An ermine-draped Liberace packs ’em in at SPAC
by R. Victor Stewart, The Knickerbocker News, August 4, 1975
Some may laugh at him, but Liberace almost always plays to a packed house, just as he did Sunday for two shows at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC).
More than 10,000 saw both shows and the average age of the patrons must have been somewhere in the 50s. But they applauded as if they were in their teens and it was the latest rock star up there in tinsel.
It could also be said that Liberace loves his audiences. He must love something to put on a two-hour show in sweltering heat with his mother being operated on for a broken hip and still manage that toothy smile and joke-a-minute patter.
The audience never knew of the latter, but Liberace’s mother, well into her 80s, fell late Saturday night and surgeons were operating at just about the time the performer was walking on for the second half.
The outlandish clothes, the trademark of any good clown, make you want to laugh at Liberace, but he’s laughing with you.
The man is an excellent piano player (the word “pianist” is purposely avoided) and the variety of his music is designed for average people.
After all, would the house be packed to the roof if he played Chopin wearing the traditional formal attire? It is doubtful.
He made only two costume changes in the first half, but five in the second half – each prefaced with the remark, “Pardon me while I change into something more spectacular.”
Spectacular it was. First he wore an ermine cape and then a chinchilla affair that dragged a good 10 feet behind him. Of course, each was trimmed with enough rhinestones, tinsel and diamonds to blind bushy-tailed senior citizens.
“You may think my clothes are funny, but they make me all that money,” he said. They are also tax-deductible, he pointed out.
Inviting the ladies in the front row to feel the material and intoning a slightly risque line, he reminded them, “After all, you paid for it.”
But from the opening Gershwin to Chopin to Strauss waltzes, Liberace exhibited his remarkable talent at the keyboard—even if a piano teacher here and there cringed at the flamboyant hand movements
Liberace was interrupted only by a magician called Mr. Electric, who did amazing things with light bulbs, and Scotty Plummer, who danced, sang, and most of all played one of Eddie Peabody’s old banjos probably as well as the original owner.
The main purpose of the magician and the banjo player was to give the star a chance to change, but like a good trouper he built them up and even appeared on stage with them, to the delight of the audience
Most of Liberace’s Sunday crowd could remember brighter days, and the purpose of going to the theater is to forget much of the past and current trouble. Liberace made them remember the best of their past. The mention of Wayne King and “Melody of Love” drew not only applause but the efforts of several self-styled singalong artists.
The jokes were just risque enough to make the seniors laugh, but nothing so raw you’d find it on any X-rated film. And the audience laughed as if it were the heyday of vaudeville.
If ever there is a more spectacular show, Liberace will change into it and then proceed to pack the house full of enthusiastic seniors looking for a good time.
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