Passion Fuels Opera Theatre of St. Louis’ ‘Carmen’

Widely regarded as the most popular opera of all time, Georges Bizet’s Carmen is not easy to perform or produce. The opera is a tour de force of emotions that requires a solid ensemble and a larger then life leading lady to make it connect with an audience.

Carmen is all about durability. Bizet’s 18th century masterpiece remains a potent, passionate and intense opus filled with heavy doses of hopelessness, despair, oppression, desire and vengeance. Carmen is a comic opera in four acts which features dialogue breaks interspersed in the production to move the story along.

Set in Seville, Carmen tells of the tragic downfall of Don Jose, a local soldier who abandons his childhood love after falling prey to the wiles of Carmen, a blisteringly seductive gypsy. To make things worse he abandons his post and goes to prison in order to protect Carmen. When he is freed he returns to Carmen only to find his passion spurned. Bewitched, batterred and bewildered Don Jose becomes enraged after learning that Carmen’s heart yearns for Escamillo, the most famous bullfighter in Spain. After some nasty turn of events he once again finds himself in big trouble.

Don Jose’s downfall is accelerated when he confronts Carmen in Pastia’s Bar late one evening. Their lover’s quarrel has dire consequences which become clearer as events transpire.  Tragically, Carmen receives a prophecy in Act Three which foretells that things are going to end very badly. Nonetheless she does her best to stay out of trouble.  Despite her charms, intelligence and raw toughness, Carmen cannot stop the passion, rage, jealousy and love swirling inside Don Jose. During Acts Three and Four the tension between them escalates, leading to a heartbreaking tragedy.

In addition to having the most familiar score in opera, Carmen remains popular opera because its themes of immortality, lawlessness and the plight of the working class resonates with audiences. This personal connection is just one of the reasons why Opera Theatre St. Louis’ production of Carmen is so thrilling.

Carmen opens OTSL’s 37th season while also serving as a homecoming for St. Louis native Kendall Gladen. Gladen, a stunning mezzo-soprano, has been a star on the rise for the last decade. Her return to St. Louis in the title role is nothing short of amazing. This production completely revolves around Gladen’s incredible voice and commanding presence. Her smoldering portrayal breathes new life into the opera, transforming it into the penultimate celebration of the femme fatale.

Adam Diegel is terrific (in his OTSL debut) as the doomed Don Jose. As a performer he is able to go toe to toe with Gladen. He gives Don Jose two distinct personalities and then plays off of them in an inner struggle filled with turmoil, pain and lust. His Don Jose is vulnerable yet filled with an inner rage that eventually becomes all consuming. In  making Don Jose so jilted, jostled and jaundiced Diegel adeptly balances several layered aspects of the character with precision, allowing him to give Don Jose a fresh depth and range.

Making his first appearance with Opera Theatre St. Louis since 2008 is Aleksey Bogdanov as Escamillo.  Onstage he owns the first half of Act Two. His solos are simply incredible. He vibrantly drenches Escamillo in extreme bravado and joyful boastfulness that provides enough rich detail to round out the character. Bogdanov’s onstage interaction with Gladen is dynamic. Corinne Winters is also terrific as Micaela, Don Jose’s forgotten love.

(photo courtesy of Ken Howard and OTSL)

Director Stephen Barlow has molded Carmen into a highly charged pulp noir extravaganza. This production, based on a revised translation, wows and awes before a single actor takes the stage. It opens with noir style film credits set against a black background on stage. The credits  frame this adaptation perfectly. Every director wants to leave their stamp on Carmen and Barlow’s production is no different. The opera has been lifted from the nineteenth century and transposed to Seville during Francoist Spain. Making the correlation between Bizet’s original work and film noir accentuates Barlow’s boldness and daring in staging this production.

Guided by Barlow’s steady hand, each Act in Carmen has it’s own distinct texture. Act One sets up the drama by focusing in on the tough life in Seville where vagrants, criminals and factory workers all scramble to make ends meet. Out of this daily grind comes Carmen, a fiery siren who turns heads and manipulates hearts to get what she wants. She is a woman that every man has eyes for but none can seem to possess. Acts Two and Three propel Don Jose’s fall from grace, culminating in an all out showdown in Act Four.  As each act unfolds it becomes more apparent that Barlow is building something dense and compelling.

Set and Costume Designer Paul Edwards augments this setting by adding 1940s era billboards and a fantastic nightclub set that perfectly sets the tone for the piece.  His costumes seamlessly blend gangster chic with fascist military uniforms and traditional gypsy garb. These costumes provide the perfect mix of color for emphasizing the characters and drama onstage.

Stage lighting from Christopher Akerlind bolsters the atmosphere by adding fresh dimensions to each set piece. He carefully mimics the noir lighting from films of that era for the stage, giving Carmen some additional seasoning.

Bizet’s music has always been Carmen’s calling card. Debuting conductor Carlos Itzcaray whips the St. Louis Symphony into a frenzy transforming one of operas more recognizable scores into a powerfully emotional experience as passionate as any of the action playing out on the stage above. His hands create orchestrations that convey equal amounts of exuberance and despair, leaving the audience utterly overwhelmed by the end of the evening.

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis’ production of Carmen is the perfect showstopper for opening their new season. This provocative  new interpretation never relents in dazzling the audience visually or emotionally. Carmen fires on all cylinders because the charismatic and talented cast (led by hometown hero Kendall Gladen) deflects the sensations of desire, revenge and betrayal onto the audience, creating an utterly mesmerizing (and emotionally draining) opera that must be experienced to be understood.

Here are the performance dates and times for Carmen.

 Friday, May 25 
8:00 pm, Thursday, May 31 
8:00 pm, Friday, June 8 
8:00 pm, Sunday, June 10 7:00pm,Wednesday, June 13 
1:00 pm, Saturday, June 16 
8:00 pm, Tuesday, June 19 
8:00 pm, Saturday, June 23 
1:00 pm.

All performance s are held at the Browning Mainstage at the  Loretto-Hilton Center.

For more information visit http://www.opera-stl.org

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by | May 24, 2012 | Culture, Local, Music | Comment 

Album review: Tracie Bennett Sings Judy: Songs from the Broadway Production of End of the Rainbow

The theatrical subgenre of celebrity impersonation has always been an odd duck. It’s easy to do badly, damned difficult to do well, and gets the impersonator little respect in any case. In fact, duplicating a performer’s on-stage persona in a way that will allow audience members to suspend disbelief and react as they would to the original is quite a challenge, especially when the performer in question is well represented on audio and film/video.

Judging from the praise she has received for her performance as the late Judy Garland in Peter Quilter’s play with music “The End of the Rainbow”, Tracie Bennett has risen to the challenge. In the New York Times, Ben Brantley praised her “electrifying interpretation”. The Huffington Post’s Mark Kennedy) said she was “so stunning that she manages to raise the dead”. Others have had similar praise for her performance even when they have found the play itself a bit monochromatic.

I haven’t seen the show, but judging from the original cast recording now available on Masterworks Broadway, Ms. Bennett has eerily captured not just the sound of Garland, but more specifically the sound of Garland towards the end of her career, when drugs and drink were taking their toll. To quote the Times again:

“In her terrifyingly manic, Ritalin-fueled “Come Rain or Come Shine” you hear not only the music but the rage that produces it.”

You don’t really hear that in Garland’s recordings from the period, in my view. But then, this isn’t an attempt to duplicate those recordings. It’s a look (albeit fictionalized) at the pain they masked. And on that level I think it works perhaps a little too well. At times, it’s difficult to listen to—not because Ms. Bennett has done her work poorly but rather because she has done it so very well.

The album consists of songs from the Broadway production of the play, fleshed out with new recordings by Bennett and members of the on-stage band of Garland classics not in the stage version, including “Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart”, “San Francisco” and “When The Sun Comes Out” (full track list below). If you’re a Garland fan you’ll probably want to add this to your collection; ditto if you have seen and enjoyed the show. For the rest of us it’s an interesting curiosity. The CD is available from the usual music outlets. You can also purchase the MP3 version at iTunes.

Track list:

  1. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love/Just In Time (Dorothy Fields, Jule Styne, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Jimmy McHugh)
  2. I Could Go On Singing (E.Y. Harburg, Harold Arlen)
  3. Smile (Charles Chaplin, John Turner, Geoffrey Parsons)
  4. Medley: The Bells Are Ringing For Me And My Gal/You Made Me Love You/The Trolley Song (Joseph McCarthy, Ray Goetz, Hugh Martin, George Meyer, Edgar Leslie, Ralph Blane, James V. Monaco)
  5. Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart (James Hanley)
  6. The Man That Got Away (Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen)
  7. Come Rain Or Come Shine (Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen)
  8. When You’re Smiling (Mark Fisher, Joe Goodwin, Larry Shay)
  9. Somewhere Over The Rainbow (E.Y. Harburg, Harold Arlen)
  10. San Francisco (Walter Jurmann, Gus Kahn, Bronislaw Kaper)
  11. When The Sun Comes Out (Ted Koehler, Harold Arlen)
  12. Get Happy/By Myself (Ted Koehler, Arthur Schwartz, Howard Dietz, Harold Arlen)
Posted by | May 17, 2012 | Album Reviews, Culture, Music | Comment 

Cedella Marley: On MARLEY the Movie and Being Daughter of a Legend

by Michael Kuelker

Cedella Marley [photo courtesy of cedellamarleydesign.com

Cedella Marley, the first child of Bob & Rita Marley, is the CEO of Tuff Gong International. A recording artist best known for her many years as a vocalist in Ziggy Marley & the Melody Makers, Cedella Marley has also established herself as a designer, entrepreneur and philanthropist through her clothing line, books and 1love.org. She is married with three sons.

Ms. Marley spoke to me from her home in Miami, Florida, on Friday, April 13, a week before the opening of Marley, a new documentary film about her father. Drawing on new interviews and using hitherto unreleased video, director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland) explores the artist who emerged from small circumstances (born in 1945 in the village of Nine Mile, Jamaica) to become the first Third World superstar, one whose presence continues to shine brightly in the 21st century.

Marley opens on Friday, April 20 at The Tivoli Theatre in University City. Check local listings for show times.

MK: First of all, maximum respect for the musical work, the cultural work and the charitable work you are involved with. I want to ask about all of that, but let’s go first with the new documentary. What about the film do you like best, and can you point to something that director Kevin Macdonald does especially well in your view in his handling of the material?

Cedella Marley:  It takes you on a journey. You start off laughing, and you enjoy the cast of characters [Cedella chuckles] as they appear. For me personally, I came away with a better understanding of the last couple of months of Dad’s journey. I think with Kevin what was great is that he found people that we’ve never heard from.

My auntie Constance, we’re always in touch. [Constance Marley and Bob Marley have the same father, Norval Marley, whom Bob barely knew.] But I have never really asked her what was the relationship like with Dad, if any, because I knew there was never was really one when they were growing up. To hear her and how she felt about how the Marley side of the family even treated her and Dad … it was good to hear her.

It was also wonderful that Kevin found the nurse in Germany. [Bob Marley was treated for cancer in Germany in the months before his death in May 1981.] I couldn’t believe … How? How did you actually go and find that lady? It was good to hear her talk about Daddy, the person we knew; he was a nice person. So I thought [Macdonald] did an amazing job.

I’ve always wanted to know what kind of sense of humor your father had. What kinds of things made him laugh?

[Cedella chuckles.] He would laugh at anything. I think too that having always having all these different people walk into Hope Road every day, you would definitely see some characters. [Bob Marley lived at 56 Hope Road in Kingston beginning in the mid- 1970s. The residence has since become the Bob Marley Museum.]

I remember him telling us this story – let me see if I can remember it properly – this lady who just kept coming back to Hope Road with different-different stories. She was crossing the street and a car hit her in the leg. That was her one day. Then she came and said a bus came and lick her in the other leg, and then that was the story for that day. Then the third day she was crossing the street [Cedella begins to laugh] and somebody inside of a vehicle threw something and it hit her in her head

And when he would tell you these stories, we were like cracking up. People would actually come to Hope Road with different-different stories … and of course he would always give them something to leave with.

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Posted by | April 15, 2012 | Culture, Interviews, Music | Comment 

Cabaret capsule: Jeffrey M. Wright shows his Southern Roots at the Kranzberg, April 13 and 14, 2012

Jeffrey M. Wright: Southern Roots
The Presenters Dolan at The Kranzberg Center, St. Louis
April 13 and 14, 2012

[Full disclosure: I have worked on stage with Jeffrey M. Wright, Carol Schmitt, and Tim Schall in the past.]

Call it nostalgia or simple habituation, but the fact is most of us have strong emotional attachment to the music with which we grew up. It’s no surprise, then, that those of us who are cabaret performers often return to the soundtrack of our childhood when we think of material for a show.

St. Louis actor and singer Jeffrey M. Wright’s Arkansas childhood was filled with the sounds of Nashville country and crossover music, as well as Southern rock. His Southern Roots show is a celebration of that heritage, with songs ranging from mainstream hits like “Wichita Lineman” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” to country rock classics like Elvis Presley’s 1969 hit “Rubbernecking” and newer songs like Sara Evans’s “Suds in the Bucket” from 2004. It’s a tremendously enjoyable evening of material not often heard in a cabaret context and a reminder, once again, that the cabaret tent is large enough to encompass a range of music styles that goes well beyond the Great American Songbook.

Mr. Wright is a very engaging and polished performer with a fine light baritone voice. He’s at his best in songs like “Southern State of Mind” and “I’m Still a Guy” where he can bring the full force of his charm to bear, but that doesn’t stop him from capturing the rueful subtext of Trisha Yearwood’s “The Song Remembers When” or finding a somewhat surprising angry edge to a voice and guitar arrangement of “One For My Baby”. Overall I’d say the choice of material in Southern Roots has given Mr. Wright a chance to expand his dramatic range that he probably doesn’t get that often in his theatrical work. Which is, of course, one of the reasons some actors enjoy cabaret so much in the first place.

Carol Schmitt’s inventive arrangements, stylish piano work, and backup vocals demonstrate once again why she has become such a popular music director for local singers. Guitarist Steve Schenkel adds just the right amount of country seasoning to the mix, along with some impressive solo breaks. And director Tim Schall’s hand can be seen in the show’s pacing and dramatic shape.

There’s one more performance of Southern Roots on Saturday night, April 14, at the Kranzberg Arts Center. For more information, visit licketytix.com.

Posted by | April 14, 2012 | Concerts, Culture, Local, Music | Comment 

Album review: ‘Liza Minnelli Live At The Winter Garden’—honest and at the top of her game

Liza Minnelli seems to be a performer who inspires either adoration or annoyance. People like yours truly who don’t have strong feelings one way or the other seem to be in the minority. Which may make me the ideal reviewer for the Masterworks Broadway’s re-release of “Liza Minnelli Live At The Winter Garden”.

The story behind the release of this newly remastered recording of the famous 1974 concert is a bit convoluted. Here’s how the official press release explains it:

The 27-year-old dynamo had sold out an entire month’s run of 24 concerts in 36 hours, setting a house record for the Winter Garden Theater. The show itself, which opened on January 6, was simply titled Liza. The album Liza Minnelli Live At The Winter Garden was quickly released by Columbia Records in April, but had to be withdrawn from the market due to contractual conflicts over her performance of songs from the Cabaret film score, which were available on the then-current soundtrack album. Only pirated versions of the album have circulated since. This is the first time that the entire show will come out on CD and digital release.

Bob Fosse directed the show, with choreography by Ron Lewis. Marvin Hamlisch served as musical director, and Kander and Ebb supplied new songs.

Just a bunch of unknowns, right?

I have a total of three Liza Minnelli CDs in the collection: the soundtrack of “Liza With a ‘Z’” (1972), a 2004 “Best Of” collection on Columbia/Legacy, and the somewhat embarrassing (to my ears) “Minnelli on Minnelli” from 2000. “Liza Minnelli Live At The Winter Garden” is, as you might expect, much closer to “Liza With a ‘Z’” or the “Best of” disc than it is to “Minnelli on Minnelli”. That means that when it’s good—which it mostly is—it’s very good indeed.

Of course, Ms. Minnelli was at the top of her game when she recorded this. Fresh from Broadway, film, and television triumphs and performing for a wildly enthusiastic audience, she sounds energized and completely engaged. Yes, her breathy patter can become a big precious at times, but nobody can accuse her of not being honest in her performances. We say in the cabaret world that you must, above all else, be genuine, and she certainly seems to be that.

The selection of material is quite good as are the arrangements. I found a pair of Azanvour songs (“And I In My Chair (Et Moi Dans Mon Coin)” and “There Is A Time (Le Temps)” especially powerful and the “If You Could Read My Mind/Come Back To Me” works quite well. Among the Kander and Ebb numbers written specifically for the show, “Exactly Like Me” is probably the most amusing, describing the star’s humorous encounters with fans who think they look “exactly like” her. And Edith Piaf’s “The Circle” (with lyrics by Ebb) is a keeper.

Minnelli fans will, of course, want a copy of this. If, like me, you’re neither and admirer or a detractor, your purchasing decision might depend on whether or not you have a copy of “Liza with a ‘Z’” already and/or whether the mix of material on this disc (see below for a complete track listing) appeals to you. The recording is available for purchase on CD and digital download now at www.MasterworksBroadway.com. The album will be available from all retailers and digital service providers on May 8, 2012.

“Legends Of Broadway: Liza Minnelli Live At The Winter Garden” track list:

Track Title Songwriter(s)
1 Overture J. Nash, Fred Ebb, John Kander
2 If You Could Read My Mind/Come BackTo Me A.J. Lerner, B. Lane, Gordon Lightfoot
3 Shine On Harvest Moon J. Norworth, N. Bayes
4 Exactly Like Me Fred Ebb, John Kander
5 The Circle E. Piaf, Fred Ebb
6 More Than You Know E. Eliscu, W. Rose, Vincent Youmans
7 I’m One Of The Smart Ones Fred Ebb, John Kander
8 Natural Man B. Hebb, S. Baron
9 I Can See Clearly Now J. Nash
10 And I In My Chair (Et Moi Dans Mon Coin) Charles Aznavour, D. Newburge
11 There Is A Time (Le Temps) J. Davis, G. Lees, Charles Aznavour
12 Quiet Thing Fred Ebb, John Kander
13 Anywhere You Are/ I Believe You Fred Ebb, John Kander
14 Cabaret Medley Fred Ebb, John Kander
15 You and I Stevie Wonder
16 It Had to Be You Gus Kahn Isham Jones
17 My Shining Hour Johnny Mercer Harold Arlen
Posted by | April 7, 2012 | Album Reviews, Culture, Music | 1 Comment 

Album review: ‘Julie and Carol Live’ shows musical theatre giants at the peak of their powers

The combined release of the original soundtrack recordings of “Julie and Carol: Live at Carnegie Hall” and “Julie and Carol: Live at Lincoln Center” on Masterworks Broadway is a historically significant event, and not just because of the importance of the two stars, Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett.

When the first of these two CBS television specials (the Carnegie Hall) was recorded in 1962, Andrews (age 27) and Burnett (age 29) were rising Broadway stars. Ms. Andrews had two solid hits behind her (“The Boy Friend” in 1954 and “Camelot” in 1961) and one blockbuster (“My Fair Lady” in 1956) while Ms. Burnett had burst upon the scene in “Once Upon a Mattress” in 1959. At a time when Broadway was still a major source of hit songs, that meant that both were also rising national celebrities. Their music director, Irwin Kostal, was also a product of the theatre scene, as was their scriptwriter, Mike Nichols (known then primarily for his work with Elaine May).

By the time the Lincoln Center concert was broadcast in 1971, the landscape of American pop culture had changed dramatically. Thanks to radio, recordings and (according to some) payola, Broadway had been eclipsed in the music world by the pop/rock singer/songwriter and elsewhere by film and television. Andrews had largely abandoned theatre for movies (as had Nichols and Kostal) and Burnett had gone on to achieve fame on television. Broadway would have its ups and down, but it would never be the force in popular culture that it once was.

You can hear the difference in the big medley numbers in each show. For the 1962 Carnegie Hall concert, it’s a “History of Musical Comedy”, a ten-minute whirlwind tour beginning with some vaudeville era classics and culminating in “A Boy Like That” from “West Side Story” (music by Leonard Bernstein, age 44) with Andrews as Maria and Burnett abandoning her comic persona to play it straight as Anita. For the 1971 Lincoln Center show, by way of contrast, a thirteen minute “Medley of the 60s” features songs by The Beatles, Sonny and Cher, Glen Campbell, Joni Mitchell, The Fifth Dimension, and Petula Clark. The times, they were a-changin’.

Historical significance aside, however, “Julie and Carol” is an entertaining look at a pair of musical theatre giants at the peak of their powers. I was especially taken with “You’re So London”, in which Ms. Andrews and Ms. Burnett make fun of their contrasting public faces; Ms. Andrews’s lovely elaboration of “Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be”; and “From Russia: The Nausiev Ballet”, a loopy parody of Russian folk ballet. Some bits that clearly relied heavily of sight gags (such as a ballet send-up from the Lincoln Center show) fall a bit flat on the recording, but on the whole this is a welcome addition to the catalog.

“Julie and Carol: Live at Carnegie Hall and Julie and Carol: Live at Lincoln Center” is available for purchase now on CD (as specially priced two-disc set) and digital download exclusively via www.MasterworksBroadway.com. The double set will be available from all retailers and digital service providers on May 8, 2012.

Posted by | April 6, 2012 | Album Reviews, Culture, Music | Comment 

Book review: Alina Simone discovers that ‘You Must Go and Win’

facebook.com/alinasimonemusic

Alina Simone
“You Must Go and Win”
Faber & Faber

By her own admission in the essay collection “You Must Go and Win,” Alina Simone has a very small fan base, and that fan base is comprised mostly of depressed Jews. Not a terrible fan base to have in my opinion, as it could potentially include Larry David, Woody Allen or pre-dental veneers Ben Stiller.

It’s true that she has mostly toiled in obscurity, conceding to losing more money on touring than she’s made, being verbally dressed down by music publicists and basking greedily in her sole success, “Everyone Is Crying Out to Me, Beware,” a collection of covers originally recorded by Siberian punk singer Yanka Dyagileva and released 17 years after Yanka’s death by suicide. The album is in Russian, which may be too much for a casual listener but makes sense for Simone, whose family fled Ukraine when she was a child after her parents were blacklisted by the KGB.

While life has not been exactly sunny for Simone, she does write about it with a plucky, “well, what can you do” sort of attitude that has carried her from her birthplace of Kharkov, Ukraine to the Boston suburbs to — in an order that is not entirely clear — Austin, North Carolina and Brooklyn.

This attitude and Simone’s dark sense of humor were inherited from her parents. Her father is the thoughtful, quietly funny physicist Alexander Vilenkin. Her mother, on the other hand, is hilariously abrasive and dismisses any idea that Ukraine is a sentimental motherland by saying, “Now maybe you will know what a godforsaken hole we rescued you from” when Simone tells her that she plans on traveling to Kharkov. Like many Russian immigrants of their day, Simone’s parents are ruthlessly hard workers, intellectual over achievers, and kind of befuddled over their daughter’s insistence on being a musician.

Simone shares this befuddlement sometimes, such as when she finds herself subletting a flea-infested futon in a bizarrely-sectioned loft apartment, having a humiliating meeting with a producer she found on Craigslist, and road tripping with her childhood friend Amanda Palmer, who Simone recognizes has the sort of ambition, guile, and talent to be exactly as famous as she wants to be.

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Posted by | April 3, 2012 | Culture, Local | Comment 

Cabaret capsule: Donna Weinsting and Lara Buck Antolik are bold, bawdy, blonde and funny at the Kranzberg March 30 and 31, 2012

Donna Weinsting and Lara Buck Antolik: “Bold, Bawdy, Blonde and Funny”
The Presenters Dolan at The Kranzberg Center
March 30 and 31, 2012

[Full disclosure: I have worked on stage with Donna Weinsting in the past.]

The title of Donna Weinsting and Lara Buck Antolik’s new cabaret show for The Presenters Dolan also turns out to be a respectable capsule review of the evening. All right, maybe it’s not really all that bawdy, but these two have bold and funny nailed—to say nothing of entertaining. And if they were any more blonde the audience would need shades.

Musically, the show is a solid mix of standards and less well-known tunes. Some of the former include the opening duet of Harold Arlen’s “Any Place I Hang My Hat is Home” (from “St. Louis Woman”, appropriately), Ms. Antolik’s R-rated version of Irving Berlin’s “You’d Be Surprised”, and Ms. Weinsting’s now rather famous “I Could Have Danced All Night”, which serves as a the basis for a hilarious story about a teenaged battle with a Playtex Living Girdle.

Less familiar songs include “Say Lara (Lara With an ‘A’)”—Ms. Antolik’s parody version of “Say Liza (Liza with a ‘Z’)”—and Sondheim’s “More” (from “Dick Tracy”), which makes for a solid closing number. There’s also “Middle Class”, a parody version of Kander and Ebb’s “Class”, that allows the performers to take some shots at the 1%.

Both Ms. Weinsting and Ms. Antolik are stand-up comics as well as singers, so there are plenty of laughs along the way. Ms. Antolik even manages the neat trick of pulling off a trio of her trademark political impersonations (of Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi), without alienating half of the audience. In our current poisonous political climate, that’s impressive.

Pianist Greg Schweizer’s arrangements fit these two talented women like the elegant black dresses they wear and Tim Schall’s direction gives the evening a good flow and shape. The political material feels a bit shoehorned into the rest of the show, but that doesn’t make it any less funny.

There’s one more performance of “Bold, Bawdy, Blonde and Funny” on Saturday, March 31, at 8 PM. For more information, visit licketytix.com

Posted by | March 31, 2012 | Concerts, Culture, Local, Music | Comment 

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