BWW Reviews: Amanda McBroom and George Ball Are Thoroughly Enchanting During Their Enchanted Show at 54 Below

Cabaret Reviews and Commentary by Stephen Hanks

Can there be anything more adorable than watching a talented husband and wife exude romantic chemistry on a stage, especially when doing it through an intimate art form like cabaret? Who wouldn't feel inspired and even a bit envious while watching long-time happily marrieds sing their hearts out to an audience and to each other, while also cavorting around a stage and having their time of their lives?

New York cabaret audiences have for years been blessed with extremely entertaining performing marrieds like John Pizzarelli and Jessica Molasky, Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano, and Michael Garin and Mardie Millet. But after experiencing the thoroughly enchanting October 8 performance from Amanda McBroom and her husband George Ball at 54 Below (there was a second performance on October 14), it's difficult to imagine a cabaret couple more compelling. In short, the Balls were having a ball and, ultimately, so did their audience.

After 40 years of marriage and multiple performances of this show before they hit New York (the London press raved about the run at Crazy Coqs in April ), it was no surprise Amanda and George would really have their act together. While he is 80 and Amanda is working on the second half of her 60s, standing together on a New York nightclub stage gave them both a glow and a spark of energy that made them appear decades younger. Maybe not as young as they were when they first met in 1969 in San Francisco performing in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (the period when, as McBroom says, Ball taught her how to sing), but youthful enough that an audience could imagine how glorious they must have been in those days.

If that's an over-the-top romantic notion, so be it, because the essence of mature romance--with all its love, respect, knowing humor, even sparks of sexual chemistry--is exactly what McBroom and Ball brought to Some Romantic Evening--Love Songs for Grownups. With Amanda's longtime and superb Musical Director Michele Brourman on piano and Jered Egan on bass, the couple opened fittingly for the show's theme with "Twin Soliloquies," Rodgers and Hammerstein's lead-in to the soaring "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific. But before Ball can get his Emile deBecque on, McBroom admonishes her hubby about wearing jeans. "That's what the guys I know in cabaret told me to wear," he explains, a bit perplexed. Segue into Stephen Sondheim's "The Little Things You Do Together" from Company, where for this couple the operative verse is: "It's not so hard to be married . . . When two manoeuver as one . . . It's not so hard to be married . . . And, Jesus Christ, is it fun!

While the rest of the set seemed like something of a greatest hits package--the usual McBroom standards and four songs from Jacques Brel they've done either solo or together for decades--there were a few surprises, not the least of which was hearing Ball sound like a cross between Johnny Cash and Tennessee Ernie Ford (but with a smoother baritone sweep) on a story song like Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman," and on a nifty Brourman piano ballad arrangement of "Save the Last Dance For Me," both from his most recent debut CD release, Think of Me.

As for Amanda, well, one can't say she was in "rare form" because she's always excellent. But I reviewed her February 2013 show at Café Carlyle and while that effort was lovely, she seemed a bit detached, almost formulaic. But being on the 54 Below stage with George seemed to give her a shot of adrenelin mixed with joy. She brought her entire spectrum of acting and vocal qualities to the set and gave each song its appropriate color. "Ship In a Bottle," the first ballad she ever wrote for George, was breathtakingly beautiful. She was jaunty, sarcastic, and fun on "Round," her bouncy song co-written with Joel Silberman about flaunting bad eating habits and not feeling quilty about it. During the haunting ballad "Yarnell Hill" (co-written with Brourman), you could feel Amanda channel the pain of a wife whose fireman husband dies a hero fighting the flames of Arizona wildfires. Another number from a wife's point of view is McBroom's classic "Dance," one of the best lyrics about the slow deterioration of a marriage ever written. Amanda delivers the metaphorical lines with extraordinary emotional, yet restrained, power. And "The Rose," well, is "The Rose."

The songs of Jacques Brel have clearly become part of the couple's DNA. In addition to them both performing in the acclaimed musical revue of the composer's songs as far back as 1969, McBroom released a 2009 CD of Brel titled Chanson, and then performed shows based on the disc around the country, including New York's Metropolitan Room. For the 54 Below show, they opened their mini-Brel tribute with a fun duet on "You Don't Forget the Past." Ball then delivered a commanding, silence-the-room performance on the powerful and poetic "Amsterdam," the song about the adventures of sailors on shore leave that Amanda claims "won her heart" when she first heard her future husband sing it back in the Woodstock era. In both French and English, McBroom exquisitely captured a woman professing her undying love on "Chanson De Vieuxs Amant," and then was positively mesmerizing on "Carousel," displaying her vocal gymnastics and building to a breakneck pace on a song about the crazy, merry-go-round of a world we live in (especially during these Ebola-frenzied times) that was practically an entire show in itself.

For the finale, Ball was able to revisit his truncated opening number, seducing the audience with his deeply touching and tender tones on a beautiful arrangement of "Some Enchanted Evening." When he and Amanda danced during their romantic encore of George and Ira Gershwin's "Our Love Is Here To Stay," all one could do was watch them hold each other close and whisper to themselves, "It sure is."

Photos by Stephen Sorokoff

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