Elaine Stritch: At Liberty

Elaine Stritch doesn't just work in showbiz, she is showbiz. Now in her seventies, and in a new show highlighting her long, rocky career path from Broadway ingenue to industry survivor, Stritch doesn't pull any punches in relaying how she got where she is right now. And she doesn't apologize for any of it.

Under the direction of the supernaturally talented George C. Wolfe (who may have accomplished his best directing job to date), Stritch becomes your window into that business they call show. Transporting, moving, and full of the kind of joy in performance you get only once in the bluest moon, Elaine Stritch at Liberty is a truly liberating experience. A production with the capacity to stir the young and the old, the girls on the go and the ladies who lunch (to paraphrase her most popular musical performance), it embodies what theater exists for. Alternately exalted and planted right on the ground, it is one of the rare pieces of theater where you feel as if a cloud carries you through it. This may sound like egregious overpraise, but when you confront how it makes you feel afterward, words just don't work.

This show isn't shaped like a traditional "this was my life" review. Sure, its leading lady tells stories and anecdotes about her life, and songs are woven into the fabric of the narrative, but here it is so seamlessly blended, it feels like you've seen this format for the very first time. What's different is the utter lack of self-congratulatory phoniness; we feel everyone involved is being upfront. Through two-plus glorious hours, Stritch details her career with biting exactitude. Her ill-fated interest in Marlon Brando, her friendships with luminaries like Noel Coward (who penned Sail Away, one of her defining shows), Harold Prince and Liz Smith, and most urgently, her longtime partnership with alcohol, which never impeded her progress until she realized it was her progress, her unhealthy way of getting through the day.

This last factor is the overriding theme of Liberty, but if you're expecting some self-pitying, actorly tract piece, think again. Stritch is the greatest no-bullshit artist ever created, and never once in the performance is there a moment of artifice on her part. With a great assist by New Yorker theater critic John Lahr (who worked on script construction), Stritch recounts her tale with an abundance of heart and a staggering lack of vanity. She speaks frankly of love affairs, backstage drama and growing up without the typical name dropping disingenuousness. We feel we know the people she talks about because of her dedication to making her life seem genuine to us. Every story happens for a reason, and not one is without merit. And Stritch's greatest gift as a musical theater actress is how she makes songs into stories as well. In an age of bland, prettified musical stars cast for their looks and not much else, Stritch's abilities shine even brighter.

One reason for longevity in her career is that she doesn't sing songs, she sells them. That's an easier task when you get to perform classic Stephen Sondheim and Rodgers & Hart, but she leaves an impression on each one. Even song placement is excellent here. One might expect that "I'm Still Here" from Follies or "The Ladies Who Lunch", that powerhouse standard from Company (which solidified her musical prowess) would be ideal closing songs for any evening, but she and director Wolfe are smarter than that. The show is not a revue or a cabaret act, it's a deeply felt night of theater. The songs serve as punctuation for her tales, not a segue, and Stritch has the uncanny ability to make you feel something in or out of song, and in either case, every word counts.

The pairing of Stritch and George C. Wolfe is an ingenious one. Wolfe is the most underappreciated director in the biz, one reason being his daring. He approaches his musicals the same way he does his plays, because he's more interested in honestly rustling your emotions than using swelled orchestras to give the false impression you're being stirred. Michael John LaChuisa's The Wild Party, which Wolfe directed, was the most maligned musical of the last decade, and part of the reason was because a flurry of spoon-fed theatergoers couldn't deal with a musical where belting and histrionic behavior didn't take center stage. It was no masterpiece but often deceptively subtle and risk-taking, made by someone who really wanted to shake things up. That attitude is even more present here, but the work speaks for itself. The stage is bare save for one black stool that Stritch moves around as if it is the concrete representation of her ever-changing life, and Wolfe never makes anyone or anything but the performer your focus.

There's a wealth of experience and gravity in Elaine Stritch's incomparably raspy voice, and it is highly recommended that you hear it from that wonderful voice, rather than mine. It's a life worth living through her, in all its ups and downs, and it's a true journey in all that word embodies. The only way to do the woman justice is to quote her final number, which wraps up her whole life in one glorious Richard Rodgers tune: