BWW Reviews: Audiences Once Again Revel in Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway's SIBLING REVELRY at 54 Below

Cabaret Reviews and Commentary by Stephen Hanks

In mid-August, the news website Bloomberg.com reported that 54 Below, the popular and snazzy new nightclub that opened last June in the basement of the old Studio 54, needed a major cash infusion in the six-figure range if it was going to survive. While the club's owners are reportedly close to securing the needed investment, perhaps if they just book Liz Callaway and Ann Hampton Callaway on a regular basis--either individually or together--their bottom line will start singing a happy tune.

The sisterly songbirds recently sold out a five-show run at the venue with a revival of their crowd-pleasing show Sibling Revelry, which they first staged 18 years ago at the old Rainbow & Stars club at Rockefeller Center (and which was subsequently released as a live CD). Since the opening of 54 Below, both the raven-haired and sultry-voiced jazz singer Ann and her younger sister Liz, the blonde musical theater soprano, have performed sold-out solo gigs at the old disco haunt and have grown their loyal and passionate fan bases. Once again, their audiences reveled in the Callaway's superior song interpretation, engaging sense of humor, and polished show-womanship. For someone, like this reviewer, seeing Sibling Revelry for the first time, the show seemed as fresh and contemporary as it must have felt in the mid-'90s. In fact, if producers from PBS don't consider this act for a potential edition of their "Great Performances" series, they are really missing a beat and a bet.

Introducing their faux rivalry from off-stage with a few bars of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better," from Annie Get Your Gun, the sisters entered from opposite sides of the room to raucous audience applause, and quickly segued into a knockout opening duet of Jerry Herman's "It's Today," from Mame. Ann related how the Chicago born and raised sisters moved to New York in 1979, with Liz quipping, "Even though I'm perimenopausal I remember it like it was yesterday." The dynamic duo then performed a jazzy mash-up of Richard Rodgers' "The Sweetest Sounds" (from the musical No Strings) with "I Can See It" (from The Fantasticks), a percussion-only rendition featuring Musical Director Alex Rybec (who's been the show's pianist and arranger since it launched 18 years ago) shaking an egg and some dual scatting from the Callaways.

Ann then took over and displayed her stylistic range, first on a bouncy, jazzy, fun, and effortless "Rhythm in My Nursery Rhymes" (cracking up the room when she starts to scat and urges "C'mon everybody, sing along,") and then on a tender mash-up of the Gus Kahn/Walter Donaldson standard "My Buddy" (introduced by Al Jolson in 1922) with the ballad "Old Friend," the Nancy Ford/Gretchen Cryer hit from I'm Getting My Act Together and Taking It On the Road. When Ann launches into these tearjerker songs, she becomes so emotionally invested she can make your eyes moisten faster than any singer in cabaret.

Although the sisterly affection and respect they have for one another is palpable, the siblings get a kick out of engaging in some cutesy competitive shtick regarding their professional accomplishments--Liz's Tony nomination for the show Baby vs. Ann's multiple MAC Awards, for example--and after a jazzy, up-tempo version of Cole Porter's "Friendship," Liz joked about Ann being "a great warm-up act," and took over to solo on Stephen Schwartz's "Meadowlark" from The Baker's Wife, a song that has become one of her show staples and rightly so. I've heard countless cabaret singers of varying experience and ability attempt this ballad and few do it better than Liz Callaway, who brings just the right mix of sweetness and poignancy to the song. Liz was then tender and soaring--and wonderfully matched her sister on the tear-jerking schmaltz quotient--on the Frank Loesser ballad "My Heart Is So Full of You," which was dedicated to her husband and the show's director Dan Foster. (The song was featured on Liz's 2003 CD release of Frank Loesser classics.) Jared Egan chimed in with a lovely bass solo and drummer Ron Tierno was solid throughout the set. (Please click on Page 2 below to continue.)

From then on came duets up the wazoo, starting with the obligatory and fun "The Nanny Named Fran," written by Ann for the Fran Drescher TV vehicle The Nanny, continuing with lovely harmonies on an acapella rendition of Michael Legrand and Alan and Marilyn Bergman's "You Must Believe In Spring," and culminating with what the siblings call their "Huge Medley," an 18-song-snippet tour-de-force featuring a mélange of movie and musical theater classics, including "If Mama Was Married" (from Gypsy), "Marry the Man Today" (from Guys & Dolls), "A Boy Like That" (from West Side Story), Nowadays (from Chicago), and an homage to the famous Judy Garland/Barbra Streisand duet on "Get Happy" and "Happy Days Are Here Again."

The days are certainly happy whenever this sisterhood of the traveling singers gets together for any kind of show (perhaps it's time to bring back their 2011 songs of the 1960s tribute show Boom), let alone a five-gig run. Warm, funny, intimate, engaging, and accessible, the Callaways' Sibling Revelry is everything a duo cabaret should be. Now it's time for PBS or some other musically inclined TV network to pay attention and bring this sublime show to a national audience.

Photos by Stephen Sorokoff

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