TheatreguideLondon
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Bea Arthur at the Savoy
Savoy Theatre, Autumn 2003

Fans of Bea Arthur will find her solo show a delight. Those who are not, or who don't know her, will wonder why this older woman of seemingly limited talent is taking up their evening.

Bea Arthur appeared in one of the first-ever Off-Broadway hits, The Threepenny Opera, in 1954, and subsequently played key supporting roles on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof and in Mame. But she is best known for two sitcoms, Maude and The Golden Girls, which kept her on American TV for almost two decades.

Arthur has been doing her current show for a couple of years now, a solo performance of song and anecdote co-created with her pianist, Billy Goldenberg, who affects a comically dour persona onstage. But, while she undoubtedly has charm and stage presence, and can continue to tour the show as long as her fans want her to, she is not likely to win over many new followers in the process.

The passage of time and several visits to the cosmetic surgeon have left the admitted octogenarian with a mask that from certain angles most resembles John Ireland in Chinese makeup. In her heyday Arthur was a belter in the Broadway tradition, but time has seriously ravaged her voice. While she can still handle quieter songs, every time she tries to hold or push a note, her voice cracks painfully, going places they don't have notes for.

Oddly, Arthur sings none of her owns songs from the shows she was in, choosing instead songs sung by others in Mame and Threepenny Opera - her firmly dramatic take on the Pirate Jenny song from the latter show is one of the evening's highlights - along with a couple of songs from Gypsy, reminding us that several decades back she might have made a great Madame Rose.

You might be puzzled why she chooses two quiet, out-of-character-for-her songs from the 1978 Broadway flop Ballroom (which she repeatedly misidentifies), until a check of the program reminds you that Goldenberg wrote the music.

Meanwhile, the spoken parts of her programme, though they include humourous anecdotes of Mae West, Tony Curtis, Jerome Robbins and others, are delivered in such a mechanical way that every supposed pause, ad lib or doubletake has the frozen quality of having been long ago locked into place and done by rote.

The determined fan might be able to overlook some of these limitations, but I fear that others will find the evening sometimes painfully heavy going.

Gerald Berkowitz

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Review - Bea Arthur - Savoy 2003