The Liz Smith Column | 10/26/2009 5:00 am
Liz Smith: One Night Only With Vanessa Redgrave
Our Gossip Girl has Broadway’s new ‘Royal Family’ and more in her Monday dish.
Vanessa Redgrave © Getty Images
"Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do that, you can make anything happen," wrote Goethe.
***
Tonight, one night only you have your chance to see the fabled British actress Vanessa Redgrave do her greatest as she winds down the months she has played in Joan Didion’s "The Year of Magical Thinking."
It happens as a benefit tonight for UNICEF (especially for the children of Gaza and southern Israel). And it takes place in the magical and beautiful Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Before I tell you of my talk with Vanessa, who was in rehearsal, let me assure you that there are tickets beginning at $40 and going up to Patron and Sponsor seats for $2500 and a little less.
I asked Vanessa if it is hard to go back and re-learn a one-person role after having played it ad infinitum on the Broadway and London stages during 2007 and 2008. Vanessa said simply, "Well, it is a privilege and this is probably the very last time I will ever do it." (The tragic story of Ms. Didion’s true-life loss of husband and daughter in a short time period is the stuff of legend by now. The book was a bestseller and the play, directed by David Hare, was considered a rare one-person onstage masterpiece.)
I hadn’t really spoken to Miss Redgrave since I went backstage after her incredible performance in "Long Day’s Journey Into Night" some seasons ago. We did not get a chance to talk after the loss of her beautiful daughter Natasha Richardson earlier this year, though we exchanged letters. I asked Vanessa last Friday how she was doing.
Vanessa: "Well, I am enjoying the last day of rehearsal for this performance Monday night. I love rehearsal halls and we’ve been doing this for two weeks. I like being where you can always hear a piano in some other rehearsal hall two steps away. It’s reassuring.
"No, I don’t know what I might do next. I have just been concentrating on this farewell performance. This is where all my focus has been in America, and no, it is not hard to relearn the words because this play is so powerful.
"I know comparisons are a bit stupid, but it sort of reminds me of doing Ibsen’s ‘Lady From the Sea.’ This is a play I never lost and could always come back to. Each time you come back to a part you have played, then you are always astonished to think that you ever played it before. It is always new."
I told this very great lady my feelings about her loss of Natasha and what it had meant to everyone in America who loved her. Vanessa said, "Yes, well, thank you. I will never forget the Broadway theaters dimming their lights for her. It was so generous."
Don’t miss this event tonight if you’re in New York. Call (202) 223-3768 or Shannon@friendsunrwa.org.
***
Audiences at the Sam Friedman Theater on the Great White Way are really having a good time these nights, rollicking in nostalgia and harking back to another time with the theater geniuses George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s big three-act play "The Royal Family."
As I walked into a busy 47th Street approaching the newly named theater that used to be called the Biltmore, I was delighted by the synchronicity of seeing the Barrymore Theater, still functioning just down the block.
***
Tonight, one night only you have your chance to see the fabled British actress Vanessa Redgrave do her greatest as she winds down the months she has played in Joan Didion’s "The Year of Magical Thinking."
It happens as a benefit tonight for UNICEF (especially for the children of Gaza and southern Israel). And it takes place in the magical and beautiful Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Before I tell you of my talk with Vanessa, who was in rehearsal, let me assure you that there are tickets beginning at $40 and going up to Patron and Sponsor seats for $2500 and a little less.
I asked Vanessa if it is hard to go back and re-learn a one-person role after having played it ad infinitum on the Broadway and London stages during 2007 and 2008. Vanessa said simply, "Well, it is a privilege and this is probably the very last time I will ever do it." (The tragic story of Ms. Didion’s true-life loss of husband and daughter in a short time period is the stuff of legend by now. The book was a bestseller and the play, directed by David Hare, was considered a rare one-person onstage masterpiece.)
I hadn’t really spoken to Miss Redgrave since I went backstage after her incredible performance in "Long Day’s Journey Into Night" some seasons ago. We did not get a chance to talk after the loss of her beautiful daughter Natasha Richardson earlier this year, though we exchanged letters. I asked Vanessa last Friday how she was doing.
Vanessa: "Well, I am enjoying the last day of rehearsal for this performance Monday night. I love rehearsal halls and we’ve been doing this for two weeks. I like being where you can always hear a piano in some other rehearsal hall two steps away. It’s reassuring.
"No, I don’t know what I might do next. I have just been concentrating on this farewell performance. This is where all my focus has been in America, and no, it is not hard to relearn the words because this play is so powerful.
"I know comparisons are a bit stupid, but it sort of reminds me of doing Ibsen’s ‘Lady From the Sea.’ This is a play I never lost and could always come back to. Each time you come back to a part you have played, then you are always astonished to think that you ever played it before. It is always new."
I told this very great lady my feelings about her loss of Natasha and what it had meant to everyone in America who loved her. Vanessa said, "Yes, well, thank you. I will never forget the Broadway theaters dimming their lights for her. It was so generous."
Don’t miss this event tonight if you’re in New York. Call (202) 223-3768 or Shannon@friendsunrwa.org.
***
Audiences at the Sam Friedman Theater on the Great White Way are really having a good time these nights, rollicking in nostalgia and harking back to another time with the theater geniuses George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s big three-act play "The Royal Family."
As I walked into a busy 47th Street approaching the newly named theater that used to be called the Biltmore, I was delighted by the synchronicity of seeing the Barrymore Theater, still functioning just down the block.
Read more about: Celebrities, David Hare, Edna Ferber, Entertainment, George S. Kaufman, Goethe, Gossip, Henrik Ibsen, Jan Maxwell, Joan Didion, Kelli Barrett, Liz Smith, Natasha Richardson, New York City, News, Noel Coward, Reg Rogers, Rosemary Harris, Theater, Tony Roberts, Vanessa Redgrave
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20 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Those fortunate enough to attend tonight’s one-woman performance of Vanessa Redgrave will - I am sure remember it for a lifetime. Joan Didion’s writing suits Redgrave, but for those of us in the audience it resonates with us all, touching our hearts in unison. Who can forget these words:
Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We know that someone close to us could die. We might expect to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect to be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy – cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes.
It will be a night to remember.
Yes, for every husband/wife who can give the clothes away, there is another that keeps the room as it was - often like a shrine, with the things that were on the dresser still in place. They visit the room, smell the clothes, go to bed with a shirt. I think people have to do what they have to do … and I can make no judgments on another. The problems I have heard of come from when the spouse decides to re-marry and yet will not clean out that room. The marriage is in trouble from the start. The only way I have found that solved is if the one to be married insists they will not live in the house that once was the couple’s. A tense time more often than not — but understandable to me.
So Didion’s paragraph hit home so well … as we DO understand the shoes … and more.
I envy those of you attending tonight’s performance. Actually, in a time of mountainous grief and shock, I purchased and read The Year of Magical Thinking, twice! Unpacking at home upon arriving from yet another family memorial, I discovered my duplicate hardback copy of the book. I usually remember hardback book purchases! Great book.
I am looking forward to the opening of the ATT Performing Arts Center in Dallas. Billy Crystal is scheduled for Nov 17th, 700 Sundays.
There are those of us who have been guilty of "magical thinking" for much of our lives as if we were still children and believed in the impossible. It is crazy all right but I think it moves you from place to place when you have no other way to get there. Of course, the shock of being snapped back to reality is harsh and the embarrassment of being so unsophisticated as to wish for what you cannot have in smaller degrees is always present. (And yet…and yet. : )
I wanted to read that book by Joan Didion but I was fearful of it, of going there with her to such a primal place. I *wish* I could go tonight to the Cathedral but I have a brace on my leg and cannot walk far. Where would I park, etc.? I know I could get there if I really tried but it would not be easy. I have been in a position of watching more than going and doing for over a year now and for what it’s worth it certainly is an interesting place to be. I do try to pay attention and I do, indeed, know how very lucky I am in so many other respects.
Reading this column, I was so struck by how in her own grief, Ms. Redgrave epitomized such class and grace. To say it was "generous" for the theatres to have dimmed the lights on Broadway when word came that Natasha Richardson had died? It was not generous at all. Her daughter lit up the night.
Please don’t tar and feather me, I do not like her, would not pay one penny to see her. I like her sister, but I have my reasons for not liking her.
Rho
Are these by chance political reasons?
Yes, is the answer to your question.
Ok Rho, well, my response is that some people cannot get past an artist’s moral stance, while I cannot get past his or her political stance. I am more forgiving of moral lapses because one never knows what is really going on or what really happened or what was really said and often people are overcome by passion(s). However political stances can be examined by the stancer by reading, talking to people, and generally studying the facts. Unfortunately some people, and it is glaring with artists, do not examine the facts, but rather go with an ill-considered opinion. So, I like Jane Fonda as an actress but her politics give me a headache; I do watch her movies. Redgrave on the other hand always seemed like a very cold fish to me, so that while I understand she is a respected actress, I’m not so entranced with her acting that I can overlook her politics, which make me want to hurl. Classic analytic intelligence combined with wisdom are really not necessary to be a good actor or actress; a different kind of intelligence is needed, and as Madonna put it, it is basically illusion. However, and this is my issue, I tend to get disappointed with actors when they espouse bad causes or mouth stupid opinions.
On another topic, I am amazed at all the Hollywood hi-jinks that either go on behind the scenes or that I was just not looking at when they happened but they were all over the news. For example, Nero after 35 years. Don’t ask me why but that reminds me a little of Roman Polanski. Then, Timothy Dalton. The last I read he was the father of Mel Gibson’s latest girlfriend who is pregnant. Then there is Mel Gibson whose girlfriend once, twice, or thrice removed was the stepdaughter of Suzanne Somers. And Jewish. This was while he was dissing Jews. Go figure. However all this as I said can be attributed to passion overruling common sense. Political stances, not so.
Politically I cannot say that I agree with Vanessa Redgrave either. But there is no denying her amazing talent. She also has to be admired for her determination to keep on living and giving despite the worst loss a mother can face. There is true courage in the soul of Vanessa Regrave and many of us envy her for that alone.