December 6, 1999
Broadway Babies - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - On PBS this month, there’s a terrific show called My Favorite Broadway, Leading Ladies. It pools together all the grand dames of the American musical theatre in a faboulous one-time only show at the venerable Carnegie Hall. Hosted by Julie Andrews, she starts off the show coming out on stage in the tux she wore in her Tony-nominated role in Victor/Victoria. Andrews starred in that show and did two years on Broadway winning a Tony nod. After she left the show, she went in for what was suppose to be some routine surgery on the old pipes. Well, they screwed up and the voice that floated amongst the hills in The Sound of Music, is for now, silenced. But, in full stage presence, Miss Andrews is at her commanding best.
Jennifer Holiday, the Tony winning star of Dreamgirls, sings her signature “And I’m Telling You” and brings down the house. She belts like no one can. That song is a showstopper that also happens to be Jim Carrey’s favorite song. He sang it on the last episode of The Larry Sanders Show and made television history.
There are also great performances by the new bunch of Broadway babies that are conquering the Great White Way right now. Andrea McArdle does two songs from Annie, and does it in that old Annie charm. She must be 20-something, but for Chrissakes, she sounds younger than that. Marrin Mazzie, Audra Macdonald and Judy Kuhn do a niffty Andrew Lloyd Webber medley that is living proof that Broadway is alive and well and in good hands.
One thing that did get me was the savage censorship shown by PBS. In one tune from A Chorus Line, performed by Priscilla Lopez, the broadcaster had the gall to bleep out and innocent ‘bullshit’ from the song “Nothing.”
Rosie O’Donnell wandered out, and duetted with Liza Minnelli. If there’s anyone who signifies Broadway at it’s very finest, its Liza. Minnelli won four Tony’s on Broadway, but in the last few years she’s had a rough time. Folowing her disastrous stint filling in for Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria, she went in for some throat surgery too, and somehow lost that impecable luster. She also went in for some hip replacement surgery and in doing that, gained some weight. Liza looks tubby and it’s definetly not her. She did “Some People” from Gypsy and frankly it looks different. I’ve seen her do it in a concert earlier this decade, and this latest performace is a shame.
After Miss Andrews’ opening, Karen Ziemba, a recent Tony nominee strolled out in the fetching costume of Roxie Hart in Chicago. She and Bebe Neuwirth, Lilith on Cheers and Frasier, did a sexy Fosse styled number from Chicago. Elaine Stritch, Nell Carter and The Rockettes also make appearances. Stritch is one of Broadway’s best, and she shows that in belting out the ultra-cynical, “The Ladies Who Lunch”, from Sondheim’s Company.
If you love Broadway, this is the show to see. If you don’t know what the hell Broadway is, this is the show to see and one definetly not to miss. My Favorite Broadway, Leading Ladies, is Broadway and the American Musical Theatre at its most brilliant. It airs locally on Monday night (December 6, 1999) on WTVS, cable 43 in Vancouver.
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An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .