damn Circle)

September 23, 2011 — 1 Comment

Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as famed American writer Dorothy Parker in MRS. PARKER AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE, screening for free at the Long Branch Library on Dorothy Parker Day, October 2.  

To call her a “humorist” and a “wit” doesn’t even begin to capture the essence of Dorothy Parker — and to think of her as the quintessential New Yorker only reminds us that she was a daughter of Long Branch; born 118 years ago in a West End summer cottage.

One of the most famous, most quoted, often controversial American writers of the 20th century, this prolific fiction writer, poet, essayist, and commentator was a media celebrity, decades before they invented the phrase. A hard-partying rehab veteran, back when such things were kept strictly confidential. A crusader for civil rights, in an age when that was considered career suicide. An Oscar nominated screenwriter, back when a serious author simply didn’t socialize with THOSE people.

On top of all that, Dorothy Parker never fit the image of the writer as solitary artist — having established her reputation as a charter member of the Algonquin Round Table, the “vicious circle” of high profile playwrights, novelists, journalists, critics and theater folk that convened regularly (and became a circus-like attraction in itself) at New York’s Algonquin Hotel throughout the roaring decade of the 1920s.

When the celebration of Dorothy Parker Day returns to the city of her birth on Sunday, October 2, generations of fans of this most remarkable woman will not only “Surrender to Dorothy” — they’ll also be paying tribute to the lasting legacy of the Algonquin group; an assembly that at various times comprised anyone from Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber and New Yorker editor Harold Ross, to iconic entertainers Tallulah Bankhead and Harpo Marx.

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