Don’t Monkey With Broadway

Patti LuPone is a Broadway legend. In a spectacular career that has seen her win two Tony Awards and been nominated for another five, there has rarely been a theatre season on Broadway since she starred as Evita in 1979 when she hasn’t appeared in a musical or play. This new show, which originated in her hometown of Newport, Long Island, is a career run-down with a difference as she sings songs from shows that influenced her, songs that were originally sung by other characters, and of course songs from her hit shows. It’s an eclectic mix which finds her not only dipping into the Great American  Songbook of Rodgers and Hart (“I Could Write a Book”/”There’s a Small Hotel”), but also the off-beat James Taylor’s “Millworker” from Working and “Easy to Be Hard” from Hair.

Highlight of the first-act was Stephen Schwartz’s “Meadowlark,” a gem from his underrated score for The Baker’s Wife. LuPone had the honour of introducing it, and whilst the show never got to Broadway, it’s since become a staple audition-piece for every aspiring lyric-soprano. Lupone’s version was brilliantly dynamic. I have never heard it sung better. She closed the first-act with a dramatic reading of Evita’s anthem “Don’t cry for me Argentina”, and although the accompaniment was only on piano, Joseph Thalken made us believe we were hearing a full symphony orchestra.

She was joined in the second-act by the QCGU Choir for a rousing trio of“Trouble” (The Music Man), “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat” (Guys and Dolls) and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” (Anything Goes), followed by the charming low-key country-flavoured ballad “Sleepy Man” from The Robber Bridegroom,” her first Broadway musical.

LuPone’s superb comic-timing was given full play when she essayed “Big Spender” (Sweet Charity), as a funny, tired and bored hooker, whilst she drew multiple laughs singing both parts of West Side Story’s classic Anita and Maria duet, “A Boy Like That” and “I Have a Love”. Masterful takes of “Another Hundred People”, “Anyone Can Whistle” and “Not While I’m Around” kept the Sondheim aficionados happy, as did her searing take of “Being Alive” which closed the show.

Four encores were generous; a dry and acerbic “Ladies Who Lunch”, with martini glass in hand, “Give My Regards To Broadway”, with its flag-waving sentiment, and two songs sung off-mic, a lovely wistful a cappella version, again with the QCGU Choir, of On the Town’s “Some Other Time” and a solo of “A Hundred Years From Today”.

It was a magical night of musical theatre with a Broadway great. Triple bravos and thunderous applause are in order and a return visit is mandatory!

Peter Pinne