ELAINE STRITCH, remembered by John Rubinstein [ John debuted on Broadway in 1972 in the title role of the original production of PIPPIN. Through July 27th, hes playing Charles in the current revival of the show at The Music Box. Here he offers a remarkable story about the legendary Ms. Stritch, who finally left the stage this past Thursday. ] John writes... Ill never forget seeing Elaine Stritch in Company. Or in anything else, over the many years. She never failed to deliver the goods in a way that cut like a knife, and was full of splash and savagery and mad humor, but also as real and honest as meat and potatoes. Still, Company was special. It was Larry Kerts first or second night, after Dean Jones had left, and it so happened that Jacqueline (Kennedy) Onassis was in the audience. She ran in with an escort (not Ari) after the show had already started, and made a whole half-row get up so she and he could sit in their fifth-row-center seats. The audience whispered around a bit. She had been spotted. Right before intermission, with the show still in progress, an usher came down the aisle and signaled to them, and they got up and squirmed out of the row and ran up the aisle in the dark before the act ended. Now the lights came up and everybody was buzzing that Jackie was in the house. When intermission was over, nobody would sit down. The entire balcony audience had come downstairs to get a sighting, and would not go upstairs. There was a mob scene. The stage manager came on over the P.A. and begged and begged everyone to PLEASE sit down so the show could go on. They wouldnt. The interval lasted about 40 minutes. Finally, people reluctantly returned to their seats, and the second act started. What would we do without you-oo . . .? The cast was about three minutes into the big second act opening number, when Jackie O and her friend tried to furtively run down the aisle to their seats in the dark again. But this time everybody in the whole house was ready for them, and everyone in the theater screamed out and started yelling and talking and pointing and getting up and craning over. The people in the balcony rushed down to the front and leaned over, calling out wildly. The people in the first four rows got up and turned their backs to the stage and waved and shouted and gesticulated back at Jackie. It was a riot. Finally, the mayhem subsided, and the audience calmed down and got interested in the play again. About 45 minutes later, Stritch came down center to sing The Ladies Who Lunch. Holding her vodka stinger glass, she walked right to the edge of the stage, found Jackie, focused on her, and roared the entire song right at her. Never moved or looked away the whole time. When she finally screamed Rise! Rise! Rise! . . . at the end, she was literally pouring her cracked and enormous soul and voice across those few rows right into the face and heart of the woman who was the grand epitome of those lunching ladies about whom the song was written; but also the tragic widow the entire country had watched lose her husband so shockingly six and a half years earlier. Stritch somehow brought all those conflicting emotions together and fired them at her. There was rage, and empathy, and contempt, and sympathy, and understanding, and just pure crazed volcanic eruption. And Stritch was also expressing her outrage, and that of the cast, at the horrific rudeness of the audience. It was as if the place had been fire-bombed. The audience all rose to their feet and gave her the kind of ovation that virtually never happens in the middle of a show. It stopped the proceedings for about five minutes. At the end, Mrs. Onassis and her escort walked out with everyone else, slowly, up the aisle, among the crowd. There were some looks, of course, but nobody made any kind of a fuss. She had been completely blown out of the water by Elaine Stritch. Unforgettable. What a big loss to the theater; but what a life, and what astounding performances she gave us while she was here!!!
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 17:30:39 +0000
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