Review: “Nothing's As Fun As A One-Night-Stand” ~~ Karen Akers WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE At Birdland

Heigh-Ho, My Merry Rainbow Tribe! Bobby Patrick your RAINBOW Reviewer here. Grabbing that silent T in cabareT to bring you all the Tea!

Last week’s sojourn to the venerable Birdland Jazz Club found little ol’ yours truly seated at a table with fellow BroadwayWorld contributor Brady Schwind to, finally, catch the act of a night club legend, Karen Akers, in her latest cabaret offering WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE. This career compilation show took a look back at some of the songs that first brought Lady Karen attention, and then bookings, and then more bookings in cabarets all across the world, many recordings, and, as is well known by us musical theatre mavens, on Broadway.  Monday evening’s show included works by Craig Carnelia, Maury Yeston, and Stephen Sondheim, among other treasures. The show also featured FAB musical director Alex Rybeck and expert bassist Tom Hubbard, all subtly and beautifully directed by Rybeck’s workshop teaching partner, Sara Louise Lazarus. Singing to a packed house this retrospective of music from Karen’s Kareer (see what Bobby did there?), she kicked off with an appropriate thematic mashup of Leslie & Nichols AMONG MY SOUVENIRS, wrapped around Kander & Ebb’s WALKING AMONG MY YESTERDAYS. Displaying an even richer lilt to her vocals than in days gone by, something new seems to have grown in her musical garden, and, indeed, at the end of the performance, she gave thanks to voice teacher Nomi Tichman for “Giving me a new lease on my singing.” Always a singing ACTRESS, this latter-day training has evolved her work in truly magical ways, something that one might think impossible, given Karen’s place in the industry and the respect she commands. But there it is my children, if one stops growing and learning, you die, and Miss Akers ain’t ready for that… not by a long shot.

Stopping off throughout the set, here and there, to tell tidbits from her life, her two marriages - the first yielding two children and ending in an “Oops, I’m gay divorce” that segued into a long and loving friendship as co-parents and pals. Karen gently walked hand-in-hand with her audience, not in a straight, chronological line, but along a lovely path she carved for us from which she would pluck fruit from the trees to pass around to all present.  With Dan Hill’s SOMETIMES WHEN WE TOUCH, she shared that she saw herself and her former husband inside the song, and that’s exactly where she was… inside the song, sharing it outward, painting the images with nuanced expertise. Amongst all the “loveliness,” there were laughs, too, as with Amanda McBroom’s rumba REYNOSA with its lacings of funny McBroomisms throughout, the neurotically humorous CONVERSATION ON A MOBILE by Leon Rossleson, and the hilarious NOW by Brad Ross and Joe Keenan, which had every actor in the joint nodding and guffawing at the plight of “Theatre Folk” who must elbow their way into TV & Film, in order to enable their theatre addiction, and what they find when they work on set. But, for this rainbow boy, the highlight of the evening was the sad and touching YOU CAN HAVE THE T.V. by Craig Carnelia. Introduced, as we were, to Karen’s recording of this number some 30ish years ago, it caught our breath to hear it live, in the big room at Birdland, and to see all the refined subtleties in Akers' Acting of the final moments of a relationship coming sadly, but perfunctorily (what? Bobby knows words?!) to an end… Sheer magic, my angels. Also amongst the treasures of the night was a Sondheim song heretofore unheard by Little Bobby and, even more surprisingly, by Little Brady, as well. We marveled that we had never heard her show’s title song WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE before, but we agreed that the cosmic purpose for our ignorance was so that our first-ever version would be a live performance by Karen Akers. The only note about it in Bobby’s book was the word “Beautiful”... and so it was.

And so it was, dear Bobby readers, that we checked a glorious box on our cabaret must-haves list by seeing the great Karen Akers perform her show WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE at Birdland, and since this was a one-off-one-nighter, we can only pray for all of you out there that this show will be booked and booked again, for it must be seen to be believed and understood on the level of the heart, and for that, and so much more, we give Karen Akers our heartfelt

5 out of 5 rainbows (BTW - Brady Agrees With Bobby Here)

You Kan Keep Up With Karen On Ye Olde FaceBooke: HERE

Karen Has No Website But She Has Simply Skads Of Recording On The Spotifies: HERE

Her Wikipedia With Lots Of Other Links Is: HERE

All Photos by Yours Truly, Bobby Patrick