Jackie Hoffman

July 18, 2012

54 Below  –  June 3, 17, July 8, 15, 22, 29

Momentously, Patti LuPone opened the 54 Below cabaret space this June. But she wasn’t the first artist to play there. That honor went to singer/comedian Jackie Hoffman. Her show has continued at the new venue, and, in it, Hoffman doesn’t let us forget for a minute that she was the “canary in the mine” that quietly tested the room before LuPone’s well-publicized engagement.

Hoffman and co-writer/director Michael Schiralli have taken this less-than-glamorous guinea-pig assignment and run with it. Run and run and run. Like the late Rodney (“No Respect”) Dangerfield or—more recently—Kathy (“D List”) Griffin, Hoffman relishes her beleaguered underdog status. She and her young pianist/musical director, Will Van Dyke, wrote many of the musical numbers for this show. But had she looked elsewhere for a theme song for the evening, Hoffman might have turned to Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’s lament of the self-lacerating schlemiel: “Nobody Does It Like Me.”

Instead, the opening number, “Bottom,” by Hoffman and Van Dyke, sets the theme by playing on the subterranean nature of 54 Below and comparing it to Hoffman’s buried career. “I finally made it up to the basement…” she sings. Soon after comes a medley of songs from Broadway musicals in which Hoffman appeared (Hairspray, Xanadu, The Addams Family). Hoffman, however, sings only the supporting and backup lines—the ones she sang in the theatre. As Van Dyke plays long stretches of the “star” parts, Hoffman amusingly kills time waiting for her next “doo-wah.” (By the way, throughout the evening, the exuberant and upbeat Van Dyke proves a charming counterpart to the cranky and pessimistic headliner.)

When she is not hilariously dissing herself, Hoffman carps about the world in general. In a litany of complaints with the refrain “It’s all going to shit,” she brings to mind Bette Midler’s “Why Bother?” routine from the 1980s. Hoffman blasts such varied targets as reality television, babies, and Cirque du Soleil.

In one running gag, Hoffman explores various imagined renditions of Idina Menzel’s final musical phrasing from Wicked‘s “Defying Gravity” (Stephen Schwartz). The bit seems to work equally well each time Hoffman returns to it. Indeed, much of the success of Hoffman’s shtick grows out of her talent for exploring themes and variations. Much as the Eskimo people supposedly have invented individual names for countless types of snow, Hoffman has collected a range of nuanced twists on the classic kvetch. Some are whiney; others are like screeches emitted by large, aggravated birds; some are fishwife wails; and some come close to approximating the primal scream.

Of course, not all moments in the show are equally effective. The song “Autism” (another Hoffman/Van Dyke composition) founders somewhat, not because of the provocative subject matter, but because of a few too many gaps between punch lines. “Shavuoth” (a song she wrote with Lon Hoyt earlier in her career) is amusing, but it has taken a bit of obvious shoehorning to fit it into this particular show.

But these details matter little to the audience. In mid-performance, Hoffman carries on at length about the bridges she’s burned with large numbers of New York producers and casting directors. The enthusiastic response from the crowd to this show, however, confirms that she remains solidly in the good graces of her loyal fan base.

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About the Author

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.