By Steven Suskin
05 May 2002
ELAINE STRITCH At Liberty DRG 12994
Elaine Stritch At Liberty is enchanting, exhilarating and, all told, the most entertaining new show on Broadway. You don't need a cast of 30 or scads of scenery, it turns out; just raw talent and something to do with it.
Elaine Stritch At Liberty is enchanting, exhilarating and, all told, the most entertaining new show on Broadway. You don't need a cast of 30 or scads of scenery, it turns out; just raw talent and something to do with it.
This, Ms. Stritch definitely has; and Elaine Stritch At Liberty is a show not to miss. It will be closing on May 26, so DRG has happily supplied a two-CD album of the proceedings. This is not the Broadway show, exactly; it was recorded live last January at the Public Theater before the show transferred up to the Neil Simon. Some of the material was cut for Broadway, while other sections were added. But it is close enough.
Stritch has had an unusual career, even by Broadway standards. She is considered an enormous musical comedy star. However, since making her Broadway debut in 1946, she has appeared in a mere four musicals (plus three revivals). She has starred above the title in only two new Broadway musicals, the consecutive failures Goldilocks and Sail Away.
Be that as it may, Elaine Stritch At Liberty handily demonstrates that the cyclonic "Stritchie" is a musical comedy star, all right. Grit, determination, talent and flair; it's all there in one not-so-neat package, an "existential problem in tights." The CD cannot equal the excitement of witnessing the stage performance, but it is required listening for those who are unable to catch her act.
This album makes clear just how expert a job Ms. Stritch's associates have done. John Lahr provided the words, Ms. Stritch peering over his shoulder with a sharpened red pencil at the ready. (Lahr's fascinating liner notes are as compelling as some of the extended anecdotes that comprise the evening.) Jonathan Tunick's orchestrations are especially helpful. Listen to the corny "Civilization," the comedic "Zip," the raucous Ruby Bentley specialty "I Want a Long Time Daddy" (which sounds like it's lifted from the stripper scene in Gypsy). Tunick has orchestrated some of the At Liberty songs before, but he artfully matches his new charts to the context. The singer of "Broadway Baby," for example, is here not a feisty old timer (as in Follies) but the young Stritch at 17; the orchestration is hesitantly hopeful halfway through, until the character builds up determination. Rob Bowman does a fine job leading the nine-piece band, playing the piano as well (and very nicely, too, on "But Not for Me"/"If Love Were All").
Absent from the CD but very much in evidence is director George C. Wolfe; every word counts, every idea lands, and I expect that Wolfe contributed mightily to the show's high polish.
Elaine Stritch At Liberty. Yes, indeed! Continued...
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