Debbie Does Drury
When I was a little girl, Debbie Reynolds was one of my favourite actresses. She was always so pretty and perky and funny. So when I heard she was making her annual visit to Drury Lane, Oakbrook, I couldn't resist.
Drury Lane is a most extraordinary theatre. It's decked in red and white livery, with huge crystal chandeliers. It exemplifies 80s chic, which is a bit of a shame since it's now 2009. Attending a 1.30 p.m. Sunday matinee made the whole thing even stranger. We may not have quite been the youngest members of the audience, but we were only two of a select handful without white or pale blue hair.
Debbie is now 77. She may no longer be able to dance down flights of stairs and her voice is a couple of octaves lower, but she's still an old school Hollywood star. You have to be a real diva to get away with wearing a red sequined pant suit, blonde wig and false eyelashes on a Sunday afternoon, and not look like a drag queen. She sang at times in front of a screen showing clips from her old classics, like the Unsinkable Molly Brown and Singin' In The Rain. There again was little Debbie, cute as a button flirting with Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly. In front of her, grown up Debbie, looking like her own grandmother.
As well as the music, there were the impressions and jokes, not out of a place in a 1960s TV special. At least I think that's the last time I saw an impression of Zsa Zsa Gabor in an ostrich feather robe. There were a few amusing stories, but mostly famous names dropped so easily they could have been held by arthritic fingers covered in butter. Yes, Debbie has finally reached the age where she no longer needs the stories. Just rattling off a list of names like James Stewart, Jimmy Cagney, Grace Kelly and Judy Garland is enough to give her rapturous applause.
Debbie still tours regularly and this year celebrates 62 years in showbiz. Why does she still do it? I doubt it's for the money. Is it for the fans? She says she thinks of them all as friends and says they've stuck with her longer than any of her husbands. But I think it's because Debbie refuses to be forgotten. Like any diva, she's nothing without the applause. And even if nowadays it comes from women in white pants with walkers and men sporting bad wigs, as she leaves the stage, she can still hear the sweet sound of success ringing in her ears.
Drury Lane is a most extraordinary theatre. It's decked in red and white livery, with huge crystal chandeliers. It exemplifies 80s chic, which is a bit of a shame since it's now 2009. Attending a 1.30 p.m. Sunday matinee made the whole thing even stranger. We may not have quite been the youngest members of the audience, but we were only two of a select handful without white or pale blue hair.
Debbie is now 77. She may no longer be able to dance down flights of stairs and her voice is a couple of octaves lower, but she's still an old school Hollywood star. You have to be a real diva to get away with wearing a red sequined pant suit, blonde wig and false eyelashes on a Sunday afternoon, and not look like a drag queen. She sang at times in front of a screen showing clips from her old classics, like the Unsinkable Molly Brown and Singin' In The Rain. There again was little Debbie, cute as a button flirting with Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly. In front of her, grown up Debbie, looking like her own grandmother.
As well as the music, there were the impressions and jokes, not out of a place in a 1960s TV special. At least I think that's the last time I saw an impression of Zsa Zsa Gabor in an ostrich feather robe. There were a few amusing stories, but mostly famous names dropped so easily they could have been held by arthritic fingers covered in butter. Yes, Debbie has finally reached the age where she no longer needs the stories. Just rattling off a list of names like James Stewart, Jimmy Cagney, Grace Kelly and Judy Garland is enough to give her rapturous applause.
Debbie still tours regularly and this year celebrates 62 years in showbiz. Why does she still do it? I doubt it's for the money. Is it for the fans? She says she thinks of them all as friends and says they've stuck with her longer than any of her husbands. But I think it's because Debbie refuses to be forgotten. Like any diva, she's nothing without the applause. And even if nowadays it comes from women in white pants with walkers and men sporting bad wigs, as she leaves the stage, she can still hear the sweet sound of success ringing in her ears.
posted by Hilary at
7:15 PM
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