Sunday March 11 

 The Forsyth Chapel at Forest Hills Cemetery is a lovely spot, whether you go there to contemplate or enjoy a performance. Perhaps both will be combined on Sunday March 11 at 2 p.m. when the Forest Hills Trust's monthly poetry reading series, "Tapestry of Voices," takes place. (Is there a better time for poetry than Sunday afternoon? There's just something about that time of the week. Monday's hustle and bustle has yet to begin; your weekend revelry is likely over ...) Kathleen Aguero, Megan Kearney, Jan Schreiber and Richard Wollman read their poems about family, of longing and belonging. Admission: $5.

95 Forest Hills Ave., Jamaica Plain, 617-424-0128 foresthillstrust.org

Fri. March 9 - Sun. 11

Calling all beauty queens or wannabe beauty queens. It's your season, at least at Neiman Marcus through Sunday March 11. All 29 vendors in the cosmetics realm are participating in "Eye Candy: The Beauty Event." What that means is: If you buy any cosmetic product for $85 or more you get a goodie bag with lots of girlie things from Lancome Paris, Valentino, Kiehl's and others. Also, every counter offers a separate gift with a minimum purchase ranging from $61 to $125. We don't know a lot about accessorizing here at JSink, but we do know many of these cost a pretty penny if there's not some discount program at work. "It's a great time to experiment and stock up," says beauty guru Diane Halle, of Bobbi Brown. 

5 Copley Place, 617-536-3660 x2127

Sun. March 11

 What becomes a legend most? Are Joan Collins and Linda Evans legends? In a way, yes. They certainly wormed their way into America’s heart during the ‘80s reign of “Dynasty,” as the cat-fighting ex-wife and wife of John Forsythe’s character, Blake Carrington. Now they’re back on stage in “Legends!,” playing two actresses of a certain age who are trying to keep their pride, but struggling and in tough shape – financially, medically, professionally. Collins, who we meet first in the play, is Sylvia Glenn, who has mostly played tramps and hookers in her cinematic career. Her rival, Evans, plays Leatrice Monsee, who has mostly played the good girl in film, save one memorable role as a psycho killer. A producer, Martin Klemmer (played by Joe Farrell) is trying to seduce them into appearing together in his off-Broadway production, “Star Wars – The Play,” by promising Paul Newman will be in it as well. He connives to get the two together at the ritzy New York apartment of Glenn’s friend. Before the three meet, Glenn and Monsee get to let it out. “I thought it was Morticia from ‘The Addams Family’,” says Monsee, upon Glenn’s entrance. “Didn’t you used to be Smokey the Bear?” Glenn retorts, referencing Monsee’s fur-trimmed cape. Later, as they’re beginning to bond – yes, you knew this was coming, we’re not spoiling anything – Glenn asks, “Do you miss it? Our time at the top of the mountain?” Monsee says that even if they’re not at that mountaintop, she wouldn’t resort to doing some trashy awful TV series ... “Like ‘Dallas’ or ‘Dynasty’,” finishes Glenn.
    “Legends!,” finishes up a brief run Sunday March 11 at the Citi Shubert Theatre, was originally produced in 1986. It’s set in 1985. Carol Channing and Mary Martin had the original roles. With Collins and Evans aboard – both of whom have penned self-help books - "Legends!” now plays off our knowledge of the stars and how we look back at that era. Was it the dawn of guilty pleasure TV? Doesn’t it almost seem innocent compared to today’s fare, like “Dirt” and “Desperate Housewives?” And isn’t a kick to watch the actors – so in on the joke – take on these roles (and role reversals)? When Monsee accuses Glenn of being “still the same, sordid, scheming, lying tramp” she always was, Glenn asks, “What do you mean, scheming?”
      The two-hour play is not high art, but it is jolly, semi-naughty fun. Both Collins and Evans look terrific – which is to say they seemed no older than we are and we guarantee you they are - and seem to be having fun. Tonye Patano is great as Aretha, the large, wisecracking black maid, and she takes some sexy-funny turns with the pumped-up black Chippendale Boom-Boom Johnson, played by Will Holman, during his strip tease to “R-E-S-P-C-T.” The final performance is at 2 p.m. matinee Sunday. Tickets: $69.50-$39.50.

265 Tremont St., 800-447-7400 citicenter.org

Sat. March 10 

 The Mystery Tramps call their debut full-length CD “Cure for the Common Misconception.” A North Shore-based quartet, the Tramps range in age from 14 to 17. And, so, guitarist-singer Adam Amoroso (the youngest of the bunch) explains the title: “There is common misconception that people think (musicians) who are young kids can’t make an album that’s as good as anyone else. We’re not out here as young kids; we’re just musicians who are ten years younger than people who have music on the radio right now.” Well, put. Succinct. If you didn’t know – that is, if you heard the Tramps blind – you’d say they are a smart, sharp ,punk-pop (and ska and reggae) band in their early 20s , influenced by Green Day, the Clash and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.
The Tramps, which plays an all-ages CD release show Saturday March 10 at the Middle East Upstairs, formed on Halloween 2005. “We were just friends playing together,” says Amoroso, “doing Green Day covers, and we started getting tighter and tighter, writing better songs.” The band shifts seamlessly among genres, has a knack for a pop hook, bracing guitar leads and impassioned vocals. Nothing amateurish about it. Amoroso and singer-guitarist Eric Grava are the main writers. The former penned one standout, “A World Like This." It starts off with a sarcastic “Society today is a really great place” and moves on to condemn “a bunch of lying Nazis/ Just stay away from them/And they’ll be sure to do the same to you/It ain’t right … But what do I know anyway? I’m just some dumb kid/ In a world like this.” The Tramps are both raging against duplicity and poking a little fun at themselves.
The guys had an EP out in 2005 produced by the New Cars Greg Hawkes. This one was done by Stephen George. If all goes well, the Tramps hope to continue playing dates around Boston and New England. A long-term tour, probably, is not in the cards for a while – there is school and all that. The summer Warped Tour, however, would be a possibility. And they should be asked - they'd fit right in. Saturday’s show with Say When starts at 1 p.m. Tickets: $8.

472 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-864-3278  mideastclub.com

Sat. March 10

Leslie Epstein – head of Boston University’s Creative Writing Program, son/nephew of the guys who wrote “Casablanca” and “Arsenic and Old Lace,” father of Red Sox general manager Theo – published the novel “King of the Jews” back it 1979. Espstein says he began writing a “sorrowful, analytical” book about life in a Polish ghetto during World War II. His protagonist was Isaiah Chaim Trumpelman, who presided over the Judenrat, the group of Jewish officials, which ultimately made decisions about who lived and died. To his surprise, Epstein found when he was writing there was a “jauntiness” to the rhythms and a dark comic undertone. He recalls thinking, “I can’t write this book, I’ll be crucified. There’s almost no humor in Holocaust writing, and airing Jewish laundry … but it was my book and my sense of irony. Dark humor, it seems to be in me.”
      Espstein predicted it would be controversial and it was. “About 11 percent of Jews have no sense of humor,” says Epstein, “and they all become critics.” From the other side, though, esteemed Texas novelist Larry McMurtry called it the “first novel about the Holocaust that manages to be adequate to its own ambition.”

Now, what Epstein has done is adapt that novel into a play that runs through March 10 at Boston Playwrights Theatre Lane-Comley Studio 210, with most shows at 7:30 p.m. Why now? “It was like ‘why not?’ I’m a cinematic, dramatic writer and it seemed the central moral question raised” was still pertinent “a decision about how Jews grapple with collaboration.’’