Entertainment

Not like any gossip columnist I know

The root of the word gossip is “gospel.” In fact, the first four gossips were Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. So gossip has been around since the beginning of time. Unfortunately, “Mr. & Mrs. Fitch,” the new play about it that opened last night — won’t be around very long.

The play stars John Lithgow (and there’s no finer actor anywhere) and Jennifer Ehle, who comes from theater royalty. (Her mom’s Rosemary Harris.) Playwright Douglas Carter Beane has many credits to his name. Director Scott Ellis has many credits to his name. The set is by Allen Moyer. The set is great.

The plot dribbles off gossip columnist Mr. Fitch (Lithgow), who manufactures an untruthful item. He creates a fictional character because he has nothing else to write about, then destroys this fictional character, who takes on a life of his own. The interim two hours is what happens in between.

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What really happened is that during Act 1, an audience member whispered to a friend: “Is there an intermission?”

The plot, thinner than my chances of becoming Miss America, deals with untruth. Therein lies the crux: The entire onstage action is untruth. If you’re creating a coal-mine drama to play this city, fine — not many of us mine coal here.

To fashion a work around writing a daily newspaper gossip column, this narrow art form, which is practiced in few cities but primarily this one, you better know what you’re talking about.

They don’t. For instance:

1: Fitch knocks off a column. Me, it takes four hours. Him, it takes minutes. He doesn’t recheck or reread, refine or reposition, doesn’t correct spelling or typos or placement of ideas. Just writes. Makes you wonder why Tolstoy took from 1873 to 1877 to knock off “Anna Karenina.”

2: My editor, Rachael Shapiro, seated alongside me, mumbled: “And no editor calls to double-check something, inquire about anything, say it’s too long, too short?” Not here.

3: As the curtain rises, both Fitches return late from some gala. Does she quick kick off the heels and prep to work? No. On spikes she promenades around pouring a drink, dancing, pouring another drink, singing, pouring another drink which, if you’re on deadline as they are, you sure as hell aren’t doing.

4. As for him, he pours a drink, dances, pours a drink, sings, pours a drink, plays piano and changes into a smoking jacket. Since newspaper writers’ classiest wear is often jeans and sneakers, I doubt they’re into smoking jackets. At home. Around midnight. Drinking. On deadline.

5. A city newspaper with a 1 a.m.-ish deadline? And no editor to check facts? No legal system to flag problems?

6. This is a gossip columnist nobody wants to pester? There’s no intellectual traffic. My life is a daily, hourly snowstorm of stuff — faxes, deliveries, mail, hand-delivered parcels. Fitch gets maybe two phone calls. He’s not even obsessively checking e-mail.

7. Tiny wastepaper basket. Like they have in hotel johns. Not what could take the blizzard of clutter we get hourly.

8. She’s in the daily news business, but she lies on the couch at this 1 a.m.-ish time to first read that day’s newspaper.

9. They have zero connection to their apartment, as though it’s not theirs. No cleaning up a spot or straightening something she just notices. And although they appear quite comfortable, there’s no maid. Yet, as they rise the next day, coffee awaits.

10. The only real-life tabloid headline they reference, from the New York Post, is incorrect. It was “Headless body in topless bar,” not “Headless man.” Even in Albania, they know that. I mean — I’m sitting right here.

There are some good lines like: “If Shakespeare were alive today he’d be working on a reality show,” and “I can’t make a decision when I’m drunk and tired. Look at the color of the hallway.”

Also: “Gossip is news that’s entertaining.”

Well, this wasn’t.

Curtain up. Show poop. And speaking of poop, I give it one Yorkie.