Review: Karen Akers Dives Deep and Soars at Urban Stages' WINTER RHYTHMS

Karen Akers' ardent "Francophilia--- and I don't care whether or not it's a real word" was seeded in adolescence and brought to bloom by living in France, becoming fluent in the language, and absorbing European sensibilities (reincarnation is also a distinct possibility). Offering a show of French material is, to the artist, like sharing a part of her soul. Never has this been so clear and affecting as Aker's muscular performance tonight, enriched by maturity and new vocal elasticity. With the formidable Alex Rybeck acting as musical director/pianist and emotional collaborator, the evening soared.

An accomplished actress, Akers relates each lyric/story in English before morphing into mouthwatering French. She conjures streets, docks, and shadowy alleys, speaks to unseen lovers, suffers and rejoices with such clarity that not understanding the language is barely a handicap (although there are also songs in English). Selected material is personal.

"I'm not afraid," she declares, arms extended, palms open, ready to risk (a new relationship). The first refrain is sung to convince herself, by the second, she gains ground, at the third, the heroine blazes, open-throated, daring. Rybeck's accompaniment breathlessly whirls (Rod McKuen/Gerard Jouannest). These are the sentiments of one who has lived.

Piaf, she tells us, was at a café table with Marianne Michel when, inspired, The Little Sparrow wrote the lyric to "La Vie En Rose" for her friend. Its author didn't sing the song at first because she didn't think she was sufficiently glamorous. "Piaf didn't need glamour. She was real." Aker's vibrato stays at the back of her throat like penetrating hum, fluidly connecting phrases.

Hopping up on the piano, she sings a bitter, melancholy "Paris in the Rain" (Jeremy Sams/George Van Parys) in which a woman arrives back in the City of Light only to be haunted by lost love. My room with a view/Feels fine without you... I picture you dead (a dark laugh)/Why the hell aren't you here?! Few could pull off melding pain, rage, and love like Akers without going over the top.

Similar scenarios are played out in Michel Elmer's classic "L'Accordeoniste" whose last word, Arrêtez! (stop!) is a cry against arbitrary death and Barbara's "Drouot" in which an old woman is forced to sell her last souvenir of a great love. In the first, Akers' vocal loops out in thrall, then back as if yanked. In the second, defeated, the once proud character fades, trailed by seven, elegiac piano notes. This song is rendered precisely, as if memories are etched.

"Milord" (Marguerite Monnot/Georges Moustaki) zigzags between depression and the forced gaiety of those determined to endure. Akers, as une fille de port (a streetwalker--- here, a woman of the port) tries to cheer her "client" with such focus, we practically see him. French songwriters often mask despair with insistent waltzes or buoyant music hall tunes. Untranslated, this could be sung and interpreted as a happy number. We hear and see otherwise: Smile at me, Milord!/ ...Better than that! A bit of effort.../ There we are! is wrenching.

One of tonight's highlights is the rarely performed "L'Aigle Noir" (The Black Eagle, by Barbara), the fantasy of an adult's visit from childhood in the form of a black eagle. Akers tells the story, then sings with radiant excitement. She seems ecstatic. Rybeck's painterly accompaniment supports like-air currents. The number is majestic.

Other American-penned material includes "Paris is a Lonely Town" (Yip Harburg/Harold Arlen) during which Akers walks without compass on conjured, wet streets and Stephen Schwartz's lovely "Chanson" (THE BAKER'S WIFE), a song of unguarded romanticism. "We live in difficult, dangerous times" prefaces a spellbinding "Somewhere," (WEST SIDE STORY) performed in French as "Un Pays Pour Nous" with operatic sincerity (Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/translation: E. Marnay).

We close with a searing "Non, je ne regrette rien" (M. Vaucaire/C. Dumont), vehement, not loud. The audience is spent. And cheering.

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