Arts & Entertainment
Remembering Elaine
Former D.C. resident credits Stritch with help in his sobriety
Elaine Stritch in the documentary ‘Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me.’ (Photo courtesy Isotope Films)
By SPENCER HANKINS
An actual conversation:
Mom: I saw on the news where that lady you love so much died.
Me: Elaine Stritch? Yeah
Mom: That’s the one. How are you?
Me: I’m OK I guess. I feel like my grandmother has died.
Mom: (throwing epic mom shade) Well, let’s hope you were in her will.
Me: (Quoting “Elaine Stritch: At Liberty”) And you wonder why I drank.
I was aware of Elaine from a young age. Thank you, “The Cosby Show.” But it wasn’t until the summer of 2006 that my real connection with Ms. Stritch was made.
I had decided to fight this demon that was on my back: alcoholism. A few months of sobriety, I was at friend’s house in Oklahoma and was whining (because that’s what newly sober gay alcoholics do) to a dear friend of mine who was also in “the program.” I was going on and on about my doubts that I could do this whole not drinking thing, when he grabbed me by the shoulders and said “If Elaine can do it, you can do it.”
I looked at him, confused, and said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He sat me down and we watched “Elaine Stritch: At Liberty.” I sat there for the next two-and-a-half hours, laughing, crying and relating to this complete stranger’s story, while falling in love with her honesty.
Every year, I celebrate her birthday, Feb. 2. In 2009, I celebrated by changing my profile picture to a picture of her taken for “At Liberty.” About an hour later, I had this message from Denise Winters, whom I didn’t yet know.
“Hi Spencer. I’m smiling that you are using the cover for ‘At Liberty.’ Elaine is fabulous! And I took that picture.” I lost my ever-lovin’ gay mind, because there I was, a sober alcoholic, working at his dream job in the theater in D.C., and talking to someone directly connected with a lady I’d idolized for several years.
In one of the tributes I’ve read in the past few days, someone wrote, “Like all addicts and alcoholics, she lived with fear. It followed her everywhere. And it was that fear, that extra hurdle she had to leap to get herself up there on the stage that made her performances so human.”
This is so very true: we alcoholics are driven by fear. Years ago, when I’d feel myself being driven by fear, I’d hear her screaming “WRONG!” like she did in the iconic “Company” documentary. Elaine had become somewhat of a higher power to me for a few years, until I was able to form one of my own. I’d always ask myself, “What would Elaine do?” On every trip I’d make to New York from D.C., I’d pray that this would be the one where I ran into her on the street or in a meeting. It never happened.
But one day in 2011, I received an email from Denise that had a video attached. Denise had been talking to Elaine about me (big gay gasp!), and they thought that a video message would be so much better than some black and white, glossy, autographed photo. I watched it and immediately began to sob. Here was this woman that I’ve idolized, addressing me directly, saying that she’d heard what I’ve been saying, and that she wanted me to take it easy because rumors could get around and we could both get arrested. She also said that when she got a quiet moment, she’d call Denise and we’d all go for tea. I’ve carried this video on my phone for the past three years. When I’m down, it always brightens my day.
She never got that quiet moment. I never got that tea, but it’s comforting to know she was willing to take time, when she had time.
Elaine, I hope you finally figure out what you called your “existential problem in tights,” and what Richard Burton meant by “almost.”
Spencer Hankins is a former D.C. resident and box office coordinator for Signature Theatre. He lives in Oklahoma where he works with addicts and alcoholics.
The 2026 Capital Pride Parade was held in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, June 20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key, Robert Rapanut and Landon Shackelford)
Theater
‘Feeling Afraid’ explores life of a neurotic stand-up comic
Navigating sex, work, and possibly love in London
‘Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen’
Through July 12
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St., N.W.
$55-$102
Studiotheatre.org
Wordily yet rightly titled, solo show “Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen” dives deeply into the world of a neurotic stand-up comic as he navigates sex, work, and possibly love in London.
Busy arranging hookups and dates on “The App,” the 36-year-old gay funnyman juggles a full dance card; still he’s never been in a romantic relationship. While he’s willing to give love a shot, he’s not pressed about it. As he says, he harbors no fear of dying alone.
Currently making its American premiere at Studio Theatre, this darkly humorous Edinburgh Fringe import features terrific out English actor Steven Webb as The Comedian who’s about to explore what it means to spend all his time with one man.
At Studio’s intimate Mead Theatre, Kat Heath’s minimal set says standard comedy club (fluorescent tube lighting, the mic with a long cord, a single stool backed by a rose-colored curtain), but gay playwright Marcelo Dos Santos has conjured something much more than a live comedy set.
Yes, The Comedian bounces onstage in his red Converse high tops, jeans, and pink shirt with a huge mouth emblazoned on the back, but he delivers more than jokes. At times hilariously self-deprecating, then dark, and occasionally a lesson on what makes standup work, this is a layered, well-acted piece.
With Webb (a keen caricaturist of types and voices) playing all the parts while conducting The Comedian’s hilariously frenetic interior monologue, “Feeling Afraid” takes us through a summer of love. It seems after six chaste dates with The American, our nervous hero has found Mr. Right. The American is earnest, smart, hesitant to initiate sex. He’s also well built with a beautiful smile. And strangely, he’s been medically advised not to laugh aloud.
The Comedian delights in the joys of new love: dates, first kisses, sex, and then suddenly spending all of his time with the adored. Visits to art galleries become fun. Eating home cooked meals followed by grim documentaries is a thing. The Comedian is beguiled as his own boyish figure fills out, but something isn’t right. He can’t entirely relax.
Along the way we meet the Aussie doctor, our protagonist’s longtime hookup; a young runner with some exceptional body parts; the random third in a failed threesome; grumpy working comics, male and female; and an ineffectual counselor.
Webb gives a lightning-fast performance that boggles the mind (in terms velocity and virtuosity). He can be impish, very impish. He’s nervous energy incarnate, flashing jazz hands, grimacing but handsome when still. He’s likeable, a necessity when delivering a hilariously rude joke just feet away from two stone-faced audience members. (Perhaps they were laughing on the inside? At any rate, they stayed through the end the show.)
Produced by the team behind Fringe hits “Fleabag” and “Baby Reindeer,” small stage works that were developed into major TV screen successes, “Feeling Afraid” is funny for sure, and it’s also highly confessional, sexually explicit, and raw.
Written by Dos Santos during COVID lockdown, the piece was a smash hit in the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe before finding further success in London. Its depiction of a youngish queer guy navigating the big city rings entirely true. Like so much Fringe stuff, the one-man show is delightfully lewd and standup inspired.
One little moan: the show closes cleverly but too abruptly with its star dashing offstage without sufficiently basking in the admiration and applause of his thoroughly chuffed audience.
They say third time’s a charm, and regarding “Feeling Afraid,” I’d agree. After two performance cancellations (first for laryngitis and the second involving faulty air conditioning on an especially muggy June evening), I made my third trek to Studio where I found both the actor and AC in very fine fettle. And truly, Webb’s work was more than worth the wait.
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