Review: Alexandra Silber Shows Us That She Is SO IN LOVE With Love, Her Hubby, & With Performing, at The Green Room 42

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow Tribe! Bobby Patrick your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Putting the silent T in cabareT to bring you all the T!

So, dearlings, Bobby is always THRILLED two octaves up to catch the act of one Alexandra Silber - the funniest soprano on the Broadway. Now, fans of this lady already know that La Silber (Master Class, Fiddler on The Roof), is the performer/host/creator of the group show I WISH: THE ROLES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN at Feinstein's/54 Below, but Valentine's Day found her on the stage solo at The Green Room 42 to tell us all that she is SO IN LOVE. With a setlist that included the usual suspects, the titular SO IN LOVE, I LOVED YOU ONCE IN SILENCE & HELLO YOUNG LOVERS (you get the idea right?), the lady sang all about the big L, felt the big L, gave the big L, and then got the L out of there... (womp, womp) I know - Bobby just had to. With musical direction and keyboard support by Ben (ooo la la) Moss and former Silber acting student, Zack (howcha magowcha!) Zaromatidis, who joined her for a couple of numbers to sing and play on his beautifully strummed guitar, Al - as she is known by her friends - moved effortlessly from lyrical soprano singing to full-on Broadway belting right through her hilarious and sometimes touching talkie bits and back again. With a seemingly indestructible larynx that can give over sounds ranging from blaring trumpet to low low growls to high HIGH trills, oftentimes within the same composition (hello, CALL FROM THE VATICAN!) her Broadway-caliber vocals applied to this music showed the full extent of her impressive range. A true highlight of the night came when, after flashing her rings and telling of her pandemic elopement with her ever A-Door-Bell husband, Shakespearean actor Alec Silver (no that's not a misprint - They are both Al Silver-Silber Or Silber-Silver something...) she brought him up on stage where he proffered her a paper bag and they launched into the cutest ever rendition of PINEAPPLE from CABARET. Alec would later return, shirtless (worth it) wearing cupid wings for a treacly, dumb but fun trivia contest where he played a sort of winged Vanna White doling out "$hi++y candy prizes" for winning answers.

Early in the show, Silber hit Valentine's day out of the park, as she told of being the author of two, count them TWO, books. One of her published efforts, AFTER ANATEVKA: A NOVEL INSPIRED BY "FIDDLER ON THE ROOF", served as the basis for a 3 song triptych in her LOVE set. Having played two, count them TWO, of Tevye's daughters, one on the Broadway AND one in the West End, she is a fine, familiar FIDDLER veteran, and in 2016 she was moved to move Sholem Aleichem's Hodel forward, give her more story, and some closure. After its 2017 publication, she was approached by Symphony Space to supply pages to composers who would, then, use her words as inspirations for new songs. LET LOVE IN, and THE PHYSICIAN were superb treats for V-day, but her passing the show baton to music director Moss to solo on LOOK UP - Perchik's paean of longing for his Hodel - truly had the house reaching for their table napkins. A consummate actress at all times, she brought the broad to CITY OF ANGELS' gumshoe secretary on IT NEEDS WORK, then utter heartbreak dueting with Zaromatidis on I LOVED YOU ONCE IN SILENCE, and gave a perfect Scottish flavoring to her accent, reading Douglas Dunn's LOVE POEM before she and Zaromatidis conveyed the Celtic in a mash-up of I'M GONNA BE & RED RED ROSE.

Performance-wise she was up, she was down, she was all over the place, but almost always with script in hand or not-so-discretely on a music stand in front of her, creating a barrier between her and the house. Whatever she may do, Alexandra Silber is one of the most charming, engaging, energetic, and talented performers in the biz of show today, and this performance brought all of her gifts to bear for a truly appreciative crowd, but a book barrier is a book barrier, no matter how many cute bits you make out of moving it around the stage. And make no mistake, she was CUTE, even asking a stagehand to come up and assist her with raising her music stand. Silber is a pro, and she stopped well short of doing "readers theatre," but even though she never fully broke contact with her audience, the obstacle was apparent, especially when one can tell the performer really does have it down, and just a bulleted setlist dropped discreetly somewhere in the stage floor and/or on top of the piano would be all that is needed to keep them on track. You don't have to say ALL the words you wrote down - just talk to the crowd. If you forget a lyric... Hello, Ben Moss. Imperfections are what make real art in cabaret.

Now, my sweet readers, you all know that Bobby HATES to ding performers like that, but with most rainbows, some rain must fall, BUT in the gorgeous tapestry that the lady wove for our Valentine's Day love fest, this is a small thread to pull on, so, still-in-all, we cannot escape giving ALEXANDRA SIBLER: SO IN LOVE a heartfelt ...

4 Out Of 5 Rainbows

YOU MUST Follow Al Silber's Tweets: HERE

Check Out Her Insta-Pictograms: HERE

See All Her Stuff On Her Webbysite: HERE

And Get Copies Of Her Books: HERE

See TGR42's Calander: HERE

All Photos By Yours Truly, Bobby Patrick

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