Promising Judy Garland work coming to New York
“IF I am such a legend, why am I so alone?”
That was a familiar refrain of Judy Garland. It was a good line. She made people believe it. She came to believe it herself.
The reality of the situation was that Judy Garland was never alone. She was almost always surrounded by people — adoring friends, brilliant co-workers, bewildered but besotted children, an ever-present on-tap entourage, husbands and lovers — sometimes overlapping.
She was one of the most celebrated, worshipped and honored entertainers of the 20th century.
If, toward the end of her life the crowd around her thinned, it was Judy herself who had done the winnowing. Garland was never quite the victim of her selfgenerated legend.
Several years ago, the dark, white hot/ice cold fifinale of Judy Garland’s life was regurgitated in the Broadway show “End of the Rainbow.” This was Judy in extremis, circa London, 1969. Her voice shattered (again), her career on the precipice (again), involved with an inappropriate man (again), fifighting with agents and musicians and nightclub owners (again)!
It was not a nice time, those months in London, and “End of the Rainbow” was an odd, unpalatable subject upon which to base a two-hour and 10 minute play-with-music. Supremely unappetizing, a grisly wallow, it was fascinating theater nonetheless. (Tracie Bennett, as Garland, did her volcanic best to make sense of the ravaged, latter-day Judy.)
It was a niche play for a niche audience about a niche moment in Garland’s life.
BUT NOW, perhaps, a less sordid theatrical work on Miss Garland in wending its way to our shores.
Earlier this year, in London, an ambitious project titled “Through the Mill” played at Southwark Playhouse to excellent reviews. There are now rumors that the show, written and directed by Ray Rackham, will arrive perhaps sooner rather than later in New York.
“Through the Mill” presents Garland at three signifificant points in her career. It opens in 1963, as Judy prepares to star for CBS in a weekly variety show. (Garland had been warned by one or two people around her that such an effffffffffffort was unrealistic; she could not stand the grind and her dramatic, often jittery persona was “too much” for viewers every week. But the star had been promised millions; an end to debt and the grind of literally singing for her supper. She felt it was her last chance.)
There are then flflashbacks and forward peeks into Judy’s life. She is seen as a young MGM star, fifighting the discipline imposed on her by the studio and her mother, and later, in 1967, at the Palace Theater in New York, her last major — if controversial — hurrah.
Three actors — Belinda Wollaston, Helen Sheals and Lucy Penrose — enacted Judy at these various crossroads. From what I’ve read, each was superb, modulating Garland’s mannerisms and vocal prowess or lack thereof ) through the years. The staging, according to critics, was superb.
I feel, generally, that stage, movie and TV reenactments of the lives of Garland, are pointless, usually sordid and/or simplistic and not exactly telling us anything new.
But, “Through the Mill” sounded somewhat promising, and perhaps less cynically exploitive. We shall see. fifirst- Dr. Michael Fox
Q: I have a 2-year-old male yellow tabby. In February, he became very ill, and we took him to the vet — his kidneys were shutting down, and he had an infection.
The fifirst thing the vet asked me was what kind of houseplants we had — we have none. The vet thinks our cat might have ingested something from the trash, possibly something that was poisonous. The vet prescribed antibiotics and a liquid vitamin. Four days later, we took him back to the vet, and he was dehydrated and had a fever. They put grow,” Glickman said.
But don’t worry if you’re a little shy or reserved. There have been a handful of people who were the same way but are now returning scare actors or workers in other parts of the haunt.
Pl us , t he Eni g ma f a mi ly i s great about finding a place for anyone to fit , Cantor explained. So if you can’t keep a straight face, no problem.
You can wear a mask. If you’re a little shy or need to come out of your shell, that’s easy. You’ll be put in a dropbox or behind a curtain.
Regardless of which side of the scare you land, one thing’s for sure: Boca has an intense, indoor haunted house in Enigma Haunt, and you won’t want to miss it. This week’s Patio Page crossword puzzle can be found on page D3