Review: MAKE SOMEONE HAPPY: Cabarets Are Happy Partner Projects for J2 ...at AMT Theater

What a great idea for a pairing of the worlds of theatre and cabaret:  During the run of its musical revivals, a theatre company also puts on cabaret shows filled with material from other scores by the same songwriting team.  Whichever presentation a customer attends first will whet the appetite to come back to enjoy more songs by those collaborators.  To further encourage returnees, having a few performers participating in both events is smart, too.  That’s the method to the gladness governing operations by the company called J2 Spotlight with its spot-on, ongoing projects.  April’s offerings make partners of a 1960 musical with Jule Styne’s music and lyric-writing partners Betty Comden and Adolph Green — Do Re Mi, closing this weekend with its two Saturday shows and a Sunday matinee – and a nifty one-night-only cabaret stuffed with their songs on April 23. 

The cabaret was captained by its own dynamic duo: Charles Kirsch (the bespectacled fellow pictured here) – the happy host/rabid researcher/enthusiastically entertaining debut director (plus prolific podcaster), who penned his own well-delivered views and overviews.  His cabaret colleague at the keys is music director/pianist Michael Lavine.  They’ve previously partnered as narrating host and keyboard king for 54 Below’s Broadway-themed nights, sometimes co-hosting with J2’s Artistic Director/co-founder, Robert W. Schneider.  (The Kirsch/Lavine duo will be back at 54 Below on Monday with a bevy of singers to explore the cream of the crop of flop shows whose posters hang in semi-shame at the restaurant Joe Allen.)  

The cabaret got off to a bright and bouncy start with song-and-dance man Jon Peterson pouring on the charm and capturing the carpe diem message with “Comes Once in a Lifetime” from Subways Are for Sleeping, a musical that opened a year and a day after Do Re Mi.  Addressing close encounters of the thrilled kind, he chatted with Mr. Lavine about the exciting moment he met Jule Styne and the pianist shared fond stories about his own friendship with kind, one-of-a-kind Adolph Green.

The program stayed on the track of Subways for a while, with more from its score, before moving on to treats from other musicals, such as Bells Are Ringing.  Both of those had Sydney Chaplin as the leading man on Broadway.  Although that’s worth pointing out at some point, perhaps it isn’t wise to set up a song by setting up the expectation of replication, introducing a performer by saying: here he is, doing “his best Sydney Chaplin.” Generally the genre of cabaret prioritizes putting one’s own spin on a song, rather than trying to sound like someone else or sticking with the original phrasing, tempo, arrangement, etc.  But, if that quick and light comment made anyone truly expect cabaret cloning,  that was not what followed -- fortunately.  A good example of eschewing the stylization used the first time around on Broadway was the neo-vaudeville team of Kirsch & Lavine themselves.  They shared a vocal and attitude on “You Mustn’t Be Discouraged” making the memory fade of how it was done in Fade Out, Fade In,  à la Shirley Temple chirping with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.  Bravo!

I appreciated those participants who dressed up to bring a touch of class to the cabaret.  (Maybe some casual garb was meant to suit the personality projected in a song?)  Some singers were more prepared than others, with the “others” being those who had to rely on being cued or holding papers or books.  Requiring aid was understandable in the case of one participant who I am told came to the aid of the program by gamely stepping in on very short notice to do an especially wordy, fast song. Stephen Hanan recreated a number he’d performed years ago in the role of  Captain Hook in a revival of Peter Pan – and this reviewer is giving him anything but a pan for his contribution to the night.  It was a highlight.  Messrs. Kirsch and Lavine chimed in as his substitute pirates du jour.  

The evening’s set-list was well curated, including many numbers rarely heard in cabarets or concerts, such as two choices from Say, Darling: Jeremy Benton was suavely swirling and starry-eyed, singing and dancing “Dance Only with Me” and “The Carnival Song” with Jay Aubrey Jones hilarious as the huckster hawking a dubious cure-all.  In another tour de force, Jenny Lee Stern expertly brought vivacity to the venom in a diatribe against “Men,” nailing the LOL moments in this Lorelei specialty that’s kind of a cousin to the better-known “I Hate Men” that Cole Porter wrote for Kiss Me, Kate.       

Having seen the opening night of J2’s Do Re Mi – delightfully daffy and filled with fizzy fun — I was especially curious to see the cast’s Caleb Funk, quite the comical chameleon in his multiple roles, do something else.  He showed his tender side with the ballad “Long Before I Knew You,” beautifully partnered in sincerity by Ashley Morton.           

And there was much more in the song-stuffed soiree, a swell showcase for the excellent examples of how the wordsmithing craft of Comden & Green coincided with the deft melodies of Jule Styne.  Gratitude goes to the gracious tour guide Charles Kirsch, seated onstage on a big yellow chair borrowed from the living room furniture scene in J2’s merry madcap Do Re Mi, and Michael Lavine, seated at the piano bringing many colors to the songs. They’ll be back before long with Back to Before, the title of the next J2 Spotlight cabaret night.  It’s set for May 7, with songs of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, writers of J2’s next revival, Lucky Stiff. The company offers discounts for a combination ticket purchase.

All the performances happen at the AMT Theater at 354 West 45 Street.   

Color photo of Charles Kirsch by Stephen Mosher.

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