Review: Wendy Scherl Shows What She Did For Love In THE SWEETNESS & THE SORROW: THE SONGS OF MARVIN HAMLISCH At Chelsea Table + Stage

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

Thursday night at Chelsea Table + Stage introduced this rainbow boy to award-winning vocalist Wendy Scherl, as she brought lovely vocals to her show THE SWEETNESS & THE SORROW: THE SONGS OF Marvin Hamlisch. A couple of things those not in the know should know about this legendary music maker - Hamlisch was always drawn to first-rate, meaningful poetry to which he would compose his tunes. Whether those words came from the likes of the Bergmans, David Zippel, Carole Bayer Sager, and yes, Ed (A CHORUS LINE) Kleban, the music that he would marry to their words enhanced the moments to which the character of the song was drawn. This means that, in order to really put over Marvin's music, one needs to be a real singer and a real actor. There is no hiding in Hamilisch and, with the uber-skilled assistance of music director and keyboardist par excellence, Christopher Denny, bassist Tom Hubbard, and drummist Rex Benincasa, all under the direction of cabaret don, Barry Kleinbort, Wendy Scherl was free to bring her expert intonations to the set in some very lovely ways. As with her opening number, Hamlisch's first hit song written at 16, SUNSHINE, LILLIPOPS & RAINBOWS where her shiny voice lifted the song above Howard Liebling's saccharine lyrics. Scherl's show, in fact, was the height of all of this team's prodigious expertise. Her voice is lovely and lilting on DREAMERS with its more meaningful lyrics by Christopher Adler, and she sings every single note on the page almost always exactly as written. Scherl does not miss a beat or a pitch, and her interpretations of the song's music and lyrics are... wait for it... Lovely. This tribute to MH is well worth whatever one might spend to see it, and that is ... LOVELY.

Herein we come to the point where Bobby must bring in some raindrops with this rainbow review and add a little critic to this critique. Wendy, a New York native, and a Dalton School girl (if you know, you know), and her team have processed their show into one of the neatest packages this writer may have ever experienced. The set is scripted to within an inch of its life and that script has been scrupulously memorized in order to be recited from the stage. While none of that is a bad thing, when it is a noticeable thing, well... it's noticeable. Scherl's handling of the notes shows off her wonderful singing talent, and her interpretations of the lyrics are well-acted in a wistfully remembering sort of way. The circumstances of her songs are almost all past tense and are recalled in the present, with all the requisite beauty of sadness, regret, or pathos, without a lot of humor or any other emotions in the mix. Wendy is a gifted actress in this mode, but nothing seemed to be happening in the "NOW". There was nothing present in the room and nothing to be overcome that required the words and music to overcome them. Wistful can be sweet, but it wears thin a bit around song 6, coincidently, Marvin H's personal fave tune SWEET ALIBIS. Delivered with all the full richness of Scherl's voice in an oh-so-clean performance of the arrangement, it skirted the edges of the song's emotional impact by not allowing the memories to push her to something a little LESS clean. Nor did the lady find occasions to place the problems of the songs in the room with all of us, making the ICE CASTLES theme THROUGH THE EYES OF LOVE a bit like a Christmas carol, where one sincerely feels "the spirit" but it's all previous and anecdotal.

In the long run, while Wendy's gifts mean she should, indeed, be doing this work for a living, we would offer that the team of Denny, Kleinbort & Scherl could benefit from some time together in the rehearsal room, to have a little think about the acting scenes presented by the music of Hamlisch et al, in order to deepen the stakes, and make it all a little more natural. Is there heart in Scherl's show? A bit. Is there emotion in what she performs? Some. But, moving her entire set list into the emotional ballpark of RITA'S TUNE (where Scherl found a moment in the second refrain to get a little "raucous," with a nice vocal growl and then really brought it home in the last few lines) would take Wendy to the next level and show her off to best advantage. It is our sincere hope that work on this act will continue, and, for now, we give THE SWEETNESS & THE SORROW: THE SONGS OF Marvin Hamlisch a respectable...

3 ½ Rainbows Out of 5.

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Photos by Yours Truly, Bobby Patrick

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