BWW Reviews: LAUREN STANFORD Attempts Channeling the Legendary Helen Morgan at 54 Below

Helen Morgan (1900-1941) left school in the eighth grade. She began singing in speakeasies in her early 20s, draping herself on the piano at Billy Rose's Backstage Club, already an alcoholic despite prohibition. A climb up the ranks of The Ziegfeld Follies led to originating a Broadway role with which she became synonymous--Julie LaVerne in the musical Showboat. Morgan reprised the character in two films and a theatrical revival in 1932. She acted in a few films, fronted a speakeasy, and sang in nightclubs, dying young of cirrhosis of the liver. With a voice unlike those popular during her epoch, the vocalist created a niche for herself with torch songs whose emotion allowed interpretation.

Lauren Stanford (who won the MetroStar Talent Competition at the Metropolitan Room in 2013) has convincingly done herself up to look like her subject in her new show, More Than You Know, which she introduced at the Laurie Beechman Theatre in late October and brought to 54 Below this past Friday night. Stanford's presentation is 2/3 singing and 1/3 biography. Research is evident; specifics add color. The use of framed photographs and several conjectured telephone calls is effective (the actress listens). Vocals don't emulate Morgan's controlled vibrato, but Stanford has sufficient musical feel for the period to make mimicry unnecessary. Her uneven contralto can add feeling to a song rather than diminishing it. There are, however, other issues.

Before us ostensibly stands Helen Morgan towards the "end," about to give up the business in hopes her married lover will leave his wife, yet Stanford opens so bright, she's almost chirpy. "By this time next week I intend to be as fat as my aunt's tabby" and "me and my stupid old shadow" (prefacing "Me and My Shadow"--Al Jolson/Billy Rose/Dave Dreyer) sound more like a young girl than an exhausted, hopeless inebriate. She seems under no strain. Nor do "I'm between dishes and douches" and the suggestion that Billy Rose's hand in his shirt is caressing his "teet" land appropriately. These elicit do-we-laugh-or-not titters from the audience.

The implicit message in the lyric of "Can't Help Lovin' That Man" (Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II) is that the singer can't help herself despite what he does or who he is. In Showboat, Julie sings this about her ne'er-do-well husband. While technically well performed, Stanford's smile is in direct opposition to meaning. This happens with several numbers. "You see me smiling but it's not with my eyes/It's just a disguise I wear" emitted late in the show, may explain her approach to the entire piece, but only works if the aspect escapes intermittently when Morgan is drunk and maudlin.

To her credit, the artist simulates gradually getting plastered with finesse--hesitating, losing her place, stumbling just a little, at one point letting slip the name of her lover. Her reaction to the gaff, "Oh, what the hell!" is viscerally cynical despite previous hopeful pronouncements. During "Don't Ever Leave Me" (Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II), unfortunately sung to a liquor decanter, Stanford lets out the first of a couple of well placed, bitter laughs that cut to the quick. The song's regrettable set up confuses the audience, however; people laugh.

Singing "More Than You Know" (Vincent Youmans/Billy Rose/Edward Eliscu): "Oh how I'd cry, oh how I'd cry/Ooh, if you got tired and said goodbye . . . " in direct response to her estranged father hanging up on her is problematic, not the least because of the above lyric, as is the otherwise well executed "Taken By Storm" (Louis Alter/Edward Heyman)--here relating to a baby for whom she was caring. Torch songs implicitly refer to romantic love. Performed resuming her "act," without forced tie-ins, these might've been more compelling. (See video from Stanford's Laurie Beechman Theatre performance.)

"You Remind Me of the Naughty Springtime Cuckoo" (Leslie Sarony/Jimmy Campbell/ Reginald Connelly), the purported recreation of Morgan's first number for Ziegfeld, is adorable. Stanford wields two small, black, feather fans and dances badly with skill evoking the era's style and her own lack of experience. "Bill" from Showboat delivers deep-sighing sweetness. "Why Was I Born?" (Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II from the 1930 musical Sweet Adeline) is aptly earnest and emotionally depleted.

Pathos is evoked with reference to stage fright for which she needs "liquid armor," fleeting sources of unconditional love--the baby and a pet lion cub, and feigned belief her current lover will provide a happily ever after scenario. (Morgan had been married three times.)

The ambitious show has much going for it, but fails to completely gel.

Musical Director/Pianist Dan Furman reflects the period with deft embellishment both accompanying songs and underscoring monologue. The show's Director is Eric Michael Gillett.

Photos by Jason Russo (HeyMrJason Photography)

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