Elaine Stritch at Liberty.* Directed by George C. Wolfe * Constructed by John Lahr John Lahr (born July 12, 1941) is an American theater critic and the son of actor Bert Lahr. Since 1992, he has been the senior drama critic at The New Yorker magazine. Born in Los Angeles, California, Lahr holds a B.A. * Reconstructed and performed by Elaine Stritch Elaine Stritch (born February 2 1926)[1] is an Emmy Award winning American actress, perhaps most famous for her trademark performance of "The Ladies Who Lunch" in Company. * Neil Simon Theatre The Neil Simon Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 250 West 52nd Street in midtown-Manhattan. Designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, the theatre was built by producers Alex Aarons and Vinton Freedley, who combined their first names to christen it the , New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. (through May 26) Among the revelations in Elaine Stritch's highly entertaining sing-and-schmooze stage memoir, I'm not sure which is more shocking: that she was a virgin until she was 30 or that the whole time she was performing "Zip" in a revival of Pal Joey, she thought the line "I'm a het-erosex-ual" meant "I'm gay." She tells a story about turning down sex with Marlon Brando (granted, she was a young and devoutly Catholic actress fresh from Detroit and living in a convent on Manhattan's upper east side) and dropping Ben Gazzara at the height of his Italian hunkdom to date Rock Hudson. Is your lesbian detector going off yet? Stritch doesn't go there, but she does acknowledge her well-known status as lesbian fellow traveler by thanking her friend Liz Smith, the out showbiz columnist, for "making me seem more famous than I ever was." Although she's made some movies (see Woody Allen's September), Stritch is most famous in the theater as a salty, one-of-a-kind comic personality who has always been a character actress, not a leading lady. She could steal a show with one number--the most legendary instance being her rendition of "The Ladies Who Lunch Ladies who lunch is a phrase to describe well-off women who meet for lunch socially, normally during the working week. Typically, the women involved are married and non-working. Normally the lunch is in a restaurant, perhaps in a department store during shopping. " in Stephen Sondheim's Company--and then leave before you'd gotten your fill of her. At last, Stritch fans get a full, satisfying meal in At Liberty. She's also famous in the theater world for having been a rowdy drunk. A big part of this show consists of Stritch talking with humor and insight about the stage fright stage fright Performance anxiety, see there that fueled her drinking, though you can't help feeling she's minimized the bad behavior her alcoholism inspired. What elevates the show beyond a typical veteran performer's retrospective cabaret act is the excellent help she got from New Yorker theater critic John Lahr and director George C. Wolfe. They stitch songs and patter pat·ter 1 v. pat·tered, pat·ter·ing, pat·ters v.intr. 1. To make a quick succession of light soft tapping sounds: Rain pattered steadily against the glass. together so elegantly and ingeniously that by the end of the evening you've really absorbed a rich, full life. |
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