Elaine Stritch at Liberty
by Andy Picheta, Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker, Nick Doob, Rick McKay
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Actor: Elaine Stritch, George C. Wolfe, John Lahr, Rick Borutta, Rob BowmanDirector: Andy Picheta, Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker, Nick Doob, Rick McKay
Brand: Image Entertainment
Producer: Rick McKay
Producer: Chris Hunt
Producer: Frazer Pennebaker
Producer: Helen Asquith
Producer: Jeff Folmsbee
Producer: John Hoffman
Producer: John Schreiber
Producer: Mark Mannucci
Producer: Rebecca Marshall
Producer: Richard Fell
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 146 minutes
Published: 2003-10-01
DVD Release Date: 2003-10-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Image Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Elaine Stritch at Liberty
DVD Review: WORTH THE PRICE OF A VODKA STINGER ... OR TWO ... OR THREE
Summary: 5 Stars
She may not have stuffed the dailies in her shoes or strummed ukuleles, but she has most certainly seen good times and bum times and sang the blues.
And she's still here.
And it's those blues --- and those good and bum times ---that make for a most colorful evening. Elaine Stritch, the septuagenarian recovering alcoholic, functioning diabetic and Tony-winning performer, has taken the liberty of sharing her life and all its highs and lows in "Elaine Stritch At Liberty."
She's seen them all, my dear, and she's still here.
Like the performer herself, the show is hard to pigeonhole: There are enough songs to call it a revue, enough juicy anecdotes and gossipy stories to call it a one-woman show. But labels don't matter. What matters is that Stritch --- best-known for her role in the Noel Coward musical "Sail Away," too often associated with the Walter Kerr and Jean Kerr musical flop "Goldilocks" and canonized for the Stephen Sondheim musical "Company," in which she sang "The Ladies Who Lunch" and too long a cult favorite among theatre devotees --- creates two and a half hours of sheer magic.
She enters carrying a chair, and wearing black tights and a tailored white dress shirt --- "an existential problem in tights," is how she refers to herself. Stritch's legs still have it; her body, despite the years of boozing, late-nighting and neglect, is still supple. And she proves it consistently, lugging around the chair, moving it from here to there, most often to up stage so she can strut her stuff walking down stage. No fool is she.)
The opening line: "It's like what the prostitute once said: it's not the work; it's the stairs;" and the opening number --- "There's No Business Like Show Business" --- offers a tease of what's in store, sets the stage for a life about to made bare. What makes the show work is that Stritch is as tough as she is real --- "you've got to be real to be funny," reminds us.
She doesn't shy away from the pain. There's lots of loss here; aborted romances, vanished jobs (including screwing up an audition for "The Golden Girls"), a dying husband. Stritch recounts first taking a drink, at age 13 or 14, at her father's insistence, and then developing an addiction for the stuff, even getting sloshed at the family dinner table. Alcohol would later be a co-star in her life, destroying romances and igniting trouble. We laugh at the stories, but the show is riddled with profoundly moving, emotional moments; we feel the pain and the strength that has led Stritch down the path of survival. "I think I'm reclaiming a lot of my life hat I wasn't all there for," she muses toward the end of evening, as an explanation to why she did the show.
Stritch is a spellbinding storyteller. Whatever all the tales are true or allegorical doesn't matter. We travel with her from her home in Michigan to arriving in New York, taking classes at the New School and meeting a young actor named Marlon Brando, who it seemed, slept with all the females except Elaine until one night ...
She spends some times (a bit too much time) recounting how she understudied Ethel Merman in "Call Me Madam" at the same time she was performing in new Haven in the out-of-try-outs for "Pal Joey." She called a ex "beau" who she knew had an MG, and convinced him to drive her nightly from New York to New Haven ... time perfectly, so that she could go on stage for her second act show-stopping, "Zip."
That song and many, many others are here ... including the long-forgotten "Civilization," originated by Stritch in the long-forgotten "Angel in the Wings" and a hit for Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters. (Those who remember 78 records will remember: Bongo/bongo/bongo/I don't wanna leave the Congo/Oh no no no no no) ... "I'm Still Here" and, of course, "The Ladies Who Lunch."
At Liberty is so seamlessly constructed that George C. Wolfe's direction is unobtrusive. The show's honesty is its strength, and its strength comes from its honest star, who's enough of a pro to know when (and how) to pause and how to deliver a zinger. When Stritch mentions famous friends --- a drunken Judy Garland bidding her good night at 7 in the morning, Noel Coward respecting her talents so immensely that he asked her to star in a musical, Rock Hudson repeatedly taking her to dinner while they were shooting a film in Europe (she turned down Ben Gazzarra hoping to get a piece of the Rock ... "and we all know what a bum decision that turned out to be," she recalls), Gig Young asking to marry her, dishing Gloria Swanson and Dagmar and Marge Champion because of Stritch's on-stage antics in a summer stock tour of "The Women") --- it's a natural, self-absorbed, exercise in name dropping, but it's also an insight into the rich life of one of the theater's richest personalities.
I'll drink to that! Let's all drink to that!
Description of Elaine Stritch at Liberty
ELAINE STRITCH - AT LIBERTY - DVD MovieBroadway & Vocalists Music CDs
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