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Elaine Stritch |
Yearning for a great trouper like Elaine Stritch
BROADWAY icon Elaine Stritch garnered nightly standing ovations and critical adulation for her recent one-woman show at the Shaw Theatre.
The octogenarian star exited the premises this week, but more showbiz icons will take up residence at the Euston theatre until November.
Ms Stritch was in the vanguard of top-flight entertainers, many flown across from the other side of the Atlantic, chosen by the American impresario and singer Michael Feinstein and the Shaw’s artistic director Brian Daniels.
Feinstein’s at the Shaw, the UK incarnation of his New York club, will play host to jazz musicians and legendary cabaret theatre performers: Michel Legrand with Alison Moyet, Ben Vereen, Boy George, the songwriter Gerard Kenny, the deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie, and Al Martino. Mr Feinstein will also make an appearance with the Golden Globe Award winner Diahann Carroll.
For Feinstein and Daniels, there is a particular type of artist who makes the cut. “Nostalgia is very important,” Daniels says. “It’s also the triumph over adversity. There’s something about these grande dames of 80-plus that have survived a showbiz career and can still stand up do a two-hour show.”
Daniels pressed his card into the hand of Feinstein’s manager at the stage door of the Theatre Royal Haymarket four years ago with the words: “If you ever come back to London, talk to me before anybody else.”
“I was always interested in Michael Feinstein’s style – it’s the great American songbook in a non-flashy way,” he says. “It’s through my relationship with Michael that I’m able to go directly to people like Elaine Stritch or Nancy Sinatra without getting involved in agents. He also tells me those artists who are still capable of performing. They’ve got to be able to deliver a four or five-star show.”
The theatre, he believes, occupies a niche in theatre- land; people fly in from as far away as Europe to attend the shows.
“There’s no cabaret space in London. All the West End theatres have long-running shows; places like the Palladium are enormous. There’s a point these stars reach when they want to play more intimate venues. It might appeal to someone like Amy Winehouse to do a show here and I think she would probably fit in. She’s a slightly tragic figure, and people like a bit of tragedy.”
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