Gifts of Gab at the Tiffany

The lobby of the Tiffany Theatre was abuzz with animated, opinionated, interruptive talk at the reception following the invitational premiere of David Mamet’s play “Oleanna” on Thursday night.

It wasn’t that everyone was trying to ape Mamet’s way with words in his controversial take on the politics of sexual harassment. The crowd was friendlier than that, with no overt signs of war between the sexes. But, as producer Paula Holt pointed out: “People always find themselves talking about the content of this play, not about the set or who they sat next to, though actually somebody did tell me how excited they were to find themselves sitting next to David Hockney.”

There had been controversy offstage as well. The production moved from the Mark Taper Forum after Taper officials objected to casting Lionel Mark Smith as the professor accused by a student of sexual misconduct in the two-character play. Smith, who is black, says he believes that the decision was racist, which the Taper denies.

Those congratulating the night’s stars--Smith and Kyra Sedgwick--and exchanging industry gossip over wine, coffee and hors d’oeuvres included Sedgwick’s husband, Kevin Bacon (Bacon’s skinhead appearance was due to his role in the film “Murder in the First” in which he plays a prisoner in Alcatraz); Bud Cort; Corky Hale and her husband, Mike Stoller, and Gene Davis, who is working with Hale on a documentary about pioneering black actress Hattie McDaniel.

Also there was Jim Curley, excited that there is talk of a sequel to “In the Line of Fire,” in which he played the lackluster President saved from the assassin’s bullet by Clint Eastwood.

“I get a bit of a knot in my stomach watching the end of this play because Kyra could get hurt, but I love watching her act. I’d like to watch her act 365 days a year. It’s one of the great things she does, and she’s great at a lot of things,” Bacon said.

“I had trouble applauding that young lady because I wanted to give that little broad she played a punch in the stomach,” said Esther Williams.

Williams went on to recall how she used to cope with sexual harassment. “Being athletic and a champion and taller than them” helped her to keep many men in their place, Williams said. “Louie B. Mayer used to shout at me, which is a type of harassment, so one day I said, ‘Don’t yell at me.’ He said, ‘I yell at everybody.’

“And I said, ‘You can’t get to the end of the pool first. If you got in the water with me, you’d sink.’

“He went quiet and he never yelled at me again.”