SOLVED: The Vexing Conundrum Of Elaine Stritch!

Elaine Stritch was a mass of contradictions.

She came from a loving, intact family and said she longed to be married but she avoided commitment with all the ferocity of a confirmed bachelor.

She was a lifelong, practicing Catholic but she smoked, drank and cussed like a truck driver and went through a long list of bedmates in the course of a storied career.

She claimed she was most at home and most alive on the stage but opened her one-woman show with a string of complaints about the perils and pitfalls of show business.

She admired decent, practical midwest sensibility but avoided a return to her native Michigan until her final years.

She was said to be a devilish flirt and rarely hid her appetite for the opposite sex but insisted that sex itself was greatly overrated.

She proclaimed a love of New York but when she finally bought a home of her own she opted for a single family home on the main street of a small town.

A lifelong drinker, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous and swore off booze but reportedly continued to imbibe right up to the time of her death.

She was a scene-stealer and show-stopper who also generously mentored other actors. She was a notorious spendthrift who could be surprisingly generous. She had no children of her own and showed little or no interest in kiddies but bequeathing hundreds of thousands of dollars to a children's health program. She boldly challenged authority and scorned sacred cows but went weak kneed in the presence of greatness.

All of this and more is revealed in Alexandra Jacobs' juicy new biography, Still Here, The Madcap, Singular Life of Elaine Stritch.

To say that Elaine Stritch was a complicated person (and an often difficult personality) would be an understatement. It wasn't easy to be her friend. But people were drawn to her and her devotees were legion. She wasn't a great beauty or a melodious songstress and she couldn't dance to save her life. And though she was all the rage in London, you'd never put her in the same league with the giants of the West End.

So, what was it about Elaine Stritch? Why did she prove to be such a compelling presence, so sought after, such an indomitable star?

Here's the way Jacobs explains it (with a bit of help from Stritch's collaborator John Lahr) in Still Here:

John Lahr: “She was actually the most panic-struck person I ever knew . . . . . her real great acting talent was convincing the world that she was loosey-goosey — that was a complete act. And the world bought it!”

And Jacobs adds: "What [Lahr] recognized was someone of the old guard, someone who knew how to stop a show. Someone with no 'Plan B' . . . someone who’s very survival, psychological and economic, depended on her performance, and the audience liking her performance.
" . . for Stritch home was no place, except when she alighted on the stage. 'Honset to God, when I get into a play — even a musical,' she said, 'that was where I lived.'
"What was Stritch’s talent exactly? . . . It really was entertaining, the root of which means 'to hold together.' In a drawing room or on a stage, Stritch could command the entire space."

Throughout her life, sometimes in spite of herself and sometimes against the most overwhelming odds, from the very start right up till the end, Elaine Stritch held it together!

Dear Evan Hansen? Isolation,Torment And Angst

Today less than 24 hours after we saw Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway another high school shooting occurred, this time in Santa Clarita, California. The details are still being sorted out but the alleged shooter is a 16-year-old and today was his birthday.

I mention this because Dear Evan Hansen is about adolescent isolation in the age of the internet. And it deals frankly with high school alienation, the longing for attention and acceptance, and teenage suicide.

But if you're looking for any real insight into what's knawing at high school kids these days from Dear Evan Hansen, you're likely to be disappointed. In fact, it would be generous to call this show a musical attempt at pop psychology.

Evan Hansen comes from a family that consists of just him and a single mom. His parents are divorced and his dad started a new family somewhere else. At school he is bullied and disconnected and can count but a single friend, the terminally nerdy Jared. A hostile student named Connor Murphy badgers Evan and throws him to the ground. Shortly thereafter, Connor (who has his own set of problems, including drug use) commits suicide. And that's where the internet and Evan's ten minutes of fame come into play.

We won't tell you anymore than that.

Dear Evan Hansen consists of a mostly bare stage, eight players, lots of high-tech projections that pose as scenery, a tinny nine-piece band and street clothes in place of costumes. The characters frequently appear solitary and lit by a single spotlight. Often, when they speak to one another they look straight ahead at the audience instead of at one another. When they sing, they simply shout out their feelings in shrill, declarative sentences. In Evan's case, he occasionally switches from a faux tenor to a falsetto without explanation. OK, he's a teenager and he's awkward. Maybe his voice hasn't completely changed. One powerful song (Waving Through A Window) defines Evan's dilemma. Most of the other songs in the show take their cue from "Waving" (or the second-act anthem You Will Be Found) and they sound pretty much the same.

Evan is a senior at his school but we don't know exactly where he lives. We never meet any of his teachers. If he has any goals or occupational aspirations they're never shared with us. His mom is needy, clingy and often whiney. Connor's parents are presumably successful but unhappy and all but estranged. They've spent so much time worrying about Connor that they've apparently neglected his sister, Zoe. All this has made Zoe feel alienated and resentful of Connor. But Evan's got a crush on Zoe.

Dear Evan Hansen is so saturated with incoherent detachment that you come to feel that you're about to drown in a sea of free floating anxiety. There's nothing subtle or nuanced about this show -- so much so that it sometimes seems assaultive. Plus, it's more than cheerless, it's damned near tortuous.

So, why did it win the Tony Award and why is it still running after almost three years with no signs of abatement? Well, for one thing it's been exceptionally well hyped and cleverly marketed. But it also seems to have struck a chord in an America where all the traditional guideposts have sunk into the quicksand of moral relativity. Nobody seems to know right from wrong, good from bad, truth from falsehood, hero from villain, or anything else anymore.

And Broadway doesn't seem to know a series of barely-melodic, angst-filled monologues from an actual musical.

Hear It Like You've Never Heard It Before!

Brian Stokes Mitchell in South Pacific in Concert at Carnegie Hall in 2005.
Perhaps the finest rendition of this song ever!

Broadway Will Dim Lights For One Of The Greats!

The Broadway community mourns the loss of beloved performer, pioneer, and Tony Award® winner Diahann Carroll, who passed away on October 4, 2019 at age 84. To commemorate her life and work, the Committee of Theatre Owners will dim the lights of the American Airlines, Broadhurst, Helen Hayes, Hudson, Marquis, New Amsterdam, Samuel J. Friedman, St. James, and Vivian Beaumont Theatres in New York for one minute on Wednesday, October 16th at exactly 7:45pm.

“Much has been made of Ms. Carroll’s groundbreaking role shattering racial barriers in film and on Broadway,” said Thomas Schumacher, Chairman of The Broadway League. “That she was a pioneer is undeniable. But she was first and foremost a gifted, Tony-winning actress of enormous warmth and charm. She made just three visits to Broadway – in two musicals and a turbulent drama – but the breadth of those roles is a measure of her range and craft.”

On Broadway Ms. Carroll appeared in Agnes of God (1982), No Strings (1962), and House of Flowers(1954). Winner of the 1962 Tony Award for Best Actress in A Musical for her performance in No Strings, she was the first African-American woman to win this award. On the road, Ms. Carroll toured with the production of Same Time, Next Year (1977) and starred as Norma Desmond in the Toronto production of Sunset Boulevard (1995).

Ms. Carroll, well known for her groundbreaking starring roles in the television series “Julia” and “Dynasty,” had an extensive television and film career with credits including: “White Collar;” “Diary of a Single Mom,” “Grey's Anatomy,” “Soul Food,” “Livin' for Love: The Natalie Cole Story,” “Sally Hemings: An American Scandal,” “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years,” “Eve’s Bayou,” “Touched By An Angel,” “Lonesome Dove: The Series,” “Evening Shade,” “A Different World,” The Five Heartbeats, “The Colbys,” “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” “Roots: The Next Generations,” “The Love Boat,” Claudine, Paris Blues, Porgy and Bess, and Carmen Jones among many others.

Nominated for various entertainment industry awards throughout her career including an Oscar in 1975, Ms. Carroll received the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Biography / Auto-biography (2009), the TV Land Groundbreaking Show Award (2003), the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture (1975), and the Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star – Female (1969).

Her full Broadway biography can be found on the Internet Broadway Database: https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/diahann-carroll-34679#Credits

A Wild, Raucous, Laugh-Filled Carnival Ride With Music!

I knew next-to-nothing about Beetlejuice before I saw the new Broadway musical of the same name.
I never saw the movie. At the time, the film really didn't interest me. It seemed silly -- ridiculous, pure and simple.
But in the past, I've gone to see musicals based on movies or books or even TV shows I knew nothing about and I often found myself enjoying them in a way that others who were more familiar with the material could not.
Well, Beetlejuice was created by Tim Burton so you know it's dark and peppered with abnormal characters.
For those of you who don't know by now, the story goes something like this: After Barbara and Adam (a wholesome young couple) die in an accident, they find themselves stuck haunting their new country residence, unable to leave the house. When the unbearable Deetzes and teen daughter Lydia buy the home, the ghost/former residents attempt to scare them away without success. Their efforts soon attract Beetlejuice, a rambunctious, outrageous character whose "help" quickly becomes dangerous for all involved, especially Lydia.
Playwrights Anthony King and Scott Brown have now brought Beetlejuice to Broadway's cavernous Winter Garden theater with music and lyrics by Eddie Perfect and they've created a show that unfounds like a carnival ride meandering through a hall of mirrors, fun house and parachute drop all rolled into one.

The costumes by William Ivey Long are beyond imaginative; the sets by David Korins are three-dimensionally beguiling and wonderfully animated; the special effects byJeremy Chernick are nothing less than eye-popping and the direction by Alex Tmbers is crisp and snappy.

But, of course, none this would work without the actors And Beetlejuice is blessed with a great ensemble cast. In the title role Alex Brightman is outrageous, vulgar, insulting, profane and altogether delightful. He's simply irrepressible. He will not be denied his opportunity to be downright assaultive.

And let us add that Sophie Ann Caruso as Lydia is every bit Brightman's equal. Plus there are also send-up performances by the appealing Rob McClure as Adam and the menacing Leslie Kritzer as Delia. There are more than 20 in this energetic cast and they're all wonderful.

We heard that Beetlejuice had serious problems on the road. In fact, the show was mostly panned by the DC critics. But somewhere along the way torn edges were mended, loose ends were tightened, paths were unblocked so the show could flow smoothly and, perhaps most importantly, the timing was perfected so that every funny line (and there are plenty of them) could pop like a firecracker.

And yes, Beetlejuice is thoroughly preposterous, mostly inane and often ludicrous.

But it also announces itself as a show about death and, in a raucous way it forces you to confront the absurdities of life including your own mortality and whatever may or may not lie beyond.

For example, there's a great song called "The Whole Being Dead Thing . . . " and that's right at the top of the show.

Go. See. And laugh at the often wretched conundrum we call life.

A Captivating Tune, Lost In A 'Failed' Show . . .

In 1997 I saw the musical Steel Pier on Broadway with Gregory Harrison, Karen Ziemba and Daniel McDonald. It was a beautiful show with an unusual story. It was melodic and nostalgic and romantic. And it was a Kander and Ebb show, so the music was terrific. Since the story revolved around the marathon dances of the 1930s, the dancing was also first rate.
One particular song, Dance With Me/The Last Girl stayed with me over all these years. Here's how it was performed on the Today Show while Steel Pier attempted to attract an audience during what was a very busy year for musicals, as I recall. Titanic won best musical that year while Chicago took best revival of a musical. In fact, Chicago and Titanic dominated the awards while Steel Pier was left in the dust. It closed after a relatively short run.
But this number remains as fresh and captivating as the moment it was first performed!

Top Dozen Stage To Movie Musicals

Broadway now seems addicted to turning movies into musicals.

But what about the other way around? How successful has Hollywood been at turning musicals into movies? To be sure, some non-musical movies became Broadway musicals and then their musical versions later became movies again. 

In any event, for a musical, the transition from stage to film has never been easy. But when it works, the movie can become a blockbuster hit. In fact, some of these have not only become some of the biggest grossers of all time but have also garnered scads of Oscars.

In no particular order, here are a dozen of the best:

Chicago

The longest-running American musical of all time became a dazzlingly memorable movie with the twist of major characters imagining some of their musical numbers. It worked!

Sweeney Todd

The movie was way, way better than its reviews and it should have garnered more traffic and a fair number of awards. But, the subject matter was difficult, to be sure.

The Sound of Music

A instant classic, it endures because the timing was right, the story remains inspiring and its big screen debut was nothing less than breathtaking.

West Side Story

Not a particular favorite of ours but the transition to the screen seemed seamless and the show never seems to lose its appeal. In fact, it's headed back to Broadway and a new screen version is in the works.

Dream Girls

In many ways the screen version was a bigger hit than the stage musical. The story just seemed right for the screen and the cast was splendid.

Grease

Another example where stage and screen versions seem to actually feed off one another. Without Grease, where would the 50s be?

Fiddler on the Roof

Yes, we missed Zero Mostel. But could the big screen really contain him? In any event, the story adapted beautifully and proved universal.

Les Miserables

This was a huge challenge. And there were many naysayers right from the start. But Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne exceeded all expectations.

My Fair Lady

Positively sumptuous! Sure, Audrey Hepburn wasn't really singing but Julie Andrews still got the Oscar so it all worked out in the end -- and so did he movie.

Cabaret

Under the able direction of the quirky, manic, difficult, demanding Bob Fosse, this became an updated classic. And Liza Minelli was nothing less than stratospheric. It's still compelling!

Oliver!

It literally pops off the screen with musical numbers that envelop the audience and a classic (though nonetheless complicated) story that touches the heart. Added plus: a powerful social message.

Little Shop of Horrors

What is it about this show? We don't know. Maybe it's just the allure of the nerd. A "small" story with a big impact. It's the exception to the rule, we suppose.

Now, go ahead -- add and subtract to and from the list at your leisure.

All ideas and suggestions welcomed!