Cabaret: Living & Thriving In Adelaide, Australia

On June 25, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival wrapped up its 11th annual celebration of that art form in grand style, proving that the art of cabaret is very much alive.

The Festival featured talent from around the world, with the emphasis on Australian and American entertainers. For the approximately 95,000 people who attended various events, some were old friends and others new discoveries.

Over the course of the Festival I was able to see about a quarter of the shows and each was terrific. In addition to those already covered here, there were the three American headliners, Chita Rivera, Jimmy Webb and Michael Feinstein.

Along with those there was Bryan Batt, who powerfully demonstrated the fact that he is a top-notch performer - singer, comedian and, as we know from Mad Men, actor.

Batt's set of course showcased his talents but, also, was a very personal tale of a kid from New Orleans who believes that theater is in one's genes as is eye color.

In a later interview, Batt explained, "It's in my blood. Theater is something I've always loved. I think there's a gene in many people that triggers all things Broadway and either you get it or you don't."

Batt credits Helen Hayes with convincing his parents to let him pursue that particular love. She was in New Orleans for a benefit and he was in that cast. He says that after the show that evening his mother went backstage to meet Hayes. "She recognized my mother's name as being the same as a cast member and my mother told her that I wanted to be an actor but that she and my father were trying to discourage me.

"She invited me and my parents to Sunday brunch and, because I had a matinee, I declined her invitation. That impressed her and she convinced my parents to let me pursue acting. When I opened in Starlight Express, my first show, I got a telegram from Helen Hayes. It said, ‘Welcome to Broadway. May you have a triumphant stay.'"

When discussing the current state of Broadway, Batt was particularly enthused about the Tony Award wins of Casey Nicholaw for co-directing The Book of Mormon and Sutton Foster for her performance in Anything Goes. He's worked with each of them and praised their talents very highly.

In his show, Batt On A Hot Tin Roof, he spoke of his childhood and of his work, noting that playing Sal on Mad Men has been the cause of a great deal of public on-the-street recognition. He sang standards and lesser=known numbers like his show-stopping rendition of The Sensitive Song. The audience really liked his show. Bryan Batt works hard at his craft and most obviously loves practicing it.

Chita Rivera's My Broadway was, simply, a journey through her career. She talked about the hits and about those that didn't quite make it but should (a musical version of Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit). Her career has been a stellar one and she talked about how odd it is to see three of her biggest hits - Chicago, West Side Story and Sweet Charity - all revived at the same time. "I'm walking down Broadway, looking at the marquees and things, it's 8 o'clock. Shouldn't I be somewhere?"

The centerpiece of the show was All That Jazz and as the audience left the theater - many of them having seen her for the first time that evening - the thrill of seeing a theater legend who is still going strong at 78 (her high-energy performance at her age seemed to astound people) talking about Rivera warmth, place in theater history and, most of all, her talent.

Another performer who thrilled his audience was songwriter Jimmy Webb. He opened with Highwaymen and pretty much from that point on covered all his hits - Up, Up and Away, Galveston, By The Time I Get To Phoenix, among them. He's written for Sinatra, Streisand, Dylan, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson.....the list goes on and on. He talks about his music and the people who made it popular. Webb is very engaging and a wonderful raconteur.

Jimmy Webb has written much of the soundtrack for many of our lives and, thus, his music is warmly evocative. Most simply, his show was, as they love saying in Australia, "heaps" of fun.

Webb also held a Q &A about his work. There he got into more detail and gave his audience - most of whom live many thousands of miles from the center of the music industry - an insider's look at life in that business.

Michael Feinstein, who closed the festival with his showcase of Sinatra songs and of the composers, opened with remarks about how he "loves" Adelaide and the Festival. The people of Adelaide and the Festival returned that love in full measure. He began by noting that he sings "the ‘Great American Songbook' or, as it's known today, the Rod Stewart songbook.

"That goes to show that the music is indestructible, I guess," he said to applause and laughter.

Feinstein spoke of his work with Ira Gershwin, of all the people he'd known over the years, "The world," he said, "was still populated with these legends," telling the audience, for example, that, when Cole Porter asked George Gershwin for advice on writing a hit song, Gershwin told him, "you have to write good Jewish music with a minor key sound of lament," and then he explained that the basic, most often used form of popular music in this country arose out of the Jewish immigrant experience. And the traditional music brought here by those songwriters. To demonstrate that Porter had taken the advice to hear, Feinstein sang So In Love from Kiss Me Kate.

Accompanied by the wonderful Adelaide Arts Orchestra, Feinstein covered much of Sinatra's work, sang Anthony Newley and Lesile Bricusse, Prez Pardo and Rosemary Clooney, Frank Loesser and several others.

Feinstein closed with the work of a local icon, singing Peter Allen's I'd Rather Leave When I'm In Love.

He wowed the crowd and got one of the - oddly, to an American - rate standing ovations of the Festival. It was well-deserved.

Speaking of Allen, an exhibition about his life is at the Adelaide festival Centre through August. It's a very interesting one, with costumes, his own notes and telegrams from the famous sent when he opened on Broadway. Some of his Boy Scout memorabilia is also shown.

In the end, this Adelaide Cabaret Festival was the most successful ever. In a press release, Festival Artistic Director David Campbell, whose wife Lisa also worked closely on the project for his three-year tenure, said, ""It has been an honor and a privilege to work in my home town. Working in Adelaide has been like donning a favorite pair of slippers - warm and comfortable."

Festival-goers returned the love for Campbell in the very last event, a party in the centre's Piano Bar after the last show, ending another Festival feature, the gathering there every night. Closing night, several entertainers contributed a number or two. Hosted by Ali McGregor and Asher Treheaven, playing her butler Saxon McCallister) this last event featured Captain Frodo, a comic and contortionist who amazed (and horrified) the crowd by squeezing himself through two unstrung tennis racquets. It was something to see.

Comic Adam Hills, McGregor's husband, contributed some very funny material to the event. Riffing on the melody of Advance Australia Fair, the Australian national anthem, he suggested several different tunes and demonstrated by performing it to these songs. He began with putting the words to The Star-Spangled Banner and ended with putting the lyrics to the tune of Working Class Man, a huge hit for Aussie rocker Jimmy Barnes.

What made that part especially funny was that he introduced it by noting, "Nothing Jimmy Barnes has produced has any place at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival." The audience roared because, you see, David Campbell is Jimmy Barnes' father. Naturally, Campbell got up and sang with Hills.

Campbell, who didn't perform his own show this year as he has in the past, joined McGregor for his valedictory, The Time of My Life.

Judging by he reaction of the crowd, everyone there had the time of their lives and David Campbell's Festival direction has been cherished and will be missed.

And it must be noted that the Adelaide Festival Centre, with a large selection of venues, is the optimal setting for this event. The people there are lucky to have it.

Next year's line-up will be announded at http://www.adelaidecabaretfestival.co.au early in April, 2012. Check it out.

(Photos: Chita Rivera, Bryan Batt, Jimmy Webb, Michael Feinstein, David Campell)

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