Review: Lee Roy Reams Does It Again With ME & BETTY (AKA LAUREN BACALL) at 54 Below

There was a sold-out house at 54 Below last night.  This need surprise nobody.  You see, Lee Roy Reams opened his new show last night, and any time Lee Roy Reams plays a show the room is at capacity, opening night or not, but for an opening night there’s no question of a standing-room-only crowd.  To double down on the ticket sales, though, this new musical cabaret is titled ME & BETTY.  For those in the know, that would refer to the legendary Lauren Bacall.  Just in case (though) there are those not in the know, Lee Roy Reams lengthened the name of the club act to ME & BETTY (AKA Lauren Bacall).  Well, that sort of says it all.  It also sort of puts those “bumms in seats, luv,” as my high school drama teacher used to say.  The people of the show business community of New York and beyond, the people who know the show business history of Lee Roy Reams, the people who have already seen a Lee Roy Reams show all know about the close personal friendship between he and the woman who, at nineteen, was nicknamed “The Look.”   Everyone with a grasp of musical theater history knows about Lauren Bacall’s 1970 triumph on Broadway in the musical version of All About Eve, and everyone knows that Lee Roy Reams played Margo Channing’s trusted confidant, gay hairdresser Duane Fox (a Broadway first - an out gay character in a musical, a point Reams makes during the performance).  But it is the behind-the-scenes stories that Reams has come to tell, especially the story of a friendship that lasted the rest of the duo’s lives.

For his Lauren Bacall tribute show, Lee Roy Reams has curated both stories and musical selections, the latter being a slightly tricky thing to do, since the only number that Reams and Bacall had in common in Applause was “But Alive” - one of Margo Channing’s big numbers, with Duane Fox chiming in now and then with a “la la la” or two.  Add to that the fact that Duane also only has one number of his own, “She’s No Longer a Gypsy,” which the character starts before it becomes a dynamic group number.  No worries, here, for Lee Roy Reams is a master storyteller and master Kabarettist, and, with the assistance of that genius giant, Musical Director Alex Rybeck, Reams has selected songs that, while not always directly related to the storytelling, actually do enhance the arc of experience.  There are selections that relate to Bacall’s status as a star, her love affair with another celebrity, encounters with backstage guests, travels together on tour, and the memories left behind after his friend’s death in 2014.  No, I’m not going to spoil the show for future audiences or for Lee Roy by naming the selections - where’s the fun in that?  Instead, what I’m going to do is tell the truth:  Lee Roy Reams is the industry’s premier raconteur, and spending ninety minutes listening to the one-liners, the asides, the tributes, the teary-eyed reminiscences, and the true story of a friendship unlike any other is reason enough to leave the house on a cold winter’s night (it will also be the catalyst that will send many people home to call their own lifelong best friends for a long catch up).   At last night’s performance, the audience could be observed laughing loudly, clapping hands hard, and slapping knees.  They also sighed with sympathy each time that Mr. Reams teared up while talking about Bacall, his late husband Bob Donohoe, his mother, or the simple passage of time.  Mr. Reams’ willingness to be vulnerable, honest, and authentic is a major factor in his popularity as a person and a performer, and all the parts of himself are on display as he pays this tribute to his dear friend.

With this show, though, Lee Roy Reams also pays tribute to himself.  After a lifetime of “loving the work” and putting it all out there and leaving it all on the stage, the senior member of the show business family is still loving the work, putting it all out there, and leaving it all on the stage, without signs of slowing down.  This is his second memoir cabaret in the last couple of years, the highly successful and Not-Safe-For-Work Uncensored!  For Adults Only! has been a huge hit (and will return to 54B in May), and even though Reams’ shows always have an element of memoir about them, UNCENSORED and BETTY are particularly personal.  Reams gallops down the path of memories of a great career, but also strolls the lane of remembering love and loved ones.  There isn’t a false moment, whether tender or titillating, and the rhetoric flows as freely as though one were having a drink at the bar with the Tony Award nominee.  He needs no script - he knows the stories and he proceeds with passion and perfection.  And when it comes to the musical moments, he doesn’t need to interpret the songs because he has lived them.  He is reliving the days of his life through compositions that are, at this point, his songs and his stories.  Watch his face while he is singing and you’ll see the film of memory played out across it - it’s a wonderful thing for a storyteller to share so easily and openly of themself during a performance.  

As for Lauren Bacall herself, the one thing about the (bona fide) legend that audiences are destined to walk away from ME & BETTY (AKA Lauren Bacall) with is the notion of how much fun she was, how much life she lived, and how much love she had to give.  Look at the monitors when the photos of Bacall and Reams are shown (Bacall and anyone, in fact) and you might actually hear her laughing.  You will feel the ties that bound the two together.  You will see tangible, palpable proof of what true friendship looks like.  And that, most certainly, deserves our Applause.

Lee Roy Reams will play ME & BETTY (AKA Lauren Bacall) tonight (January 25th) at 7 pm at 54 Below.  Ticket link HERE.  The show will live stream - link HERE.

The main page for 54 Below is HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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