Elaine Stritch at Liberty - Filmed Live on Stage at the Old Vic Theatre, London. DVD, color, Dolby digital 2.0, anamorphic. Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1. 89 minutes, all regions.
Elaine Stritch at Liberty, the Broadway legend's one-woman show, triumphed in New York and won a 2002 Tony Award. This double-Emmy-winning recording was made when she later took London by storm. Stritch's comic timing is impeccable and her anecdotes priceless as she talks and sings her way through fifty years in American theatre.
From a disastrous date with Marlon Brando to blowing her chance of starring in The Golden Girls, she is uncompromisingly honest in telling her own story and pulls no punches in recounting her struggle with drink. Sensational, poignant and incredibly funny, Stritch can still knock an audience dead.
"Star, legend, force of nature--whatever you call Elaine Stritch, it probably applies, and It's never more apparent than in her deeply personal one-woman show, "At Liberty". With only an oversize shirt, black tights, and a chair, Stritch mesmerizes a full house at London's Old Vic Theatre with tales of her 50-plus-year career on stage and screen. It's a priceless glimpse of backstage theatre to hear her recount how she served as standby for Ethel Merman in "Call Me Madam" in New York at the same time she had a featured role in "Pal Joey" playing in New Haven, Connecticut. And she tells about the people she mingled with (Noel Coward, Judy Garland, Rock Hudson), her disappointments both professional ("I blew "The Golden Girls"!") and personal (her bouts with drinking). "At Liberty" is more of a monologue than a musical performance, though she does perform some of her signature songs like "Zip" and "The Ladies Who Lunch." "At Liberty" won a Tony Award in June 2002 for Special Theatrical Event, but Stritch's triumph was tempered when she was not allowed to complete her acceptance speech. Her response to it here is just one of the touching moments in a remembrance of a historic career. "--David Horiuchi