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Anastasia Barzee
April 23, 2013
“Barzee Sings Bacharach”
Metropolitan Room – April 18, 19, 20, 24
When you think Burt Bacharach, it’s likely that the upbeat selections he wrote with lyricist Hal David in the 1960s come quickly to mind: the lilting “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” or such popping and crackling songs as “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” and “Promises, Promises.” Bacharach-David songs of that stripe are a bit like high-end gourmet drop candy: sweet and tasty—with a hint of tartness sometimes. But they’re not what you reach for when you’re in need of a square meal.
Anastasia Barzee thinks a little differently about the composer. Early in her show at the Metropolitan Room, she said she believes that what Bacharach does best is to capture what love is like “when it all goes wrong.” And, truly, if you stop and look at the titles and thematic content—as well as the melodic and rhythmic contours— of many of Bacharach and David’s biggest hits, you may well agree that Barzee is on to something.
“(They Long to Be) Close to You”—Barzee’s opening number—is clearly not a song about love gone wrong. But David’s almost worshipful lyrics and Bacharach’s melodic sunniness do suggest a sort of romantic over-eagerness that could cause some heartache down the line if the feelings were not sufficiently requited. Barzee gave us a jazz-inflected rendition of this number. At the top of the song, she played the flute, asking her audience after a few bars: “Did you think I was going to sing?” This set the stage for the cheeky attitude Barzee maintained throughout her set—more about this later. The Carpenters classic was a good start for her musically: Her voice was strong and full, but also showed litheness and an appealing silvery quality. I wondered, though, about her alteration of some lyrics. I didn’t mind her changing “all the boys in town follow you all around” to “all the kids in town….” It gave the song a kind of youthful hipness. (People in their late teens and early twenties these days seem to like referring to themselves as “kids.”) But why did she repeatedly sing “on the days that you were born”? How many people have multiple birthdays?
As the evening progressed, Barzee moved on to some Bacharach-David songs that went closer to the heart of her thesis. “Anyone Who Had a Heart” was for me the highlight of the evening. The singer and her musicians—the Kevin Hays Trio (Hays on piano, bassist Rob Jost, and drummer Greg Joseph), along with guitarist Teddy Kumpel—rocked the number, giving it a thrashing, insistent drive. I don’t remember this song ever before capturing so effectively a sense of feverish, frantic lovesickness.
Similarly themed, but in a much different mood, was “Whoever You Are, I Love You,” the big torch song from Promises, Promises. Barzee sang it against Hays’s sensitive piano accompaniment, effectively expressing not only the song’s obsessive longing but also the frustration with self about having fallen so hard.
Other numbers didn’t work quite as well. The raucous “What’s New, Pussycat?” provided a welcome break from the romantic angst, but on the night I saw her, Barzee seemed to lose steam in the last part of the song. Kumpel’s banjo accompaniment on “What the World Needs Now Is Love” gave the number an interestingly funky down-home sound, but I’d rather Barzee hadn’t turned the number into an audience sing-along. I felt as though we were all having an “Up With People” moment.
Not all the titles Barzee performed had Hal David lyrics. “This House Is Empty Now” (with lyrics by Elvis Costello) showed an almost folky side of Bacharach—and of Barzee, too. Throughout the number her vocal quality reminded me of Joan Baez. A brand-new love-trouble song called “Ready to Be Done With You,” written for an upcoming theatrical venture with Spring Awakening’s lyricist Steven Sater, was powerfully delivered by Barzee, though it didn’t have the kind of melodic or rhythmic twists one expects (and hopes for) from Bacharach.
My only real problems with Barzee’s show had to do with the aforementioned cheekiness during her between-song banter. Her frankness and over-familiarity with the audience sometimes made me feel as though I were witnessing a stand-up comedy set—and not a particularly uproarious one. Asking for a show-of-hands from audience members about their personal experience with romantic heartbreak and infidelity seems to invite uneasiness. It’s one thing to “get real” with an audience, and it’s something else again to get all up in their business. I think almost everyone in the audience at those points would much rather have been singing along about what the world needs now.
Mark Dundas Wood is an arts/entertainment journalist and dramaturg. He began writing reviews for BistroAwards.com in 2011. More recently he has contributed "Cabaret Setlist" articles about cabaret repertoire. Other reviews and articles have appeared in theaterscene.net and clydefitchreport.com, as well as in American Theatre and Back Stage. As a dramaturg, he has worked with New Professional Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is currently literary manager for Broad Horizons Theatre Company.
When you think Burt Bacharach, it’s likely that the upbeat selections he wrote with lyricist Hal David in the 1960s come quickly to mind: the lilting “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” or such popping and crackling songs as “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” and “Promises, Promises.” Bacharach-David songs of that stripe are a bit like high-end gourmet drop candy: sweet and tasty—with a hint of tartness sometimes. But they’re not what you reach for when you’re in need of a square meal.