She enters the stage without fanfare, suddenly she's just there! Tall and elegant in a sequin topped pants ensemble, lushly lashed, bouffant silver haired, Bea Arthur is all glam sophisticate... until you notice she's barefoot. Basically that sums up the persona that seemingly effortlessly takes over the Booth Theater stage. She exudes the confidence that accompanies fame as a bona fide TV star ("Maude," "Golden Girls"), stage actress (Mame, Threepenny Opera, Fiddler on the Roof), and film ("Mame," "Lovers & Other Strangers," "History of the World, Part I"), but noticeably absent is any barrier-building pretense. And, oh, she's barefoot as a remnant of an ankle injury she incurred while performing the show at the Guthrie Theater. She just found it so much more comfortable than wearing a cast, the habit stuck. Arthur plops down onto an armchair and, without preamble, launches into her favorite recipe for lamb, enlisting the entire house her confidants, I mean, sharing recipes is an intimate thing among friends, isn't it?
But don't be fooled. This charming visit with Miss Arthur, and so it feels, is an admirably constructed show that evolved when she and her friend, pianist/composer Billy Goldenberg, found themselves the only performers of one of the many weekly AIDS benefits in LA, in l981. Forced to improvise, they concocted a twenty-minute performance of some of her favorite songs. They were amazed at the enthusiasm with which the audience responded. Similar appearances at different venues gradually developed into the current Broadway show.
Not really a singer, as her gravelly voice makes obvious, Arthur is a "diseuse," a performer who relies on her acting to sell a song, and sell she does, making a dramatic or comic vignette out of each selection. Her delivery of Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill's "Pirate Jenny," which she performed in the American premier of Threepenny Opera, her first acting job in 1954 (during which her "friend", Lotte Lenya, declared "Oh, Bea, don't be silly, men love a big behind"), was so vivid that the drama was pungent. Yet she can riff on Andy Razal's bawdy furniture song, "If I can't sell it, I'm sittin' on it... but I'm not going to give it away." And there are many bawdy anecdotes in this multi faceted show delivered in a conspiratorially lowered voice.
Perfectly poised and seemingly unflappable, Arthur is a master of comedy who outdoes even Jack Benny in her perfectly timed long pauses and double takes, taking her time as laughter ripples through the adoring crowd with each passing second. She also adapted the comedian's favorite gimmick of interrupting herself while singing, in admirable compliance with Goldenberg, whose gnomelike appearance as Arthur's affable foil belies a talent renowned through the industry as a brilliant pianist/composer. In a unique, malice-free spin, she takes the edge out of a bittersweet love song, usually brittle and tinged with sadness, "50 Percent", in which she exults over that part of a married man/lover's life she shares.
A running theme throughout the show is Arthur's unrealized dream to play Rose in Gypsy, and her rousing rendition of "Some People" tears down the house. Yet she can be tender with Marilyn & Alan Bergman's "Where Do You Start?". But most of all what makes the evening spellbinding is the obvious pleasure the performer herself is actually having. "A lot of people ask me `why would I do a one woman show when there are so many roles out there I could play'?" she sarcastically quips early on, in a subtly revelatory remark. Indeed her enjoyment spills over, and so everyone leaves the theater feeling like they spent a great evening with a new-found friend. Credit must go to Matt Berman, an able man of many talents who controls the light and sound essential to maintaining the intimacy of the evening. Mark Waldrop and Richard Maltby, Jr. also share credits as Production Consultants.
