Dear Doxy (On the Sondheim 'Children and Art' 75th Birthday Concert)

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 12:58am

Dear Doxy,

I thought about you a lot during this evening, especially when your fellow Aussie, Dame Edna, came out and sang Losing My Mind to the birthday boy. I'm glad that Dame Edna is a star here in the US and I'm glad Dame Edna appreciates Stephen Sondheim, but that wasn't the highlight of the concert. Not by a long shot. But I also thought about you during the songs from Follies, which was MY Sondheim obsession when I was a teenager.

I guess any concert that includes Barbara Cook singing "In Buddy's Eyes" has THAT as a highlight. Such humanity poured into each and every note of that song, into each and every lyric: "And all I ever dreamed I'd be / The best of every part of me / Is every minute there to see / In Buddy's eyes." I wish for you, Doxy, that while she still has her glorious voice, you get to see Barbara Cook sing Sondheim live.

But Jason Danieley and Marin Mazzie were also highlights, he with "Marry Me a Little" and she with "Not a Day Goes By." Mr and Mrs Danieley each hit it out of the ballpark.

Michael Cerveris, Michelle Pawk, Rebecca Luker and Judy Kuhn were highlights in "A Weekend in the Country," as Carl Magnus, Charlotte, Ann and Petra, respectively.

The original young Budd, Sally, Phyllis and Ben from "Follies" were highlights, doing the original Michael Bennett choreography.

Ann Morrison, Lonny Price and Jim Walton were highlights, doing "Old Friends."

Stephanie D'Abruzzo (and Lucy T. Slut!) singing "Sooner or Later," Brian Stokes Mitchell singing "Pretty Women" and Audra McDonald singing "There Won't Be Trumpets" were also highlights. If Audra McDonald is an "also," you know it was an amazing concert.

And Harvey Fierstein, dressed as Tevye, entering to the vamp from "If I Were a Rich Man," and proceeding to do "Rose's Turn."

So many highlights, and a few low lights too--but I'll mention them in a subsequent posting. (I hate mixing the critical with the enthusiastic.) But Bernadette Peters and Barbra Streisand were there on film, and Angela Lansbury was there in person--she didn't sing, but she didn't have to--she showed up.

I have a program for you, PM me your address and I'll send it to you.

yr pal,
Joey

Updated On: 3/22/05 at 12:58 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 1:03am

I'll post more in the morning.

[Chrysanthemum62001]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 1:15am

I'm hanging on for dear life here!

[wildcat]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 2:51am

Alright, Dox, you better not have dog-eared one page of that programme by the time I see you in September. And if ANY of the pages stick together.....!

[staticradar]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 7:11am

I would've given anything to go to that. One of my online friends went, said he sat right next to Sondheim himself and that it was an amazing show. I only wish I lived in NYC to go to these things, I would've given almost anything to be there!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 8:26am

Okay, coffee. What did I miss? Yes, Sondheim was there. He came up at the end and the cast sang happy birthday, after a stirring "Children Will Listen," led by the sturdy Betty Buckley. Betty had also done "Something's Coming," which was powerful but not moving.

The orchestra, led by Kevin Stites, was excellent, and the 75-person Broadway Star Chorus was glorious, thrilling on the Sweeney Todd, Loveland and Sunday choral numbers.

I neglected to say how good the Assassins revival cast was on "Everybody's Got the Right," but I wanted MORE Annie Golden, Becky Ann Baker and Neil Patrick Harris.

Alice Ripley and Brian D'Arcy James did "Getting Married Today," which didn't really let him shine, while she did very nicely with the breakneck speed and her always-funny deadpan.

Melissa Errico and Raul Esparza did "Move On," she simply and movingly and he less simply but still movingly. They were introduced by Gerald Schoenfeld, who said how grateful he was to have been a producer of Sunday in the Park. Nice, Gerry. Thanks.

The few clunkers: Debra Monk and David Hyde Pierce underplaying "The Little Things You Do Together" so much so as to be boring, Patti LuPone flubbing lyrics to "A Little Priest," even though she's played the part and was carrying the music (what was up with that, Patti?), and Donna Murphy being a little too weird for "See What It Gets You."

In terms of solo diva songs, Audra did much better with "There Won't Be Trumpets" and Marin Mazzie, as I said before, did beautifully with "Not a Day Goes By," although they didn't let her repeat the chorus so she had to build her performance only going once through. And Stephanie D'Abruzzo sang the hell out of "Sooner or Later," entirely as Lucy T. Slut from Avenue Q. Good for Stephanie! (Lucy too.)

Best failed attempt at re-envisioning a song goes to Tonya Pinkins, who did an angry hip-hop'ish arrangement of "Another Hundred People" and "I Remember," which was not entirely appropriate to the lyrics. I couldn't exactly figure out why she was so angry at the hundred people coming off the bus. Sort of like singing "Some mother-f*cking people just got off of the ..." Only that was just subtext. I dunno. Maybe they were in her way, or something. But the woman can sing!

Ooooh--and I forgot B.D. Wong! (This is for Glebb!) B.D. did "More," from Dick Tracy as a song-and-dance numer with the male and female chorus kids from the Pacific Overtures revival. It was sexily (and wittily) choreographed by Darren Lee, and BD was terrific--slinky and sexy and sly. He would have made an exceelent Emcee!

I'll end with what was the most moving and exciting to me: "You're Gonna Love Tomorrow"/"Love Will See Us Through" from Follies, with Kurt Peterson, Virginia Sandifur, Marti Rolph and Harvey Evans--the originals! Thirty-four years later, they are no longer YOUNG Buddy, Sally, Ben and Phyllis. They are now the ghosts of their former selves, just as in the original they played the ghosts of the older actors. But, nevertheless, there they were! "Still here," as the song says, and still able to do the dazzling footwork and conceptual choreography Michael Bennett created for those two numbers, at once ballroom/soft-show love-duet steps and wicked, ironic dance comments on relationships that equal the lyrics in sophistication. I was an adolescent when I saw that show--six times!--and seeing it and Company and A Little Night Music MADE me sophisticated. (I still know the lyrics to "Lucy and Jessie" by heart.) I'm not young anymore, but I'm still here too.

So, Doxy, that was the concert. Tell me where to mail the program. And come to New York to see Barbara Cook sing Sondheim live!

yr pal,
Joey

Updated On: 3/22/05 at 08:26 AM

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 8:30am

"I couldn't exactly figure out why she was so angry at the hundred people coming off the bus. Sort of like singing "Some mother-f*cking people just got off of the ..." Only that was just subtext."

Oh, God. Don't make me laugh so hard this early in the morning.

[amasis]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 8:39am

What a great review! Thanks so much, PJ. Wish I could have been there, but this was such a wonderful read.

[Glebb]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 8:49am

Thanks for the exhilarating review PJ!

Note to self: "Ditch current job, find sugar daddy in NYC(and move back home!), never miss this kind of event again!"

[wildcat]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 8:59am

I simply have to ask...what was "Rose's Turn" like as interpreted by Harvey Fierstein?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:06am

First of all the arrangement was brilliant--it used the vamp from "If I Were a Rich Man" over the "Why did I do it? What did it get me?" So the lyrics about "one quick look as each of them leave you" had a double meaning: not only Harvey, the old drag performer, doing "Rose's Turn" but also Harvey the seasoned ACTOR playing a man whose five daughters leave him.

His voice was good enough and the fact that he made it through was thrilling enough, but it was the multiple layers of meaning that made it truly Sondheimian.

[wildcat]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:12am

Good heavens!

"I dreamed it for you, Chava...
It wasn't for me, Golde..."

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:13am

Harvey was exceptionally fine.. He didn't camp it up at all, but did it "straight" (if that makes any sense at all). It was actually one of the most honest renditions of the evening.

I thought there were more misses than hits. Thank God for Cook & McDonald. Stokes was chanelling Tommy Velour. And I know this aint a popular opinion , but I thought Dame Edna was about as funny as a stillbirth.

[Glebb]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:14am

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what was B. D. wearing?

[wildcat]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 9:19am

Oh, Glebby, right on cue!

Hasn't Dame Edna disgraced herself with that very song once before?

[Chrysanthemum62001]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 11:00am

Thank you so much for the wonderful review!

[KMF_NYC]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 11:06am

sounds like a great night...thanks PJ!

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 11:15am

As comprehensive of a review as one could want, PJ... Lucky you for going, and thanks for sharing with the rest of us.

[paradox_error]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 11:53am

Paljoey, for this I am forever in your debt.

Nothing will compare to being there, but reading your review was a mighty consolation prize!

One day I will be there for a mighty event like this, but for now I will settle with this!

THANKYOU!!!

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 12:01pm

PJ - excellent review.

[BoxFive]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 12:15pm

Wonderful recap of the evening PJ, sadly I was underwhelmed by much of the concert, the lack of "magic" did me in, and some of the vocal stumbles by our "greats" were tragic.
Thank God for the brilliant "Move On" segment and a splendid Harvey in his star turn with "Rose's Turn".

But Lupone should be ashamed.

[ElTico68]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 12:47pm

Awesome...

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 12:48pm

I'm sure she is. (Ashamed.) Friends say she is harder on herself than she is bitchy toward other people. She's so damn talented--I wish that she would rise above her self-destructive tendencies and operate always at her highest level of possibility...

But I wish that for lots of people...(myself as well)

I remember a Sondheim tribute, not so long ago, where Patti LuPone sang "Being Alive"--and virtually reinvented it!

[paradox_error]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 3:47pm

So Bernadette wasn't there?

That's very disappointing...

What was she doing in the film? And what was Barbra doing?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/22/05 at 3:59pm

Bernadette was in LA filming her pilot. She taped a sweet message, similar to what she says in the program book (which is on its way to you in Poland).

Barbra did the same, with her dog yapping off-camera.