Muse Arts

Off-Broadway Goes Bollywood With Kooky Newlyweds in `Rafta': John Simon We don't often get to see Indian plays in New York, so Ayub Khan-Din's ``Rafta, Rafta ...'' is a bit of a novelty. That it is a rethinking of an English play by Bill Naughton we have not seen is an added curiosity. But the greatest curiosity is its being an Indian sex play.

Nikki Giovanni's Bluesy Poems Take Flight in Art Song Cycle: Jeremy Gerard The blissful collaboration of composer Louis Rosen and singer Capathia Jenkins is so intimate it would hardly seem capable of accommodating a third voice. But in the poet Nikki Giovanni, they have found a kindred spirit, and the combination has charm and beauty to spare.

Cambridge's Needham, Nudist China Historian, Revealed in Winchester Bio In ``The Man Who Loved China,'' Simon Winchester tells the fantastic story of Joseph Needham, the eccentric scientist who fell in love with his Chinese lab assistant, learned Chinese and then flitted off to the middle kingdom during World War II.

Broadway `Cat' Revival, Snubbed by Tonys, Recoups $2.1 Million Investment A Broadway revival of ``Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,'' with an all-star cast of black actors, recouped its $2.1 million initial investment three months into its run.

Talking Mouse, Hairy Dwarf, Evil King Rescue `Narnia' Sequel: Rick Warner ``The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,'' the sequel to the 2005 blockbuster ``The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,'' features centaurs, fauns, werewolves and other mythical creatures from C.S. Lewis's classic children's novels. What I'll remember most is the talking mouse.

Bacon Portrait of Boyfriend May Fetch $15.6 Million at Sotheby's in London A 1967 Francis Bacon painting of his male lover will go on the auction block July 1 at Sotheby's in London as the British painter's work appreciates like an Internet stock in 1999.

Hedge-Fund Traders Forget Market Blues, Sing Rock, Play Guitar for Charity Hedge-fund traders and managers put aside their blues about this year's rough start by belting out rock anthems such as ``Pinball Wizard'' and ``Brown Sugar.''

Lincoln Center Garners $800 Million in Pledges for $1.2 Billion Renovation New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts has raised two-thirds of its $1.2 billion renovation cost and is confident the rest will be found in time for the project's completion at the end of 2010, President Reynold Levy said.

Opera Director Runs Naked, Lambs Leap, Swells Cut Deals at Glyndebourne It is said that when opera singers die -- if they've been very good -- they go to Glyndebourne.

World's Tallest Ancient Buddha, 1,200 Years Old, Survives China Earthquake The 1,200-year-old Leshan Buddha in China's southwestern Sichuan Province, the world's tallest ancient statue of the deity, was undamaged by the nation's strongest earthquake in 58 years.

Dip Into the Past, Meet Heidi at St. Moritz, Fondue Heaven: Richard Vines St. Moritz, a Swiss restaurant in Soho, opened in 1974 and has the carpets and the food to prove it.

Jack the Ripper's Victims, Crime Scenes Go on Display in London Exhibition London's Whitechapel neighborhood in the 1880s was a place of grinding poverty, narrow streets, crowded tenements and rowdy saloons. Robert Booth, a social reformer of the time, classified it as vicious and semi-criminal.