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Bea Arthur on Broadway - Just Between Friends | 
 enlarge | Artist: Bea Arthur
Label: Drg
Category: Music
List Price: $16.98
Buy New: $14.99
You Save: $1.99 (12%)
New (18) Used (6) from $10.02
Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 51899
Format: Cast Recording, Live
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 12993
UPC: 021471299328
EAN: 0021471299328
ASIN: B00005YTRL
Release Date: February 12, 2002
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Lamb Recipe | | • | Fun To Be Fooled | | • | Introduction | | • | What Can You Get A Nudist For Her Birthday? | | • | Auditions | | • | Isn't He Adorable | | • | Fiddler on the Roof | | • | Let's Face The Music And Dance | | • | Bosom Buddies | | • | Angela Lansbury | | • | Threepenny Opera/ Pirate Jenny | | • | It Never Was YOu | | • | And Then There's Maude | | • | Some People | | • | The Soup Ladle | | • | Where Do You Start | | • | Bernie Schwartz | | • | If I Can't Sell It, I'll Keep Sittin' On It! | | • | Personal Hygiene | | • | Who Cares | | • | Fifty Percent | | • | The Nun's Story | | • | You're Gonna Hear From Me | | • | The Chance To Sing | | • | The Man in the Moon is a Lady |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
More comedy monologue than musical performance, Bea Arthur's one-woman show Bea Arthur on Broadway: Just Between Friends collects memories from the silver-haired star's life on Broadway (Fiddler on the Roof, Mame, The Threepenny Opera) and television (Maude, The Golden Girls). "I wanted to see if I had the guts to just come and be myself," Arthur says in this performance recorded in front of a live audience in December 2001. Alongside co-creator and pianist Billy Goldenberg, she offers wry and often funny anecdotes about her career and the people she's worked with (Angela Lansbury, Pia Zadora). When she does sing ... well, even decades ago Arthur didn't have a beautiful voice, but she's well-suited to the comedy songs. And her versions of Kurt Weill's "Pirate Jenny" and Goldenberg's own "Fifty Percent"--while they won't make anyone forget Lotte Lenya or Dorothy Loudon--are effective in their own right. Bea Arthur on Broadway is definitely more Bea than Broadway, but it's a career well worth remembering. --David Horiuchi
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Put This On Repeat : My Favorite Grandma November 21, 2007
Bea Arthur finally releases her Broadway album, and the highlights are too many to mention. My personal favorites were her memories of Angela Lansbury, Talulah, and the very funny (yet not original) jokes (especially the ones about the nun and the cab driver).
The thing is, Bea has never been much of a songstress or vocalist - she has a deep voice with a very flat quality, which makes even her 'high' notes sound about exactly as the same as her low ones. This may or may not be a good thing, but the focus on the CD is the entire show itself. Bea positions herself as host, singer, stand-up comedian, storyteller, and world observer, and all of these roles meld into one another with remarkable ease.
Whats more important - everything works. I could listen to this back to back. In fact, its the only 'comedy' album I have on my Ipod. I tend to skip through many of the songs she sings (some are old classics that I can do without), but when shes in the middle of a social commentary, you have to take a moment out to remember that this is a woman who is in her eighties, and still so vibrant and productive. Amazing.
One of the running jokes throughout the CD is the "Lamb Recipe". Bea weirdly starts explaining the entire recipe - buying the lamb, preparing it, putting the timer on, and you wonder where she's going with it. Then, she brings in the joke at various other points in the show, and it works very nicely whenever she either runs out of things to say, or wants to use it as a segue to the next segment.
Her 'navigator' here is Billy, whom I especially love, even though he isn't given much room to talk here. I loved the part where Bea introduces him and asks him to take a bow. "Stand up, Billy!" she exclaims. And the moment he does she says "Sit Down, Billy". This really worked for me, as the comic timing here was impeccable.
All said, this is a classic album that should find place in your collection. Bea may not be for everyone, but for us single folk who spend our best moments watching "The Golden Girls" DVDs on repeat, we could not have asked for something better than this. A perfect slice of pristine Broadway heaven.
And Then There's BEA! January 20, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Thank goodness this is available on CD. I saw the show twice in Manhattan and once in P-town MA. She is an American treasure. What's nice is that you don't need to have had seen the live performance to enjoy this CD. (Though I'd love to have it on DVD.) Just Bea, Billy, a piano and yet so much more!!!!!
Golden Girl Shines Brightly October 21, 2005
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
For anyone who has ever laughed as Bea Arthur deftly put people in their place with her lightning quick wit as Dorothy on the "Golden Girls", they will not be disappointed with this CD. Arthur, some 9 years after leaving the small screen, returns triumphantly to her professional roots, the stage, and does not disappoint. Mixing antedotal stories with classic songs, all to the accompianment of Billy Goldenburg, Arthur weaves her life in a brillant 90 minute tapestry so that the listener regrets ever reaching the end. Anyone who has ever seen Arthur perform on stage, or as Maude or Dorothy, they will not regret purchasing this CD. For that rare minority of people who have not have the privilage of seeing Arthur previously should find out what they have been missing of this American icon.
Alive and Unforgettable November 20, 2004
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Bea Arthur. Nearing 80. And yet, her continuing vitality is blatantly obvious in this live recording. I will tell you this--I bought this disc with no expectations whatsoever. I like Golden Girls as much as the next chap, and I was slightly curious about what Bea had become.
The simple truth was that I was stunned. Completely stunned. Again, this sounds as the same, alive, malicious woman who portrayed those "affirmative women" on TV (per her own words). She mocks her own voice, recalling the humiliation of being mistaken for the man of the house through the phone ... and some--who buy this disk with the intent of getting a faultless musical performance--might agree (and according to some reviews her, HAVE agreed) that her voice is perhaps too deep, too cutting, not pure enough. But this is NOT (and I stress it) a musical performance per se, it is not a perfectly rounded voice singing perfect standards.
What this disc is? A drama performance. The songs are intermissed with speech interludes, during which Bea narrates anecdotes from her past experience as an actress--and that's is PRECISELY what is MAGIC. You feel as though she's inviting you to witness the high points of her life, and it's a very nice place. The songs, seem alive as rarely before, because they are performed. She renders them with life, and make the most of her abilities.
I really appreciated some of the smaller things. You get to recognize her trademark, slightly embarassed, `You know' ... She'll make you laugh with good natured reminiscence ("A Mother's Ingenuity"!); some of the songs are delightfully imperfect, (I learned to love the half-sung/half-spoken "What Do You Start" ...), some others are wonderfully dynamic ("What Can You Get a Nudist For Her Birthday?", "Threepenny Opera/Pirate Jenny" ...), but all are very enjoyable ...
Be it "Isn't He Adorable?" or "If I Can't Sell It, I'll Keep Sittin' on It" ... every track on this disc will have you fondly reminisce or curiously discover the career of one helluva woman.
You really can't be disappointed. I promise.
If only we could have a visual as well!
A trip down memory lane... October 19, 2003
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Bea Arthur, one of the finest performers of her time.
Bea is most known for her role on the sitcoms Golden Girls and Maude, but she's done so much theater work as well.
She was in the cast of the original U.S production of "Threepenny Opera" starring Lotta Lenya, and in the original cast of "Fiddler On The Roof" and "Mame". But Bea started her theater career in a show called "The Shoestring Revue".
Bea stoled the scene every night when she performed as yente the Matcmaker on "Fiddler On The Roof" and she also got a hole lot of response as Vera Charles on "Mame", starring Angela Lansbury. In this live performence Bea performs a collection of songs chosen by herself, such as, "Let's Face The Music And Dance", "Isn't He Adorable", "Fifty Percent" and her theme song from Mame "The Man In The Moon". Bea is absolutely one of our time finest performers, with her witty sence of knowledge and her indefiable voice she has establised herself as a broadway legend, alongside Judy Garland, Elaine Stritch, Mary Martin. She is one of the last broadway female legends alive. And still going strong, Bea is rounding 80, but you wouldn't notice.
Do yourself a favour and take a trip down down memory lane, it's your chance to hang out with the last female broadway legend around.
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