Review: Joanne Halev Ends Five-Year Break With SAILING ON at Birdland Theater

In 2019 Joanne Halev made her nightclub debut with a cabaret show titled LIKE A PERFUMED WOMAN that was so notable and respected an outing that the Bistro Awards committee bestowed upon her a Bistro Award for Outstanding Debut.  And although Ms. Halev returned to the scene with the show a couple of times, she has remained mostly silent in the years since.  Why?  It’s a perfectly reasonable question and one that many people were probably asking.  Why would an artist who has received accolades and awards relax on their laurels, rather than using their voice and momentum to bring more stories into the light?  Well.  On November 19th a standing room only crowd of patrons at the Birdland Theater learned the answer.  Joanne Halev isn’t here to crank out content: she has come to make art.  And she won’t put that art out until she believes it to be just right.  

With SAILING ON, Joanne has it just about right.

With two musical cabarets under her belt, it has become clear what Joanne Halev’s artistic goal is: to tell stories.  No mere singer of songs is this trained theater actress - Joanne Halev is painting pictures.  Indeed, if this were a film or a television program, it wouldn’t be a far stretch of the imagination to see Joanne Halev standing on a beach, barefoot, in jeans and a white Oxford, an easel in front of her as she layers paint onto a canvas, in order to capture the scene before her eyes.  Just such a picture is what Joanne is creating in this new show, over and over again, as she recounts the stories of her life and her loves, just as she did with LIKE A PERFUMED WOMAN.  Only this time, Halev is a little closer to home.

While Halev’s inaugural cabaret leaned heavily into her life working in the fragrance industry (still one of the most interesting topics for a club act), Sailing On tells the stories of Joanne’s personal life, going all the way back to the beginning.  She was born (“bawn”) in Maine, growing up on the beaches with her beloved family beside her, joining in her adventures and teaching her about life.  This family is fodder for the stories that Joanne weaves in, out, and around her songs, literally within the compositions, as she remembers the smell of the salty air and the feel of the sand beneath her feet, between verses of “La Mer” (or, if you must, “Beyond the Sea”) and bubbles over with tales of her Bubbie.  Thanks to Musical Director Alex Rybeck’s seamless and inventive arrangements, Joanne transitions from raconteuse to chanteuse, as comfortable in one role as she is in the other, but always, always, always acting as storyteller.  As she shares her memories about her youth, there is nowhere to go but up, as she grows up and confronts adolescence, young adulthood, dating, boys, men, and the adventures that happen along the way.  Indeed, one of the most entertaining segments is about the adventures that DIDN’T happen… with Halev making very clear inferences about why, exactly, they didn’t happen, cleverly using the Lerner/Loewe classic “Show Me” to plead with the boys who were not getting it done.  Now, it might sound odd to think of cabaret’s chicest Lady discussing getting down with a college boy who grew up to be a Tony Award nominee, but that’s what makes Halev’s show work: she isn’t afraid to be real.  She can be elegant and still discuss the sexual revolution.  She is acting in service of the story.  There’s no coy disguise or skirting the issues: she was an active young woman in the Seventies (the fashions are touched upon, too) looking for life, looking for love, and looking for fun.  She got it.  And, now, so does her audience.

As a storyteller, Joanne Halev is quite adept.  When engaged in the act of talking to her audience, she is vocally expressive, her comedic timing is well-practiced for the landing of laughs, her impressions are well-studied, and her ability at pathos is masterful.  When she is not engaged in the act of talking, when she is actually singing, she delivers the goods with a smooth, mellow, rich voice reminiscent of a warmed-up brandy with one square of the deepest darkest chocolate from Li-Lac.  And then there is the matter of acting while singing, a skill that not all people who stand at a microphone have achieved (or even attempted), but for Joanne Halev it is patently a priority.  Observe the commitment to (money number) “The Lies of Handsome Men,” a slow-jazz-infused ballad that permits Halev to make the most of her ability with facial expression.  Of course, that skillset also works in the other direction, as was made apparent with a jauntier jazz treatment of songs by Rodgers & Hart and Sondheim that was less wistful than the Blumenthal ballad and more innuendo (and laughter) laced.   Whether going for the heart with a three-song set I would label “The OMG Set” (“Too Late Now” followed by “Jenny Rebecca” and then  “Becoming My Mother” - come on, now!) or landing laughs with “Nobody’s Heart Belongs To Me” and “Live Alone and Like It,” Joanne Halev’s training is showing.  She is extremely intentional with each number and every monologue.  In fact, I might observe that Joanne’s work is shown off to best advantage when she is allowed to be still and empowered.  When either seated on a stool, standing at the mic, or resting against the bentside of the piano, Joanne is able to just be.  She is allowed to put all of her focus into the telling of the story.  During her November 19th show, there were times when she seemed to wander aimlessly about the stage, which diminished the weight of the journey upon which she was going, and taking us with her.  Perhaps director Sara Louise Lazarus might reconsider the extraneous blocking and put Joanne Halev where she is strongest and at her most comfortable: in a pin spot.

One of the things that does not need reconsideration, though, is the musical material.  Joanne Halev has chosen, deliberately, to lean into women writers, a fact this reporter noted just moments before she, herself, introduced the subject as part of her patter.  In SAILING ON, Joane is, magnificently, interpreting the compositions of Amanda McBroom and Carol Hall - both women writers whose work is a natural and perfect fit for Halev.  Maybe it’s the sisterhood thing or maybe it’s just those two women, specifically, but Joanne Halev appears to be born for Hall and McBroom, and this devotee of both songwriters would like to encourage Joanne to delve deeper into the canons of both women - it is certain to yield good things, especially if she keeps Mister Rybeck and Double Bass player Ray Kilday with her where she goes, for the two gentlemen assist mightily in the mood and pictures being painted.  They've got Joanne's back and they raise her (and her artistry) to the light.

The other thing I would like to encourage Joanne to stick with is Lillian Frankenstein.  Her grandmother made an appearance in Like A Perfumed Woman (by way of Joanne's script, which was as good as the script of Sailing On) and a significant portion of this new show is dedicated to stories about her beloved Bubbie.  I am not guessing at it when I say that Lillian Frankenstein is a character that will always be welcome in every Joanne Halev show, a character audiences and fans will come to hope for when showing up and being shown to their tables, especially when being presented with so much meticulous care and humanity.  Meticulous care and humanity would appear to be the Halev brand.  It will be both fun and interesting to see where she takes that care and humanity (and Sailing On) next.  Joanne Halev, welcome to your sophomore season.

Joanne Halev is on Facebook HERE.

Birdland has a website HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher.

 

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