I've been seeing Broadway plays and musicals since I was sixteen years old. Picking favorite performances and plays is tough, but there are a few that always stand out in my memory. Diana Rigg in Medea, Tyne Daly in Gypsy, a staged reading of The Normal Heart with Eric Bogosian and Stockard Channing. And many, many more. But for sheer excitement, nothing compares in my memory with seeing the sparks fly between Natasha Richardson and Liam Nesson in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie.
The limited run was completely sold out and I did not have a ticket. Then the producers announced a "midnight matinee" benefit performance for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids, spearheaded by Richardson, who's own father had died of the disease a year or so earlier. At a hundred bucks a seat, it was pricey but it was the only way to see the hottest show in town, and it was for a good cause.
I have a pretty good memory, but I do not have anything even close to total recall when it comes to this night. Just images, like Natasha's long, beautiful hair, and her raincoat, which got quite a workout as Liam Neeson spat a fair amount in her direction during his more animated moments. But the intensity I remember, the sitting on the edge of my seat wide awake and absolutely riveted at nearly 3 AM as the play drew to a close and the cast emerged for their bows wearing those famous red ribbons, that I remember. (I also remember it was about 15 degrees outside, and so it seemed like a good idea to stop at the old Howard Johnson's on 46th St and drink half a pitcher of sangria with my friend, but I'm getting off track.)
About five years later I got to see Natasha Richardson on stage one more time in her Tony winning role as Sally Bowels in the 1998 revival of Cabaret. She did not have what I'd call a pretty singing voice, and I did not have a particularly good seat, but she blew we away just the same. Intense, naughty, sexy, mischievous, lost. Like her mother Vanessa, she seemed to have range that knew few limits, and like her Aunt Lynn (always my favorite Redgrave) a sort of pluck and gameness to try anything.
I never met Natasha Richardson, and I did not have a Clayburgh-ian type breakdown when she died, but I did find it very shocking and sad, as many people did. It was the sort of thing that's just not supposed to happen--a mother with young children bumps her head during a ski lesson, gets up and shakes it off, and hours later is brain dead. Senseless.
Seven months later I went with my friend Kevin to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine to see Vanessa Redgrave perform Joan Didion's opus on grief and loss The Year of Magical Thinking. Under the best of circumstances it would have been a difficult piece to watch, but seeing a performer whose own grief was so public, so recent, so raw made me uncomfortable. I felt more ghoulish voyeur than audience member.
The highlight of the evening for me came before we ever set foot inside the Cathedral. We were climbing the stairs leading from the street through the yard toward the building. Walking on the dimly lit path, we careened into two adolescent boys who had stopped short on a landing to say hello to someone. Under my breath (God, I hope it really was under my breath) I muttered, "nice place to stop!" before I realized it was Natasha's two young sons greeting my favorite Redgrave, their great aunt Lynn. I fought my natural inclination to linger and ease drop and maybe meet my favorite Redgrave. As much as I wanted to be a star fucker (as my friend Michael colorfully puts it), allowing them this semiprivate moment was the right thing to do.
Aw hell, I've gotten off track again. Natasha Richardson would have been 50 years old today, May 11, 2013. I was lucky to spend one of the most exciting nights of my life watching her heat up the stage with the love of her life well into the wee hours of a frigid morning.
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