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Once upon a time there were a scant handful of entertainers you would do anything to see Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand and Ray Charles come to mind. And by the time Judy left us, there was her daughter, Liza Minnelli. In a lifetime of seeing shows, we can remember each and every time we saw these stars perform.
The electric moments pass before our eyes — Sinatra at the 500 Club; Sinatra with Ella and Count Basie at the Uris Theater in New York; Judy at Atlantic City Convention Hall as she shouted maybe she would just sing for us all night; Barbra at the Erlanger Theater in "Funny Girl;" Baby Ray at the Atlantic City Jazz Festival bringing down the house with "What’d I Say;" and Liza at the old Shubert making life a Cabaret, old chum.
Frank, Judy and Ray are long gone now, and Barbra’s appearances are as rare as Halley’s Comet. As for Liza, she had become the sad punch line to a joke, a tabloid topic for the late night comics. So it was with some trepidation we viewed the announcement of Liza’s attempted comeback at the famous Palace on Broadway. Could she shake off the years and the booze and the diet pills or would this be the highly public ending of a great, great talent?
It is with considerable joy I am able to tell you Liza is back. She has turned the pathos of her life into one of those once-in-a-lifetime concerts. Appearing on stage in a stunning white pants suit, in truth she need not have performed at the highest level to earn the plaudits of an adoring audience. Even if she could no longer belt a tune or strut her stuff, there would have been someone screaming, "We love you" — so eerily reminiscent of the romance between her mother and her fans. The crowd gave her a standing ovation just because she looked so good, to see her silhouetted on stage as the curtain went up. We were content to just see her looking so damn good. But this Liza, wasn’t content just returning to the stage and, on this night of nights, she showed us what the quintessential comeback of a showbiz superstar is all about.
The first half was an intermingling of Liza’s signature songs and a tribute to the venerable, old Palace Theatre. The second half was lovingly dedicated to her godmother Kay Thompson’s nightclub act. The setting became a replica of the famous Ciro’s Nightclub, where she was accompanied by four male singers representing Andy Williams and his brothers. The second half of the show included some less familiar material and a rousing rendition of "Mammy."
Liza reminds us of how we have diluted the term superstar, how we have dumbed down our expectations in the age of Britney and even Celine Dion. I would be disingenuous if I told you Liza has made time stand still. None of us can. She greatly limits her dancing. She has learned to cover for when her voice grows a bit raspy and her breathing gets a little labored. At times, she sits in a folding chair when, in days gone by, she would have strutted across the stage. Rather than defeat time, Liza has bent it to her will, and the effect is the unfolding of a show we have been waiting for since all the real superstars have passed from the scene. When she shouts the punch line of "Cabaret," Liza declares triumphantly this time she is not willing to die like Elsie — a further reference she has finally discarded a life once marred by pills and drugs.
She has engaged us, the audience, in her struggle. We are literally in the palm of her hand. We feel the poignancy of the words, the self-deprecating remarks about the tabloid quality that killed so many of the great ones. Perhaps we even shed a tear or two. Her show has now taken to the road. The admonition we hear whispered in our ear is from Rick Danko, a rock musician in Martin Scorsese’s "The Last Waltz." Danko, in a premonition of his own death, said famously, "The road kills."
The show ends with all of us — Liza and her fans — hoping against hope she can defeat the road this time, because in the end, she cannot live her life without her real drug of choice, the adulation of the crowd. And our entertainment scene is so sterile without her.
As we file out of the theater and into the night, we hope in the words of one of her signature songs, this time, maybe this time, she’ll win.
