Lisa Howard: Songs of Innocence and Experience (CD Review)

There are wonderful moments in theatre when you suddenly realize that you are in the presence of someone special. The first time I heard Lisa Howard sing was one of those moments. It was an evening of William Finn songs at Merkin Hall in 2004. Betty Buckley performed, as did Stephen DeRosa, Jerry Dixon, Raul Esparza, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Janet Metz. Howard was a student of Finn's, if I remember correctly, and she spent a lot of time in the background. And then came time for her solo. The second she started singing, I sat up a little straighter and listened a little harder. Her voice was strong and clear and beautiful, and she knew what to do with it. Although the other performers were better known and had more experience, she was among peers. (In his brief essay in the CD booklet, Finn refers to that evening as well, saying, "When Lisa finished singing. . . , the great Betty Buckley, who was sitting next to her, rose and bowed deeply.")

I've since seen Howard's wonderful performance in Spelling Bee (and also saw her be terribly underutilized in 9 to 5 and South Pacific). And now she has released a solo CD called Songs of Innocence and Experience (Ghostlight Records), which is a collection of songs by William Finn. Although I don't think the CD is a home run, there is much to like about it. Howard's voice remains beautiful, and her interpretations are well worth many listens. Particular highlights include "When the Earth Stopped Turning" from Elegies and "Bad Boy," "Listen to the Beat," and "I Don't Know Why I Love You" (a duet with Derrick Baskin) from The Royal Family of Broadway.

But, and this is a fairly large but, Finn's songs don't offer enough variety for a solo CD. Mind you, I love Finn's work. March of the Falsettos changed my life. Spelling Bee is amazing. I hope that The Royal Family makes it to New York. But (1) his songs are mostly character-driven and can be awkward when taken out of context, (2) some of his music has a sameness to it, and (3) his awkward and odd rhymes, while charming and funny in his shows, can become annoying on the multiple listens that a good CD deserves.

However, the CD's strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. The 14-person band is a treat, and the orchestrations by Carmel Dean, Eugene Gwozdz, and Michael Starobin, among others, are excellent. And while there is a sameness to some of the songs, there is great texture and variety to Howard's singing.

When I like a CD, I listen to it over and over without interruption. This CD won't get that treatment. However, I am sure that I will pull it out again and again over the years and always be pleased.

(Reviewer CD)

Let Me Entertain You: Laura Benanti at Feinstein's at Loews Regency

Before I get to her voice, and what she sang, and all those necessary details about someone performing a solo cabaret show, I need to get one thing out of the way: Laura Benanti is a hoot. No, she's a hoot and a half. The woman knows how to tell a story, work a room, and turn unexpected moments into comic gold. Her tales of choosing an unusual Halloween costume, of being mistaken for a certain celebrity, and of being "a 45-year-old gay man in a little girl's body" are funny enough to be the foundation of an excellent evening of stand-up comedy.

And, oh, yeah, she can sing.

With the excellent Mary Mitchell Campbell playing both piano and straight man, Benanti offers a surprising and entertaining 75 minutes of songs, including "Skylark" (which she sang in Swing), "The Sound of Music" (which she sang in, well, guess), a Gypsy medley, "I Want to Be Loved by You," "Honey Pie," "Unusual Way" (which she sang in Nine), a Sondheim medley, and Harry Chapin's poignant "Mr. Tanner." The pièce de résistance is an amazing bits-and-pieces medley that she introduces as being "heartfelt," but that isn't the only part of her that feels those songs!

While I would give Benanti's patter an A+, some of her songs don't land quite as well. They are still excellent, but Benanti's incredible presence dissipates a little when she sings serious pieces. It's as though an attack of formality causes her to close herself off a bit. I feel churlish to even mention this, since the evening is so entertaining, but you know what? She could be even better!

One other point. Benanti should take a mike-wielding lesson from Barbara Cook (as should many performers of today's generation, actually). Benanti holds the mike too close to her mouth, which blocks part of her face and sometimes exaggerates her breathing and her "P"s. (I never understand why people use mikes at Feinstein's anyway. It's not a large room, and the unmiked voice is a beautiful thing.) On the other hand, Benanti is excellent at playing to the entire room, left, right, and center, and as I hope I have gotten across, she's amazing overall.

Benanti is appearing again on May 22. Catch her if you can.

(Press ticket, far audience right.)

The School for Lies

Mamie Gummer and Jenn Gambatese.
Photo credit: Joan Marcus.

I have to begin this review with a caveat: At the performance of The School for Lies I attended, an electrical outage down the block caused a loss of some of the lighting and set off a warning alarm on the (sound?) equipment, which happened to be quite close to me. During the last five or ten minutes of the first act, a series of four high-pitched beeps repeated at changing intervals, over and over, right in my ear. It severely messed with my concentration (although the actors, impressively, didn't bat an eye). This may well be why I had a less ecstatic response to this show than many other critics did. I did, however, like much of it, and I did laugh a lot.

The School for Lies is David Ives' riff on Molière's classic comedy, The Misanthrope. It combines poetry and period dress with contemporary language and sometimes attitudes. The plot focuses on the romantic quadrangle of Celimene, who either loves Frank or wants to use him; Elainte, whose hots for Frank cause her to, uh, lose all sense of decorum; Philante, who loves Elainte; and of course Frank himself, the outspoken, frank (duh) misanthrope whose churlishness is subdued by the possibility that Celimene loves him. Add to the mix Celimene's three other suitors (ridiculous men all), Celimene's frenemy Arisinoé, Frank's odoriferous cohort Basque, and Celimene's much put-upon servant Dubois, and you have the confusion, egos, slapstick, and silliness that make up a good farce.

I enjoyed the high wit more than the low humor, and I found the major running joke annoying (many reviewers found it hysterical). I also thought the show was ten, perhaps fifteen minutes too long. Of course, a show like this lives or dies on the strengths of its performers. Hamish Linklater, as Frank, is flawless, whether serious or silly, scowling or lovelorn--and his diction is clear as a bell.

Mamie Gummer's performance is less compelling. For one thing, she needs to project better. It isn't that she can't be heard so much as her voice lacks a certain presence. Also, although this is not her fault, Gummer's resemblance to her mother Meryl Streep at her age can be distracting--and it is during Gummer's best moments that the resemblance is strongest. I don't like judging people by their relatives, and I thought Gummer was excellent in TV's "The Good Wife," where she was her own person. But here I occasionally felt as though I had slipped back to the 1970s and was watching Streep perform.

Of the rest of the cast, Hoon Lee as Philante is a particular stand-out. Walter Bobbie's direction largely keeps the festivities moving right along, with the occasional drag. The costumes by William Ivey Long are wonderful.

(Press ticket, fifth row center.)

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (CD Review)

According to the invaluable StageGrade, the Broadway musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown received an average grade of C- from a total of 31 critics. While it's clear that Women on the Verge has no Tony Award for Best Musical in its future, it's a shoo-in for most underrated show of the decade. It's hard to suss out why a show doesn't land, though I have seen a number of theories posited about this one, including that it was overdirected and unfocused. My personal theory is that the show took too long to get to the women and lost the audience along the way. Also, it had an awfully non-Hispanic cast for a show that took place in Spain, and Danny Burstein's performance as the cab driver veered perilously close to racial insensitivity. (My review of the show is here.)

However, Monday morning quarterbacking is no less frequent--and no more useful--in theatre than in football, and whatever its faults, Women on the Verge had and has many strengths. To start with, as this welcome original cast recording from the excellent Ghostlight Records demonstrates, the score is top-drawer, with composer/lyricist David Yazbek once again combining wit and energy to write an audience-friendly, completely enjoyable score. From the overture on, this is a score that moves. It completely sells the group nervous breakdown of the title, while also being melodic, wry, and entertaining. The lyrics are flat-out fun and quite clever. My favorite song is "Lovesick," which perfectly expresses the feeling of insanity that can accompany unrequited love. For example:

You're sick of what you're saying.
You're sick of what you're thinking.
You'd have another drink
Except you're sick of what you're drinking.

And

You shudder, you tingle
The paramedic comes--
You wonder if he's single.

These lyrics--all of David Yazbek's lyrics--sit perfectly on his melodies, giving the emotion a compelling propulsion and totally pleasing the ear. And Sherie Rene Scott nails the vocal.

"Invisible," Yazbek's ballad of the disappearance of love, goes for poignancy instead of humor, and Patti LuPone does it full justice. Again, the lyrics are excellent. For instance:

You eat your lunch,
A year is gone.
You go to bed, ten years are gone
Then you wake up and wonder
Where is it hiding?
Where did it go?
I don't understand
The life I had wanted.
The life I was promised
The life I had planned?

Then I realized it--
It was invisible.

Then there is the wonderful, insane "Model Behavior," in which the wonderful, insane Laura Benanti plays the wonderful, insane Candela leaving a series of phone messages on her friend Pepa's answering machine. For example:

I'm feeling kind of woozy.
I've been crying for an hour.
And my boyfriend has an Uzi
And he doesn't clean the shower.

It's interesting to compare the performances on the CD with the live performances. Sherie Rene Scott comes across much better on the CD. She seemed almost lost in the show, but here she provides a full, textured character, and her singing is glorious (though her accent is still weak). Patti LuPone and Laura Benani were/are equally superb in both mediums. Brian Stokes Mitchell comes across less effectively on the CD, perhaps because his wry, self-mocking smile is not there to undercut the smarminess of the character.  Justin Guarini is equally likeable in both mediums. The 16-person orchestra, conducted by Jim Abbott, is a delight.

The physical presentation of the CD is absolutely top of the line. The 42-page, full-color booklet includes essays by Pedro Almodóvar, director of the movie on which the musical is based, and Frank Rich. There is a detailed synopsis, complete lyrics, and a slew of wonderful pictures. Original cast recordings are never a given--my heart still breaks that James Joyce's The Dead was never recorded--and many thanks are owed to Ghostlight Records and Sh-K-Boom for their commitment to the fabulous American art form of the musical and to its incredibly talented practitioners.

(Reviewer's copy.)

Baby, It's You

You can't swing a cat in the middle of Times Square without knocking down four women who could sing the Shirelle out of 60's, girl-group harmonies. How, then, did the producers of Baby, It's You audition every African American woman in New York City with an Equity card and not manage to fill a foursome? Who decided to scrape together a few random morsels of historical trivia, vomit them up a calorie at a time, and call it a meal? What, pray tell, were the folks over at the Broadhurst thinking?

I have no problem with the juke box musical, and I didn't have a problem with the concept or conceivers behind Baby, It's You. I loved their previous effort, Million Dollar Quartet. Not a great show. Anorexic script. Bare thread of fact stringing together an entire evening of brilliant performances. The formula worked, so there was every reason to believe lightning could strike twice. After all, they had the force of nature that is Beth Leavel at the heart of the show. But this ain't no Million Dollar Quartet. It's a buck fifty bootleg from the bad idea bin.

Neither the rise and reprise of the Shirelles nor the disproportionately hyped tale of Florence Greenberg do much to carry this show--neither can even pick it up and get it off the ground. The evening is all about the star of the show, not the character but the actress. Beth Leavel takes the stage, takes it away from anyone who dares to share, and leaves you wishing you could follow her off with every exit, just so you don't have to watch the live K-Tel commercial of historical and musical highlights that bridge her appearances. She does her best to add heart and relevance to the scenes, but it is hard to Lady Macbeth a bumper sticker. However, the woman can sing. She wraps her voice around a note, swaddling it gently as the baby Jesus in the manger, and blankets it with warmth and welcome. You could almost climb inside and lose yourself were you not engulfed in the relentless parade of hits--right between the eyes.

The men are more brick layers than artisans. Allan Louis lays a nice foundation for the The-More-You-Know lessons on fobidden love, creative pressure, and emasculation--not to mention the dangers of bangin the boss. Barry Pearl grounds the story from the start. Thirty seconds in and you want to cheat on him too (with another show); but he brings solid work to both acts, by which I mean that he acts twice. Geno Henderson and Brandon Uranowitz play multiple characters, such a shame Mr. Henderson seems to only have two characterizations in him. He's the equivalent of theatrical herpes--constantly threatening to appear, and you can't wait for him to just go away.

The Faux-relles (Erica Ash, Kyra Da Costa, Crystal Starr Knighton, and Christina Sajous), as I've mentioned, are simply unfathomable. Bad enough they can't handle the frog-ass tight harmonies that should be cost of entry, but there's not a triple threat among them--or between them. One, who shall not be named, couldn't stay on pitch if she were standing in it on the steps of the palace. Two of them would require transplants for a second left foot. Kelli Barrett, as All White Women Not Named Florence, was a fine daughter, but she wasn't the only one crying at the party during her Lesley Gore assassination.

The band was good.

Carole King must have known something I didn't. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow was nowhere to be heard or found. She apparently said, "Keep your hands off my baby." Lesson learned, Carole.

Sister Act

How refreshing would it be to see a movie, a good movie at that, translated for the stage and not simply transferred to the stage? I might just drop to my knees and yell, "Whoopi!" Instead, I rose to my feet. To be fair, I stood, in part, because I was sitting in the first row (rush tickets, $23.50) and would have felt like an a-hole were I the only one sitting, staring up at a stage full of hard-working actors who just sweated through their wimples on my behalf. I am not a stander, usually, unless it is earned but neither am I so principled I won't rise to an occasion, occasionally.

I stand for different reasons. Sometimes to applaud a spectacular production, like The Book of Mormon. Sometimes to applaud a spectacular performance, like any number of Velmas during the first decade of Chicago's revival run. Sometimes to applaud a life's work, like Elaine Stritch in At Liberty, although it qualified on all three fronts. And sometimes I applaud because I appreciate the effort, especially when the effort is to create actual theatre.
Sister Act could have Priscilla'd its way on stage and probably would have been completely successful. It is a fun movie, a fun idea, and funny. This is no facsimile, although the Kathy Najimy chracter is more Najimy than character in this production, right down to the giggle and mannerisms. But Sarah Bolt doesn't just stand behind a mask and pantomime, a la Lion King. She mines the new jokes and earns the laughs.

Patina Miller is no Whoopi Goldberg. She's a singer, first of all. And a fine dancer. She has a swagger that is in no way reminiscent of Whoopi's nebbishy, George Jefferson on estrogen. That is not to say Miller is better or worse. She lack's Whoopi's it. Lacks her comic sediment. But Miller works her tail off, makes the role her own, guides you on a toe-tapping journey with very little off-stage time, connects some occasionally disconnected dots (no doubt the handiwork of accountants, creative committee, and forest-for-the-trees decisions), and does it all with a mega-watt smile and a triple threat.

Audrie Neenan is no Mary Wickes. It would be unfair to hold her to that standard; but she is charming, funny, grouchy, gruff, and hilarious. She does for the stage production exactly what Ms. Wickes did for the movie, without mimicry or acquisition.

The men are generally weaker than the women, but they have less to do. It is, after all, a show about nuns. (And how nice it is to see a show with a large group of women, all shapes and sizes, looking like real women--beautifully real.) Back to the men. Fred Applegate is just about perfect in a small and stereotypical role. Demond Green is charmingly stereotypical as the comedic half-wit. Caeser Samayoa, Kinglsey Leggs, and John Treacy Egan provide adequate ado for their stereotypical roles as the Hispanic thug, the black thug, and the delusional lothario. . .thug. Chester Gregory underwhelms and never elevates his function beyond the functional.

That the script could be torn from the pages of any How to Make a Musical handbook is almost irrelevant. The show isn't trying to take on social issues or make revolutionary changes in the musical form or the human spirit. The writers, most celebrated in the sitcom format, don't fall back on television habits thankfully. They may not be creating deeply thoughtful drama, but they thoughtfully created the script for its medium--no doubt helped considerably by the contributions of theatre veteran, Douglas Carter Beane. The sets were inspired but the directing and choreography were not. Jerry Zaks merely directs traffic, and Anthony Van Laast seems to think he is choreographing a marching band.

The score, too, is formulaic; but fortunately the formula is Alan Menken's. He actually circumnavigates a fairly dangerous obstacle. Much of the fun of the movie comes from the brilliant Mark Shaiman arrangements of popular songs twisted for divine measure. With no help from ASCAP, Menken and lyricist, Glenn Slater, create songs with popular themes and sounds that sound devilish--and Massively innappropriate. The songs are catchy, hummable, and engrossing at their best moments; but the whirlwind of fun is sometimes reduced to a pffft. The greatest sufferer is the Victoria Clark fan. Why on Earth you would cast that voice and give her such forgettable, unsingable nonsense is beyond me. It seems almost maliciously written for the least navigable parts of her voice. She is solid in the role but shoulders the burden of the worst songs in the show.

Marla Mindelle seems to have been cast more for the look than the goods in the role of the postulant who finds her voice. There is a look the actress in the movie makes when she sings her first note at a decibel heard by humans. Mindelle co-0pted the look and repeats it every time she opens her mouth. It's like a one-note Groundhog Day, literally. She needs more punch and more power, but her solo of epiphany and empowerment is strong enough to do her penance.

The show commits a couple of sins. For reasons unknown and unnecessary it is set in 1976-77, so the gratuitous moon walking and granny rapping are completely out of place--but they get their laugh. Not the first time virtue has been traded for a tickle. Those transgressions aside, the show is a gift from the theatre goods--not perfect, not brilliant but perfectly fun and funny--equal parts intelligent design and big bang.