Bea Arthur On Broadway

By Richard Zoglin

Even if Elaine Stritch had not set a new standard for the one-woman stage memoir, Arthur's look back at her career would be a lame specimen of the genre. Instead of a freestyle skate, Arthur settles for the compulsory short program: a once-over-lightly reprise of her hits from stage (Fiddler on the Roof, Mame) and TV (Maude, The Golden Girls); a funny anecdote about each of the famous people she's worked with (Lotte Lenya, Tallulah Bankhead); and stilted "extemporaneous" banter with her pianist, Billy Goldenberg. The audience leaves to the accompaniment of the theme song from Maude but learns virtually nothing about Bea.

--By Richard Zoglin