By John Farrell, Curtain Call Writer
Judy Garland died in 1969.
That’s a fact.
But when you go see End of the Rainbow at International City Theatre in Long Beach, you can be pardoned if you don’t quite believe that fact.
Gig Birmingham stars as Judy Garland in the play by Peter Quilter. You are unlikely to see a better Judy anywhere, anytime.
What is amazing is that Birmingham, just two years ago, played another and very different singer in the International City Theatre production of The Master Class. There she was Maria Callas, still considered one of the great opera stars. She was as different as can be from the angst-driven, drug- and alcohol-addicted Judy Garland she plays in End of the Rainbow. The play is a story about Garland’s last performances in London.
But maybe there isn’t as much difference as there seems to be. Both Callas and Garland were superb singers, each with her own style, and each answering to demons that made them what they became. Birmingham won an LA Stage Alliance Ovation award for her Callas, and she could well win another for her Garland.
Birmingham’s Judy is manipulative, fierce, afraid, a great star on stage and an emotional wreck when she is off. When she sings some of her hits, backed by an onstage orchestra and her friend and accompanist Anthony (Brent Schindele) she has a glorious voice, but one with a little bit of whiskey and cigarettes in the mix, just a bit of gravel from a lifetime of abuse. Listen to her with your eyes closed and she is Garland to the note; watch her as she is just as authentic, — whether she is fighting with her fiancée Mickey Deans (Michael Rubenstone) or given an incoherent radio interview with the BBC (personified by Wallace Angus Bruce).
The setting is an elegant English hotel room, which almost magically is transformed into the stage she is performing on (thanks to set designer Aaron Jackson). She sings Garland’s great songs during the play, from “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby” to “The Trolley Song.” She does sing “Over the Rainbow,” of course, but her final number is “By Myself,” an anthem she lived and died by.
John Henry Davis directs. He has the good sense to let Birmingham lead the show on her own. Rubenstone is handsome and sympathetic, but he can’t control his future wife. Schindele is no more effective, but does a great job as accompanist and orchestra leader.
You need to see this production if you care about Garland the singer, Garland the legend. You’ll never forget it.
Tickets are $46, $48 on Saturdays and Sundays. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and at 2 p.m. Sundays, through March 15.
Details: (562) 436-4610; www.InternationalCityTheatre.org
Venue: Center Theatre of the Long Beach Performing Arts Center
Location: 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach