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June 25, 2007 Cabaret Suite The crowd piling into Don't Tell Mama this week had such pedigree you almost needed a blood test to get in. It was the cabaret debut of Elaine Joyce. By any standards, and no matter how low key the principles tried to play it, it was an extravagant affair. And, all for only a $3 cover charge and a 2-drink minimum. On Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, a who's who of show business and a lot of dashing roues you only read about were at this mid-town black box saloon. Unobtrusively, in the back of the room before the show started, Neil Simon took a seat. The lady about to tear up the stage is his wife. Today, at fifty something, Elaine Joyce is still a familiar name to many who remember her from numerous television game shows or series like, "Magnum, P.I.", "Who's The Boss?" or "Beverly Hills, 90210." Some only remember her from starring in "Sugar" on Broadway in the 1972-73 season. Others know her from shows like, "Sweet Charity," "No, No Nanette" and "Promises, Promises" and a bevy of others. Then there those who connect her to her late husband, M.G.M's Bobby Van with whom she collaborated on several high profile projects. And some know her today simply as Neil Simon's wife. Whatever. Make no mistake, she is her own person and she's out to set the cabaret world on fire. And she knows exactly who she is - a survivor: "I wanted to find out if someone in their fifties can still come back," she told me on the phone. Of course, she is referring to her cabaret debut in an act co-written by Simon called, "Second Time Around." In the competitive world of cabaret entertainers where everybody else tries to be one, an unlikely choice like Elaine Joyce is suddenly the real deal - when it comes to making people have a good time. A delightful free spirit, quick to laugh out loud at herself, with an ironic sense of the non-rational, she is lithe with a full mane of blond hair, a schoolgirl's figure and a smile that can light up Times Square (a few blocks away.) She's been there and done that from the schlocky agent (whom she would nickname Mr. Oy Vey!) to courting a gigolo to getting the call that changed her life. She's seen it all in the business of show. And, she has the good sense to not take any of it too seriously. She's also learned to laugh at life's foibles - especially the early years. After all, in "I'm Still Here," Stephen Sondheim's declaration of show business survival, he notes, "Good times and bum times, I've seen them all, and I'm here ..." in that ode to ladies of a certain age which, gratefully, is not in her show. However, Joyce can and does manage to pluck any emotion she wants from the emotional vocabulary of a trooper who has weathered a few decades of personal and professional attainments: that is triumph, bitterness and a totally zany appreciation at the absurdity of it all. She's packaged it all into her first club act and wrapped it in a ribbon of optimism with the hope that this could be the start of something big. But will it fly? After all, with Neil Simon lending a helping hand, how can she miss? But, as I later found out, Joyce's show is just that - all Joyce. "Doc" Simon is only playing a supporting role here. MORE - page 2  3  4  5 Back to NYC CABARET REVIEW Index Page Back to CABARET HOTLINE ONLINE Home Page

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