- Palace Theater -

Judy Garland Sets the Palace Alight
By Vincent Canby - NY Times 08/02/67

Judy Garland returned to the Palace Monday night like some raffish, sequin-sprinkled female Lazarus.  That magnetic talent is alive once again in New York, and so is one of the most remarkable personalities of the contemporary entertainment scene.  That the voice - - as Monday night's performance, anyway - - is now a memory it seems almost beside the point.

The show will occupy the Palace for the next four weeks, and it is a top-notch vaudeville presentation, touched by the pathos of real-life soap opera.  Miss Garland is headlining a fine bill that includes Jackie Vernon, the dead-pan nightclub comic who is shaped like an inverted bowling pin; John Bubbles, the old soft shoe and tap man, and Francis Brunn, an incredible juggler (or a juggler of incredible abilities).

It is, however, her show, and although she does not come on until the second half, her presence dominates the proceedings from the first note of the overture.  That is, her presence and those sad and forlorn tales of her personal life that we all know so well and that inevitably color our reaction to her actual performance for better and for worse.  Aside from the problems with her voice - - and, let's face it, there are thousands of singers with voice if that's all you want - - Miss Garland was in fine fettle last night.  Slim and trim, dressed in a gold slack suit, she was in total command of the performance from her entrance (through the audience) until that last encore of "Over the Rainbow."  Most importantly, the shape of the Garland personality - - wry and resilient -- is intact, whether she is wrestling with a microphone cord that looks like the Loch Ness monster or calming an over-exhuberant balcony claque that was behaving like a group of Beatles fans.  It was apparent early on, when she launched into 'Just in Time,' that the audience was going to have to make some allowances for vocal difficulties.  Once the audience did, that understanding paved the way for an evening of spectacular showmanship.  All the Garland favorites were brought out --  "The Man That Got Away," "What Now My Love," "Rockabye My Baby," "Chicago" and countless others.  Giving their mother unbilled support were Lorna and Joey Luft.  That they are not show business trained was only too obvious as they joined Miss Garland and Mr. Bubbles in a rather hap-hazard run-through of "Me and My Shadow."  Curiously, this very lack of professionalism added a sweet, if sometimes embarrassing, dimension to the show.  Miss Luft is a tall little girl, on the brink of turning into a very pretty woman.  Her younger brother, who whacked away at the drums for a few moments, is like anybody's little brother, performing in the living room. This kind of amateur, en famille performance can be very winning in the intimacy of a TV screen, but it doesn't work on the huge Palace stage.  It is vaudeville soap opera.

Space does not permit lengthy evaluation of the excellent contributions of Mr. Bubbles and Mr. Vernon.  The latter is extremely funny, rambling on about his problems.  Mr. Bubbles is a veteran trouper, from the uncomplicated, naive, pre-Stokely Carmichael era.  They are all good, but it is Judy who is great.  And let's not worry about her voice.

As any new york cabbie can tell you, Judy Garland has had her ups and downs in recent years.  But what the cabbie and everyone else ought to know is that right now Judy is up - way up.  Judy opened a four-week run at the Palace Theatre Last night and one thing that came through, despite the audience's constant roar of cultish adulation, is that she is as great a performer as she thinks she is.  Her fans were out in force, crowding the sidewalk in front of the theater and inside the house, wildly applauding at the mere suggestion of a song or at the first few bars of the overture played by the orchestra.

She looked slim, lovely and vibrant, as she made a grand entrance down the aisle to the stage from the rear of the house.  Her copper-colored, multi-jeweled mod slack suit sparkled in the spotlight as she stepped onto the stage and blew kisses to her friends while the handclapping and hoarse cheering rose in crescendo.  It seemed that she did not have to sing a note and the night was hers.  But she did sing and her voice was richer, stronger and truer than ever.  And time, instead of taking its toll as they say, has given an even greater authority to her stage presence and a more dramatic quality to her vocal control.

The show is called "Judy Garland, At Home at the Palace" and she and her director, Richard Barstow, succeeded in maintaining a very informal atmosphere on a bare stage against a deep red backdrop.  Only a spotlight was used for mood and this was used with restraint.  Of course nostalgia played a big part in the evening with John Bubbles once again in prime supporting role helping Judy introduce her youngsters, pretty Lorna and handsome Joey.  Judy and Bubbles once again cruised easily into their soft-shoe "Me and My Shadow" number, this time to be joined by Lorna and then Joey.

Lorna soloed singing a couple of songs identified with Mom's past such as "Singing in the Rain" and a pair from THE WIZARD OF OZ.  But not "Over the Rainbow."  That was left for Mom to revive for her final encore while sitting on the stage apron, center, front, as she has in all her concerts.

Joey soloed on the drums and maybe after this run they will book him in the Metropole.  He's not bad for 12.  Judy and Lorna were really charming in a couple of duets.  Then the girls teamed up with Joey for a rousing chorus of "Together."

Judy is back at the scene of two former triumphs.  As before, she is doing the Palace shot after a dip in her career.  This time we hope the shot takes for good.

The incredible has happened.  A month ago, watching Judy Garland at Westbury, L.I., I was hoping for it.  Now it is here.  Judy for the thousand and first time has come all the way back.

I did not see her at the Palace in 1951.  I did not see her at the Palace in 1956.  But I saw her at the Palace last night, when as she said, she returned back home again, and the word for what she was is spelled g-r-e-a-t.  That doesn't mean anything different.  That means just Judy, belting them out as nobody else in our time black or white has quite exactly done it.  There are some variations; instead of her daughter Liza she now presents her younger children, Lorna and Joey Luft.  Lorna sings scat songs and is very sweet and knobsy-kneed and uneffacing.  Joey gets in a couple of OK riffs on the drums and seems like a nice kid.  Their mother said they were.  I believe her.

It was quite a family act, something like vaudeville out of the old days, with the partakers including John Bubbles, who in his own way, is no less incredible, and Harold Arlen, who wrote "The Man Who Got Away" and a few other tunes.  There's also Jackie Vernon...  There's also Francis Brunn, a slim, agile, virile juggler.  And there's Judy.

She built them and she built them and she built them, and the house as usual was roaring even when the band hit the leadins and mere snatches from all those of her songs.  But the house rose to its feet, roaring loudest when with "Rockabye My Baby" she showed she had it all there, all of it, with plenty more power to go on through the night, which she did up until the time I had to leave to write this, and presumably then some.

I shall try not to describe Judy Garland.  What I see in her is my lifetime.   It is not even here possible to touch on something that has just been brought home to me; her wit and freedom on stage before hundreds, thousands, many of them maniacal worshippers who feed on her and on whom she feeds.  The whole clique is a thing I do not even understand.  But I understand what Judy does, family gambit and sentimentality and all.  And I understand an aging critic shuddering happily with tears coursing down his cheeks as talent and the times are once again, beyond belief, reborn.