I asked her once how she dealt with being expected to sing "The Ladies Who Lunch" almost every time she did a concert. Her response, "Kid - when Steve Sondheim writes a classic for you - you better damn well sing it. Anyway, someone in the room hasn't heard it before". We met doing "Sail Away" when I was 9 - and I was "Kid" whenever we got together for the rest of her life. Stitichy - I love you and miss you every day.
When Patti LuPone did this song and Elaine was sitting on that stage...SLAAAAYYYEEEDDD. Henny, she was shaking her head thinking: GODDAMN PATTI and gave her the biggest hug & kiss ever. So amazing!
Elaine has a smidgen of affections for the "ladies", LuPone is virtuosic but too operatic for my tastes. Stritch's performance is lapidary, every gesture and inflection in place.
bluscorpion i just like Lupones speaking dialogue so much more- like the “everybody laugh” and “who even wears a hat anymore” i think patty does better
I saw Company for the first time last night, in a comunity theater production in NJ. And here i am today watching everything I can about the original perfomers and performances.
Elaine used to live permanently in the Savoy Hotel, London. Many a morning we exchanged Good Mornings as we passed each other in the Embankment Gardens along the Thames.
If kids today want to know what Broadway was, and should be, before it all become Disney on Stage and saccharin, look no further than Miss Elaine Stritch.
I find it amazing that a woman like Elaine who has an iffy voice is always able to deliver an absolutely stunning performance of this song every single time she does it. She made me fall in love with Company and because of her it's one of my favorite shows ever.
Iffy voice? Her voice may not have been the most conventional, but she had the pipes to deliver the emotion it takes to sing a song like "The Ladies Who Lunch", and anything else she ever sang. Her voice was never "iffy", even into her 80s, when I last saw her perform. Iffy voice, my ass!
It’s because she was a brilliant actress. There are so many musical theatre “pitch perfect” singers that sound technically trained but are shit actors. She inhabits the song and that’s the difference.
@ktank15 If musical theater WERE about getting every note right, then your statement might be correct. Maybe. However, that's just not how it is. No one can pull off a more brilliant performance than Miss Stritch. It's perfect because she hits every nuance and emotion with subtlety and grace. Regardless of tonal correctness.
Yeah but this show wasn't a musical review. This was a show about her life that had funny bits in it and also a lot of sadness so of course there's going to be a lot of "I" "I" "I" in it.
I can only hope there is some 'Acting Coach' showing this clip to anyone nowadays............This is how it is DONE, PERIOD.........Thank you Ms. Stritch for establishing A STANDARD.
One thing that I do love about Elaine Stritch, despite what I would term faults as a performer, is that she never uses vibrato. Granted, it can be used to great effect, but too often it is a cheap trick designed to masque a flat pitch.
People actually perceive notes more in tune if they are oscillating than if they are straight. Vibrato's a color, just like everything else. Good to have the option, I say.
Anyone ever see her as Trixie Norton in The Honeymooners? Funny. It was a brief, one shot during it's run on Calvacade of Stars but she did it before Joyce Randolph. You can find it on RU-vid as Honeymooners: Reall Lost Debut Episodes.
ok so she didn't have a great voice, but many other broadway performers didn't have the greatest voice. There was something about Stritchy! She was one of a kind. She was Broadway. I met her after she opened her one woman show at the Academy in Philadelphia. It was quite a night. Broadway will never again see the likes of Elaine Stritch or Ethel Merman and host of others. These people gave their heart and soul to their craft.
How do you know ? I have only seen that she's not wearing a skirt or trousers the whole time. Something to do with being theatrical, I guess.. But not wearing any pants !! That would be outrageous even in this day and age, but tell me , how do you know ??
She misguidedly thinks it make her geriatric legs look younger, doesn't realize it just makes her look like an old broad who forgot her pants back at the nursing home.
