BROADWAY SNAP-SHOT
by Russell Bouthiller

Dateline: February 25, 2002

ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY

"As the prostitute once said. 'It's not the work. It's the stairs.'" So goes the opening quip to perhaps the greatest one-person show to hit the stage, On or Off Broadway. After a sold-out autumn run at The Public, ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY, now at the Neil Simon Theatre, is the must-see solo flight for all seasons.

In the late 1980s, I was introduced to Elaine Stritch by my late-great friend, Tony-award winning producer Charles Woodward. We had run into her at a small French restaurant in the West 50s, pre-theatre. She was dining alone and invited us to join her before we all ran off to our respective shows. The meeting was warm, brief and unforgettable.

Chuck, as I knew him, relished in filling my young skull with backstage tales of gods and monsters. He set Stritch among the former. Prior to this meeting, I never had the opportunity to see her perform, but I was well appraised of her reputation as a dynamic entertainer on stage and the hard drinker off. Hardly a tea-tottler himself, Chuck always found it lamentable to lose one of his cherished drinking-buddies to the doldrums of sobriety.

To rehash someone's weaknesses or dependencies would certainly be abhorrently distasteful; the cheap telling of tales out of school. That is, of course, had Ms. Stritch deemed not to do so in front of an audience. Pacing the stage like a caged animal, this warts-and-all autobiographical tour de force tackles the subject of alcohol consumption not merely to blot a page or two, but to provide critical insight as to why it served as the main ingredient in her life for so many years.

Now a vibrant seventy-seven, Stritch's indulgence began early in life when she discovered a whisky sour enabled her to dominate the dinner-table conversation. "I owned the evening and I was only thirteen." As she set off from hometown Detroit for the bright lights of Broadway, her father cautioned her. "Wherever you go in life, Lainie. Whatever you do in life, Lainie. Remember what I'm telling you and never forget it. You are not the same after two Martinis."

Stricth's battle with the bottle spiraled downward as her career soared. From Dewars to Dom Perignon, alcohol served as character motivation. A few belts to bolster her courage before curtain and a tipple at intermission helped iron out all the wrinkles. "It's scary up here. Okay? So, you're scared. You drink. You're not scared. What is the problem?" In later years, attempts to keep her imbibing to a two-drink minimum led her to shopping for wine glasses in the vase department at Bloomingdales. Not until the onset of diabetes nearly leveled her did she finally quash the quaffing for good.

Constructed by New Yorker theatre critic John Lahr and reconstructed by Ms. Stritch, ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY is more than a harsh, lurid account of the ravages of alcohol. With blunt detachment Stritch strips away the crusty veneer to expose her vulnerable underpinning. Her lack of sophistication and naivete is offered up with humor and pathos, as she confesses to believing the Stephen Sondheim lyric "...a piece of Mahler's" from "The Ladies Who Lunch" to be a reference to pastry. And, as for her shattered relationship with Ben Gazzara caused by a girlish infatuation for Rock Hudson, she ruefully recounts, "We all know what a bum decision that turned out to be."

No theatre memoir would be complete without some choice theatre anecdotes and Stritch provides plenty. As understudy to Ethel Merman in CALL ME MADAM, she recalls an incident when the brassy belter personally ejected a heckler from the theatre. After a stint in a not-so-successful revival of Clare Boothe's THE WOMEN, featuring Marge Champion, Marilyn Maxwell and an absent-minded Gloria Swanson, Stritch recollects the producer commenting on the backstage back-biting, "If those women behaved on stage as they did off, we'd have a hit."

Stritch's career has included a number of dramatic successes, including works by William Inge, Tennessee Williams, Neil Simon and Edward Albee. She is, perhaps, most fondly known for her musical achievements and she serves up a premium blend. In that whiskey-washed warble, she delivers some of her most famous numbers, including "Why Do The Wrong People Travel?" from Noel Coward's SAIL AWAY and, of course, her signature song from Sondheim's COMPANY, "The Ladies Who Lunch." Under the direction of George C. Wolfe, with musical direction by Rob Bowman and orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY is a rare vintage indeed.