C2


R


KLMNO THE RELIABLE SOURCE Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger


Stubble for the struggle


“I want to add my voice” for gay rights, said Ricky Martin at the Human Rights


Campaign dinner. PAUL MORIGI / WIREIMAGE M


ixing policy talk with zeitgeisty celebrity guests, the Human Rights Campaign annual dinner always feels like a state-


of-gay-America report card. Prop 8 overturn? Check. The gay kiss on “Modern Family”? Of course. “Don’t ask, don’t tell”? Booed, of course. But hey, here’s one we weren’t


expecting! As “The Cup of Life” thumped over the speakers at the Washington Convention Center Saturday night, two giant video screens parted and out strolled a bestubbled Ricky Martin in a velvet-lapeled tux to huge cheers from 3,100 guests. “You guys heard I’m gay, right?” said


the Puerto Rican pop star. Wait, was that just this year? Martin came out in March to the surprise of, well, few


people but was here, without prior announcement, making his first appearance at a gay-rights event, reports our colleague Dan Zak. “It took me a while, but tonight I’m here,” he said. “And I want to add my voice to yours.” Martin was the first course of a menu


that included garbanzo bean salad with jumbo shrimp, generous pours of wine and the usual auctioneering, pontificating and backpatting that make up most D.C. galas. The stymied repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the rocky climb toward gay marriage rights adrenalized every speech, tainted every sip of Acqua Panna. “Y’all like to make long speeches in


D.C.,” noted actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, one half of the gay couple on the sitcom “Modern Family,” which


received the HRC’s national arts and culture award. President Obama dispatched senior


adviser Valerie Jarrett to lament the recent spate of gay teen suicides and affirm the administration’s commitment to gay rights, though its largest victory thus far may have been last year’s Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Comedian/ actress Mo’Nique, who presented a visibility award to her “Precious” director Lee Daniels, roused the crowd with a routine in which she orated love letters to each part of the acronym “LGBT.” “For you bisexuals, enjoy the best of both worlds,” said this year’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner, in a shoulder-baring, tassled red gown. “Get it, get it, and get some more.”


Laura Dern and Ben Harper are kaput.


LOVE, ETC.  Divorcing: Actress Laura Dern, 43, and musician Ben Harper, 40, after five years of marriage. He filed the papers Friday, report People and TMZ, citing the usual irreconcilable differences, and saying they’d separated in January. Two children.  Married: Pary Anbaz-Williamson, 33, and Quinn Bradlee, 28, at Washington National Cathedral Sunday evening.


She’s a yoga instructor in D.C., he’s the son of Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn, whose names might be familiar if you’ve read this paper over the years. He also wrote a book last year, “A Different Life,” about his struggles with the rare velo-cardio-facial syndrome.


MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010


HEY, ISN’T THAT . . . ?  Campbell Scott in the audience at Studio Theatre for Thursday night’s production of “Circle Mirror Transformation.” Blue jacket, green shirt, jeans. Turns out the actor (“Singles,” “Damages”) is married to one of the play’s stars, Kathleen McElfresh.


Desirée Rogers mixes it up


Desirée Rogers mixed the sugar with the salt Saturday in only her second appearance back in the D.C. area since stepping down as White House social secretary in February. First the sugar, aimed at the


650-strong annual luncheon of the Reston chapter of Links, Incorporated, the African American service organization, which convened Saturday at the


Tysons Corner Ritz-Carlton to honor Alma Powell. “All of you are so well dressed, smart, you’ve got on some of my favorite shoes, you’re socially conscious, and you’re intelligent,” gushed Rogers. But about her 14 months at the White House: Rogers said she found the executive mansion “basically a museum.” As much as she tried to enliven the place, she said, “I knew I was running against time. I knew it.” Why? Rogers just let the ominous statement hang. No mention of her role in last year’s state dinner, when security allowed three uninvited guests to pass through. Now CEO of Johnson


Rogers,


remembering the White House.


Publishing, Rogers oversees Ebony and Jet magazines. “As long as I can sit in the chambers of Congress and hear the first African American president called a liar, then there’s room for black American media,” she told the crowd. Room — but not, it appeared, time: Rogers left shortly after her speech and skipped the lunch itself.


RANDALL BIVENS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST GOT A TIP ? E-MAIL U S A T RELIABLESOURCE@WASHP OST . COM. FOR THE LA TEST SCOOPS, VISIT WA SHINGTONP OST . COM/RELIABLESOUR CE


BOOK WORLD


new novel indicate that in writ- ing it he consulted experts on the Russian mafia, the Mumbai stock market, tennis, Swiss geog- raphy and several other topics. The guidance he received, com- bined with his longstanding knowledge of spycraft and the British Secret Service, makes for a tale that rings with authenticity at every stage. The protagonists are three:


Le Carre N


by Dennis Drabelle


o shortcuts for John le Car- ré. The acknowledgments at the end of his splendid


Perry Makepiece, an Oxford tutor on the verge of switching to the more demanding job of second- ary-school teacher; his girlfriend, Gail Perkins, a young hotshot lawyer; and Dima, a loud, bear- ish Russian whom they meet while on holiday at a Caribbean tennis resort. Dima first chal- lenges Perry to a match, then yanks the couple into his boister- ous family circle, and finally di- vulges his ulterior motive in


´’s mission keeps changing, but not his mastery


OUR KIND OF TRAITOR


By John le Carré Viking. 306 pp. $27.95


coming on so strong. He has been laundering money, a trade he would like to drop — except that he knows so much, including facts that would incriminate a high official of the British gov- ernment, that he believes his life is in danger. Surely, he presumes, an Oxford don and a rising bar- rister can put him in touch with the right parties to help him make a safe exit and put down new roots in England. And in fact, Dima has chosen


well. Perry and Gail are indeed well-connected, and Dima’s story captivates them both. Gail has another incentive for coming to his aid: her blooming friendship with Dima’s troubled teenage daughter, Natasha. The action now shifts from Antigua to Lon- don, where Perry and Gail get a thorough grilling on exactly how the overture was made, what they think of Dima, and whether they are willing to continue serv- ing as go-betweens. Their in- terrogators are Hector, a rogue agent who washed out of Her Majesty’s employ some years


back but has been rehired after making a fortune as an invest- ment banker; and Luke, whose womanizing has nearly de- stroyed his career and for whom this case is a last chance to re- deem himself. Le


Carré supplies credible backgrounds and motives for all five main characters. Luke in particular exerts a complex ap- peal. His disgrace stems from his folly in sleeping with the boss’s wife at his last overseas posting. Luke loves his own wife, wants to do well by his son, but has a habit of falling in love with attractive women, who tend to return the favor. Since Gail is a knockout, Luke must patrol his own libido while balancing Dima’s demands against Britain’s needs. Hector also bears watching.


His bumptious candor can be disarming, as when he explains what’s being asked of Perry and Gail: “Are you as a couple, at- tracted to the idea of doing some- thing . . . dangerous for your country, for virtually no reward except what is loosely called the


honour of it, on the clear under- standing that if you ever bubble about it . . . we’ll hound you to the ends of the earth?” But often Hector seems overly sure of him- self, so hard-charging as to awak- en forebodings in the reader. Le Carré pulls the various threads together cunningly. Hec- tor and Luke must extract enough preliminary information from Dima to convince their su- periors that he will be valuable to them; Dima has to worry about giving away too much before he’s sure that he and his family will be given sanctuary; Perry and Gail have to keep both sides hap- py — and Natasha complicates matters by getting pregnant and refusing to confide in anyone but Gail. Nonetheless, everything seems to be falling into place — until the spy bureaucracy threat- ens to ruin the deal. Le Carré will turn 80 next year,


and he’s written a score of novels. Some of his later works have suf- fered from tendentiousness (his characters’ objections to U.S. for- eign policy can sedate even read-


ers who agree). Perhaps his main fault as a novelist, however, has been a certain muddiness in the narration. The otherwise admi- rable “Absolute Friends” (2004) struck me that way: a novel in which the author’s storytelling skills did not quite measure up to the depth of his vision. Happily, nothing of the kind mars “Our Kind of Traitor.” There are no speeches or convolutions, not even when, toward the end, le Carré ratchets up the suspense by cutting quickly from Dima to his handlers to Perry and Gail. The denouement comes as a shock, but not an unjustified one. With so many other le Carré novels to compare this one with, one hesitates to give it a ranking. But if we narrow the time frame and widen the scope, I have no hesitation in saying this: If a bet- ter thriller than “Our Kind of Traitor” has been published this year, I’d like to see it.


bookworld@washpost.com


Drabelle is mysteries editor of Book World.


MUSIC REVIEW


Ensemble 415: Elegance by the numbers


In the context of the historical-


ly informed performance move- ment (which had its pioneers throughout the 20th century, but only blossomed into a full- fledged force in the classical mu- sic world during the 1970s), vio- linist Chiara Banchini — who founded her period-instrument group Ensemble 415 in 1981 — qualifies as something of an elder


DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau


statesman. On the eve of its 30th anniversary, Ensemble 415 re- mains one of the most elegant and stylistically scrupulous of pe- riod bands, as it amply demon- strated in a Library of Congress recital on Friday. The sextet that performed (a pair each of violins and violas, and a continuo pairing of cello and harpsichord) offered a mixed


baroque program in which three string sonatas by Tomaso Albino- ni were heard alongside concer- tos and sonatas by Bach and Vi- valdi, and by the less-encoun- tered Georg Muffat and Henricus Albicastro. What the juxtaposi- tion of works made clear was how much those Albinoni sonatas sounded like miniature concertos for two violins — with Banchini


and violinist Eva Borhi carrying on a vigorous and beautifully dovetailed musical dialogue of weaving solo lines. In contrast, the Bach concerto, BWV 1056r, when presented on this scale, suggested contrapun- tally active yet intimate chamber music, especially at the group’s relaxed tempos and restrained dynamics. Here, Banchini sound-


CUL DE SAC by Richard Thompson


ed out of sorts, with some way- ward pitches and hollow tones that were not issues elsewhere in the program. Vivaldi’s “La Follia” Trio Sonata, Op. 1, No. 12, in fact, found her — along with Borhi and cellist Michele Barchi — in virtuosic form throughout the piece’s playful but fiendishly dif- ficult theme and variations. — Joe Banno


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