When is it time for a great entertainer to say goodbye to the stage, asks Stephen Holden in The New York Times.
Watching Elaine Stritch, 88, in the opening-night show of her five-night farewell engagement at the Café Carlyle on Tuesday, I reflected that in cabaret, a genre that venerates the wisdom and experience of great ladies of a certain age, nobody wants to stop. As long as people are willing to pay to see them, why shouldn’t they continue?
A legend like Ms. Stritch, who is moving to Birmingham, Mich., to be near her nephews and nieces, has earned her adorers. In New York’s theatrical-cabaret axis, teeming with larger-than-life personalities, Ms. Stritch is one of the most formidable. Like Carol Channing and Liza Minnelli she epitomizes traditional show business brass and resilience: a “give it all you’ve got” dedication to entertaining. Everyone in the room was keenly aware that this might be the last hurrah of a blazing, cranky, funny stage personality who is, in a word, irreplaceable.
It would be easy for any performer to mistake the wild acclaim she received on Tuesday for a broader vote of confidence despite her frailty, but Ms. Stritch’s physical ailments have caught up with her. She is a diabetic and has suffered a number of falls and small strokes that have eroded her memory. Her feisty spirit and salty humor are more or less intact, but increasingly the right words elude her, and her stamina has diminished.
