BWW Reviews: Stellar TWINTASTIC at the El Portal One More Weekend
By: Don Grigware Mar. 23, 2015
Twintastic/act conceived by, directed by and starring The Edwards Twins/El Portal Mainstage/five performances left: Thursday March 26, Friday the 27th, two on Saturday the 28th and Sunday March 29 only
Actors/singers Eddie and Anthony Edwards, identical twins originally from Burbank, Ca, have been doing singing impressions for the last 30 years. In their renowned Vegas-style show entitled Twintastic, which tours much of the east coast and Canada, Anthony creates mostly male celebrities and Eddie, the females. Eddie's most popular divas are Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand and Cher. In their new show for 2015, currently onstage at the El Portal in NoHo through March 29 only, he does not do Midler, but adds Celine Dion to his regular roster of Barbra and Cher. These vocal impressions, apart from incorporating incredible wigs, makeup and costumes, employ Eddie's and Anthony's actual voices - that's right, there is no lip-syncing, they are doing their own singing... and their vocals... are amazingly precise and on.target.
Eddie opens the show as Dion. Listening to him deliver "All By Myself" and "The Heart Will Go On" is mind-blowing, like listening live to a Dion recording. All of those famously unmistakable inflections are there and watching him do those definitive hand-gestures...wow!...hard to believe it is not Canadian icon herself. Anthony is up next as Stevie Wonder, a white man playing a black man...so convincingly with unbelievable makeup and wig...the famous stance and smile. "Feel It All Over", "For Once In My Life", "You Are the Sunshine of My Life", "Isn't She Lovely?", "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" and "That's What Friends Are For". Before I had a chance to accept him in the flesh as Little Stevie, Anthony turned around and took off the wig to reveal a greyish white crew cut hair style underneath and then a quick change of the jacket and tie...voila! Ladies and gentlemen, it's Ray Charles. "Let the Good Times Roll", "I Got a Woman Way Over Town", "Georgia"...and that never-ending smile plastered from ear to ear...no doubt about it, Ray Charles in person! I have never ever seen a white actor play two black artists with such brilliance!
Later in Act II, Anthony does a whole KTel medley of love songs with no makeup, wig or costume...just voice...Frankie Valli, Rod Stewart, Barry Gibb and "Stayin' Alive" and Ray Orbison "Cryin' Over You" - he did use a wig for Orbison. To this set, he added a couple of divas Tina Turner and Julie Andrews, not as spot.on as the men, but still pretty damn good.
I refuse to give away the whole show, but Eddie's very best segments are Cher - without and with Sonny, played by who else? Anthony... and of course, Barbra. His Cher costume for : "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves","Half Breed","If I Could Turn Back Time" and the like is skimpy, sassy showing lots of skin - two tattoos, one on each butt cheek, and his wild gyrations and hyper-fast leaps around the stage are nonstop frenetic. Barbra does all of her greatest hits from "People" to "Evergreen" to "Enough Is Enough", the hit duet single she recorded with Donna Summer, and again the wig, costume and graceful almost subtle head and hand gestures add so much allure to the whole picture as well as, needless to say, the dynamic vocal rythyms that make Streisand tick. You won't be disappointed, as Eddie can do it all.
They boys close the show as themselves (photo above) and sing a delightful Mancini duet of "You and Me" from Victor/Victoria, even managing to throw in a couple of jokes as George Burns and Gracie Allen.
Get yourselves over to the El Portal and buy tickets to Twintastic. Anthony and Eddie Edwards are phenomenally talented guys that will have you jumping for joy and singing right along with them as they walk down memory lane from the 50s on up through the 60s, 70s and 80s. One thing's for sure: you will literally be in awe of what you see and hear. They're the best...remember through Sunday March 29 only!
http://www.elportaltheatre.com/
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