Review: Fortunate Pangea Audience Attends Opening Night of Tim Connell's LUCKY ME

Pride in one's heritage is a beautiful thing. Not everyone embraces their bloodline, their family history, the origin of their very being, but Tim Connell does. Tim Connell is a proud descendant of people born in Ireland, people whose histories he knows and whose stories he shares but, mostly, Tim Connell is the proud son of Claire Wilson Connell, a woman whose Irish heritage was everything to her, and whose passion for all things Emerald Isle has inspired LUCKY ME, the new musical cabaret that Mr. Connell debuted on St. Patrick's Day.

Mr. Connell, easily one of the best male entertainers working in the cabaret and concert industry today, has created a seventy-five-minute tribute to his Irish roots, filled with entertaining stories that inspire both laughter and tears, and the music that he feels, best, informs those stories. Working alongside longtime collaborators, director Steven Petrillo and Musical Director James Followell, Connell balances, nicely, two polar-opposite emotions that seem to come with being Irish - or, at least, talking about the Irish.

Naturally, Lucky Me is a cabaret show with a great deal of humor, usually not very sophisticated humor but sophistication can be highly overrated - better to stick to a good limerick or drinking song. Indeed, at Thursday night's performance cabaret doyenne KT Sullivan (one of the industry's most elegant ladies) could be heard laughing louder and harder than anyone at the two "lost" verses of the folksong "Seven Drunken Nights" - verses that tended toward the, shall we say, bawdier nature of Irish folk singing. Throughout the entire program, Mr. Connell had the audience engaged in some form of mirth. There were giggles, chuckles, chortles, laughs, belly laughs, and guffaws as he recounted the tales from the trajectory of his ancestors, and with storytelling of such a jovial nature, a performer must be prepared for the unexpected, and Connell is - one of the reasons he is one of the best. Whatever happened on Thursday night, Tim was able to roll with it. Audience members talking to him during the show? No problem. Unexpected tangents? Nothing to it. Prop failure? Piece of cake. Any and everything that bubbled to the surface, Tim Connell handled it; it was like watching a professional game of "Yes, and?" with great music and a green tie. Mr. Connell's training was showing, often in a sweet (and sweetly recreated) Irish brogue. To describe the levity of the event as anything less than charming would be to diminish the entertainment value of the program.

Then there is the second of two emotions that come with Connell's tribute to The Land of Saints and Scholars: pathos. Mr. Connell infers that the Irish can be a bit stoic when it comes to the expression of emotions; evidence greatly to the contrary. There is so much heart in his story that it is impossible to avoid the shedding of tears.

Add to that the inclusion of songs like "Alone Again, Naturally" and "Look to the Rainbow" (just try not to get misty-eyed) and it is heart songs all over the place. Using one of the most pristine and pretty voices a person has ever heard, Connell can break the heart ("The Blower's Daughter") or awaken the heart ("Moondance") and, always, with the acting intensity of a true troubadour. He can sing any style of music, and he sings not one sentence without knowing where the story has been structured to take the audience. Like a Pied Piper of Hibernia, he draws the people in with all the parts of his acting self, and, indeed, of his real-life self; Tim Connell makes the conscious choice to connect with his audience.

In an industry where exists actors too performative to make tangible contact with the people sitting in the seats, a storyteller like Tim Connell is gold (shall we say a pot of gold?) and must be seen and heard to be believed, especially when Followell has set Connell's keys in a rangey fashion that shows off his abilities but that, occasionally, gives Tim a chance to reach for a high note that is just bordering on being difficult, allowing for the audience exposure to a tender place of vocal vulnerability that soars the heart to heights of emotional storytelling worth the price of admission. At every turn, this is a sublime and successful endeavor that the three creatives have undertaken, one worth seeing anytime throughout the year and not just on St. Patrick's Day.

But prospective audience members should be warned: take tissues. Whether from laughing too hard or from "Danny Boy," "The Blower's Daughter" or a famous Irish Lullaby, you will need a hanky.

And a beer.

Tim Connell LUCKY ME will play Pangea again on March 20th at 2 pm. For information and reservations, visit the Pangea website HERE.

THIS is the Pangea show calendar.

Tim Connell has a website that can be accessed HERE.

Tim Connell gets a five out of five microphones rating for performing his entire show without the use of a lyric sheet, tablet, or music stand.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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