BWW Reviews: With Her New 54 Below Show, FAITH PRINCE Proves She Can Become a Cabaret Queen

Cabaret Reviews and Commentary by Stephen Hanks

About a third of the way into Tony Award-winner Faith Prince's new show at 54 Below last Wednesday night (the second of a five-show run over six days that ended on June 8), it hit me that I could be watching a potential future cabaret legend in action. You know, in the Barbara Cook, Marilyn Maye, Andrea Marcovicci, Ann Hampton Callaway category. As Prince skillfully and seamlessly glided from Maltby & Shire's intelligent, poignant, and comical "Crossword Puzzle," to Dave Frishberg's sweet and wistful "Sweet Kentucky Ham," then into major raconteur mode with a hilarious story about performing almost three decades ago in summer stock with a terrified Jack Jones in On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, and then doing more than justice to Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane's classic ballad "What Did I Have That I Don't Have" from that same musical, I felt this was one of the few shows I've seen at 54 Below--especially from a Broadway star--that was a true "cabaret show" in the way most people define cabaret.

Unlike most offerings at the venue, this wasn't a concert or nightclub act posing as a cabaret show. Although Prince has been doing some variation on this theme and set list since her first big cabaret gig at Joe's Pub in 1999 (which became an award-winning CD), all the elements were there in Wednesday night's performance--intimacy, humor, honesty, emotion, and storytelling skill (to go along with those still great pipes)--that can stamp Prince as future cabaret royalty.

Directed by Liz Callaway's husband Dan Foster and with Musical Direction from Alex Rybeck (who is also Callaway's MD), Prince's Have a Little Faith, was more a combination of her previous cabaret shows, A Leap of Faith, the more recent Total Faith, and some material from The Prince and the Show Boy, the 2012 Nightlife Award-winning show she did (also at 54 Below) with her long-time friend Jason Graae. But the lack of originality in this version of the Prince "past and present" theme didn't diminish it's effectiveness, especially to an audience unfamiliar with her past efforts.

After warming everyone up with a medley of "Broadway Baby" and the obligatory "Adelaide's Lament" (her now-signature song that helped earn Prince the 1992 Tony for the revival of Guys & Dolls) the Georgia-born, Virginia-raised Prince followed with "The Other Side of the Tracks" (from Little Me, in which she appeared with Martin Short), and Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen's "I Have to Do It The Hard Way," which seems to be a metaphor for her own struggle to make it in New York musical theater. Among her more engaging stories about what she called the "curvaceous, twisted, hard" road to Broadway (Prince has a delightful affinity for using synonyms) was one about not being able to get out of an IBM Industrial show contract ("To date my best paying job," she joked) so she could play Audrey in the original Off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors. She has apparently tried to make up for it ever since by singing a medley of "Somewhere That's Green"/"Suddenly Seymour," where she displays her ability to transition from that adorably nasal Betty Boopish voice to a lovely mezzo soprano whisper on a dime. (Please click on Page 2 Below to Continue.)

On "Sweet Kentucky Ham" Prince was joined on stage by 17-year-old guitarist Henry Lunetta and the audience wouldn't find out until a few songs later how a teenager got to play in a Faith Prince show. Before launching into the languid and sensual Ray Anthony song "Man With a Horn," a trumpeter began to play from off-stage and slowly walked slowly toward the singer. After the kid then joined again for Prince's delightful rendition of "If I Were a Bell" from Guys & Dolls, the audience learned they were watching a family affair featuring her horn-playing husband Larry (who Prince met during the Jack Jones episode) and son Henry. It was a wonderfully touching moment and not the least sappy or self-indulgent, especially considering husband and son are pretty good musicians, as they proved on the finale, Prince's lovely turn on Kander & Ebb's "But the World Goes 'Round." For her encore, Prince once again displayed her mastery of vocal control, timing, and comedy with her typically great performance on "The Boy From . . .", the classic Mary Rodgers/Stephen Sondheim parody of "The Girl From Ipanema."

Faith Prince has conquered Broadway and TV and produced some award-winning recordings. Now she just about has this cabaret/nightclub thing nailed. If she can expand her repertoire with some new songs that are more sensitive and introspective, while also coming up with more original storytelling themes, Ms. Prince can become a long-term cabaret Queen. And she won't have to do it the hard way.

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