Review: Lee Roy Reams Hits High Notes and Touches Hearts in REMEMBERING JERRY HERMAN at Feinstein's/54 Below

When I was seventeen, my family was in New York for a holiday, almost all of which I spent in Broadway theaters, devouring as much musical theater as possible. A sheltered teenager living abroad in the seventies, I had little knowledge of the real world, yet I was allowed to roam New York City and the theater district on my own, so there was little thought given to the lateness of my nightly returns to the hotel. The reason I was so late getting home? I was stage door-ing the plays that I saw, naturally. One of those plays was the original production of 42nd Street.

The stage door for The Majestic Theater is down a long alley, one shared by three theaters, an alleyway I found only by following the throng of people wishing to meet Jerry Orbach, Millicent Martin, and Peggy Cass. Standing in that crowd, I watched all those artists leave the theater, daring to speak to one or two, but the one I wanted to meet didn't come out. I waited. I waited longer. I waited until all the other fans had left. Finally, the theater doorman asked me to step inside and wait in the wings because he needed to lock the door. Finally, there was nobody backstage but he and I, and even he was getting ready to leave. I found myself a little nervous, maybe even scared. Then it happened: Lee Roy Reams appeared in the backstage hallway, tan as an almond, wearing white jeans and a fire engine red short sleeve shirt unbuttoned down-to-there, the raven black hair on his head and his chest glistening, either from a shower or from sweat, accompanied by three other men, also dressed in a festive, sexy, fashion. The doorman pointed out that there was a young man waiting for an autograph and the gracious and outgoing tap dancer spent a few moments chatting with that star-struck boy as his bemused friends stood to one side, waiting. The autograph granted, the Broadway star said, "Follow us, this is the way out," and he led the show business obsessed youth out onto the stage of The Majestic Theater and out the side door onto 44th Street. What had just happened? asked the star-struck youth who had just stood on a Broadway stage. That was forty years ago this month, and the memory is as vivid today as it was when I was seventeen, right down to Mr. Reams' liberal application of a sweet-smelling cologne.

Last night at Feinstein's/54 Below Lee Roy Reams stepped up onto the stage and he was wearing a red shirt: all the memories came back instantaneously. Mr. Reams' hair is now silver instead of coal-colored, and the almond-colored skin is now pale as pasteurized milk. The clothing favors blousy, as opposed to the form-hugging garments I remember, and there was no rapid-fire tap dancing. Still, Lee Roy Reams is sexy, magnetic, energetic, and generous to a fault, and it all comes out in full-force in his hour-plus long show REMEMBERING Jerry Herman.

Having had a well-known artistic association and friendship with the legendary composer/lyricist of Hello, Dolly!, Mame, and La Cage Aux Folles (among other beloved musicals that did not score the success and international fame as these three) Lee Roy Reams is the perfect performer to do a tribute show to Mr. Herman. The biggest optimist in the history of American Musical Theater, Mr. Herman lived to hear his work called old-fashioned and wholesome (not, by the way, insults, though there can be derision from some who use the terms in this context) and though his scores have reached an iconic status, there remain those who believe his work to be less important than other Broadway composers responsible for more complicated scores. Those people would be wrong. They are as wrong as they can be. Jerry Herman's musicals are vastly important to the history of the art form and to many audiences who need that music and that optimism, and when Lee Roy Reams goes on a stage and shares that music and his personal stories about Herman, something special happens. That is because Lee Roy Reams presents his act with great love and much reverence.

Reams' show follows a simple enough format - he shares Herman's early history, for context, touches base on some less treasured shows, and zeroes in for the money, talking about his personal experiences on Hello, Dolly! and La Cage, and his friendship with Jerry. He scores with each musical number because the voice is as strong as ever, a good old belting voice from the Golden Age of musical theater that still blares like a trumpet when he sings "Listen, Barnaby" and still growls when he sings "La Cage Aux Folles the maitre d' is dashing!" and then introduces you to vocal and acting textures you hear for the first time, in songs you are hearing him sing for the first time. The entire evening is charming and heartwarming and incredibly valuable to people of all ages, which there were at 54 Below last night, starting with a fourteen-year-old Broadway devotee sitting in the front row and reaching upward to people whose age it would be ungallant to mention. This is show business history that people who love Broadway and people who work in Broadway should see because you can read some of these stories in books and on blogs, but you can't hear the tenderness and wicked wit that comes from hearing Lee Roy Reams tell them. It's like when Henry Higgins tells Eliza Dolittle, "I can't turn your soul on." It isn't just Lee Roy's soul on display, along with the remarkable music, it's Jerry's soul up there, too. Lee Roy Reams keeps more than Jerry's memory alive with his show - it is Jerry who lives up on the stage with him, and everybody could feel it.

It cannot go unmentioned that at last night's performance Lee Roy Reams had some memory problems with some of the lyrics and some of the trivia. It is important to mention it for two reasons, the first of them being the extraordinary Alex Rybeck, Reams' musical director, who is on hand to catch him when he falters and get him back on track, with utmost ease. The second reason to mention it is this: there is more benefit to be found in Lee Roy Reams forgetting the words to a song, making up new ones, laughing about it, and then remarking on it than there is to be found in any singer reading their lyrics off of a music stand or device. Last night's audience was given a greater ride of entertainment and a better connection to a great Broadway star by the vulnerability, strength, and humanity that he brought with him onto the stage. I would go back and see this show over and over again just to get a little bit of that excitement back in my life, especially to catch Lee Roy Reams do an epic "medley of selections" from Mack and Mabel that was actually the entire score, or just to see him swing that feather boa around just one more time. It was exciting and life-affirming, every minute of it.

And then, of course, there is that red shirt...

Lee Roy Reams REMEMBERING Jerry Herman returns to 54 Below on July 13th. For information and tickets visit the 54 Below website HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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