By Bart Greenberg***Miss Elsa Lanchester (portrayed in Elsa Lanchester: She’s Alive! by Charlotte Booker) is having a difficult evening. It’s 1962 and she’s attempting to perform the second evening of her one-woman show at a small theatre in Hollywood. But her dresser/maid has vanished, scared off by an investigative reporter 
seeking dirt. Her dressing room telephone is ringing off the hook with calls from everyone from Robert Mitchum (who is jointly being blackmailed by a scandal publication report on a private party he and Lanchester’s husband Charles Laughton attended) to her husband’s new “tour manager/protégé” reporting that the brilliant actor is threatening suicide after being barred from her show. She’s also conducting a genteel battle with a stage manager who doesn’t know her name and an electrician who can’t deliver the pink lights she desires. Then there are the limericks her husband/director has scattered across the stage, her insistence on a certain film not being mentioned and her frenemy Maureen O’Hara in the audience. And through all of this, she has to tell her stories and sing her songs for an eager audience.
Booker embodies the actress, not losing character for a moment from her entrance through the audience to her curtain call, despite on the first performance some major technical glitches that she handled like the pro she unquestionably is. From the trademark giggle to the slightly fruity accent (which occasionally slips to something more common) she simply was Lanchester. 
In the carefully researched script she has constructed for herself, with a good helping of the original show the English star herself toured in for years, Booker brings the eccentric performer to life. She doesn’t shy away from Lanchester’s flaws but her interpretation is happily free from judgment.
As a playwright, Booker solves some of the trickier aspects of a one-person show. She’s created enough characterizations to justify her nattering on. Some are at the other end of the phone, some are backstage personnel (unseen but occasionally heard). And there’s also audience who she constantly addresses. Another part of the show is Lanchester’s accompanist Ray, played by Mark Nutter, an excellent pianist. Strangely, he never speaks, which seems a bit of a missed opportunity. The one issue with the script is in the final minutes when things go a bit 
unhinged and swing out of character, but this ending does provide a visual surprise.
Many of the songs included in the evening come directly from the real Lanchester’s act, such as “When a Lady Has a Piazza” and “Catalogue Lady.” These were written by the wonderfully-named Forman Brown particularly for the English talent. Others were traditional songs from the star’s early life, such as the atmospheric “Don’t Tell My Mother I’m Living in Sin” and “Please Sell No More Drink.” And one—Who Stole the Pennies”—by Nutter that fits in effortlessly with the other material. All of these numbers were very well sung by Booker (probably a bit better than by the lady she is representing) with a great deal of power. (When her body mic died, it was hardly noticeable.)
It’s wonderful to see a marvelous character actress remembered (curious that so many excellent film performances are not referred to, both with and without her husband, Charles Laughton). Booker certainly brings Lanchester to life, and while spending time with her was probably exhausting at the time of the play, for an evening it is quite delightful. All kudos to the actress and the playwright are well deserved indeed.
Elsa Lanchester: She’s Alive! continues to be presented each Friday night at 7 PM. through November 3 at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, 407 W. 42nd St., NYC.
Tickets are available via www.spincyclenyc.com
Photos by Ron Lasko
