Review: LISA VIGGIANO SINGS THE JANE OLIVOR SONGBOOK is a Heartfelt Tribute at Laurie Beechman Theatre

An inherent challenge exists in one artist doing a tribute show to another artist. The challenge comes in the "Why." Why is this artist important to the artist paying tribute? How does one artist shed new light upon the other? And it is a two-way street.

Multiple MAC, Broadway World, and Bistro Award winner Lisa Viggiano set this challenge for herself last night in her new show, Lisa Viggiano SINGS THE Jane Olivor SONGBOOK at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Ms. Viggiano is a vocalist of great sensitivity and range, much like Jane Olivor herself. She is capable of the same sort of introspection and pathos that was Olivor's trademark.

What Lisa Viggiano has as a performer that was not apparent in Jane Olivor's work is a wry and ironic sense of humor. When Viggiano allows her spirit to come front and center, the show she has created with director Mark Nadler really flies. However, for much of the performance, it feels as if Ms. Viggiano is attempting to constrain her own ebullient personality into the earnest, serious personality of Jane Olivor. I left the show wanting less Jane Olivor and more Lisa Viggiano. In short, Jane is cramping Lisa's style.

Nonetheless, there were many moments of great beauty. Viggiano explained early in the show that healing is what she found in the songs Olivor wrote and/or recorded. And it is clear Jane Olivor was there for Lisa Viggiano at the moments when she needed healing. There was only one tune in which Viggiano and musical director, Yasuhiko Fukuoka intentionally recreated an actual Olivor arrangement. "Some Enchanted Evening" is the tune that set Jane Olivor's career in motion and Viggiano soared in her version of it. The highlight of the show was a reading of "He's So Fine" in which Viggiano told the story of how she met her husband while engaged to another man. It was a lovely storytelling sequence. And her transformation of "The Last Time I Felt Like This" from a love song to a song of maternal affection was truly inspired. Fukuoka's arrangement of "Song of Bernadette/The Times Are A-Changing" was a very clever reiteration of the theme of healing. And the story Viggiano told about visiting a sick friend during the AIDS crisis was a very personal and moving tribute.

Highlights included "Come in From the Rain, "Brooklyn Roads/I'm Always Chasing Rainbows," a Jacques Brel flavored arrangement of " One More Ride on the Merry-Go-Round," Stephen Schwartz's "The Hardest Part of Love," and Neil Sedaka's "The Big Parade."

I wish Ms. Viggiano had been allowed to speak more about her own life, for it was in those moments that her tribute to Olivor was most effective. I look forward to seeing Ms. Viggiano again, for she is a fine artist. Her musical instincts are sublime and her acting range is large. I hope she will retool this show to tell more of her personal story while paying homage to the wonderful artistry of Jane Olivor.

For more information on Lisa Viggiano, visit her website lisaviggiano.com. To learn more about Yasuhiko Fukuoka, check out yazhy.com. For more about Mark Nadler, see marknadler.com. For other great artists at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, go to westbankcafe.com.

To post a comment, you must register and login.