Draped in Draper

New York actress Patricia Norcia channels Ruth Draper, the dramatic monologuist whom Henry James touted in Park Avenue drawing rooms of yore. Norcia has been incanting Draper for years. Last autumn she performed an evening of Draper's material in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Such was the demand for tickets, Duane and Mark Hampton tossed to see who got to use the one in their possession. Duane went, and left enchanted. She decided, as a surprise for actingstudent daughter Kate's twenty-first birthday, to ask Norcia to perform. "That's how Ruth Draper got started," Norcia explained to Duane. "She performed in the Vanderbilts' drawing room—you're in good company."

So, in a parlor filled with Kate's chums from Brown University, Norcia called forth Draper. Except for the moment a lovely lass on a liquid fast fainted and Norcia had to halt, birthday-girl Kate was thrilled. Norcia, meanwhile, is back doing Draper for one night only at Carnegie Hall on March 12.

WILLIAM NORWICH