Barrett Foa has established a successful career in television in Los Angeles as a co-star of NCIS: Los Angeles and as a recurring character on Entourage, but he remains, in his own words, “a musical theatre addict” who’s been “jonesing” to be back in New York and back on the boards for a while. The boards he has chosen for his return are in the stage of Feinstein’s/54 Below in a show titled “Grin and Barrett.” He wastes no time in (re)declaring his love for Broadway, opening with “Mamma Mia” (Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Stig Anderson), the title song of his first Broadway show. Singing the infectious hit as a love song to “mamma theatre” is a bright and engaging idea for an opening number, showing off his energy, enthusiasm and terrific voice.

The show gets very talky very quickly as Foa falls victim to the contemporary mode of confessional/autobiographical cabaret, which mistakes chronological fact-giving for involving patter. I can’t tell you for the life of me where Peter Allen, Marilyn Maye, or Karen Mason went to school, studied theatre, or spent summers at camp, but if I had actually paid attention, I could rattle off that information for about seventy percent of the new crop of cabaret performers I’ve seen this year.

Apparently his name—while admittedly a bit unusual, but not nearly as fascinating as he seems to think—was a sore point for most of his young life, and he is relentless in recounting his trials and tribulations with it and its bastardization by bullies, strangers and the like. While one such nickname, “Ferrett Boa,” does set up a funny end-of-show visual, an interminable medley of songs devoted to forcing his name into lyrics of popular songs threatens to undermine the energy and good will he creates in his opening. Once we’ve heard “be-FOA the parade passes by” and “I say a little prayer FOA you” how thin does the joke get by the time we get to “what I did FOA love” and “Strawberry Fields FOAever” 16 (yes 16!) songs later. He works so hard to make this funny that he forgets to have fun with it.

The empty intensity of the medley continues on into the next medley—there are a lot of medleys in this show—about LA versus NYC. “West Coast” (Gavin Creel, Robbie Roth), Randy Newman’s “I Love LA,” and Rufus Wainwright’s “California” would be much more effective if the singer gave them, and himself, room to breathe but instead he pushes too hard, and they blur together. Happily, when he gets to Cole Porter’s “I Happen to Like New York” at the end of the medley, something clicks in the performer and in the show, and we get to see the real Barrett Foa and it is what were waiting for. Here was a singer I wanted to hear, telling stories I wanted to hear.

Unfortunately, this leads into the major misstep of the evening: a lengthy spoken-word section about his life as an “underdog” that he reads from a loose-leaf binder on a music stand. (Too often throughout the show on opening night he referred to this book for lyrics as well). This section might have a chance of working if he presented it as monologues, memorized and up on his feet, but seated with eyes glued to the page, it is enervating. The show could easily lose this entire section and be the better for it.

Once back to music, he continues on the upswing established with the Porter song. Ironically, losing himself in a collection of characters and songs that he created on stage and television allows Foa to reveal more of himself than he does in all his preceding patter. Beautifully acted and sung, his “Underdog Medley” is masterful, recreating moments from Snoopy! The Musical (Larry Grossman, Hal Hackady), Avenue Q (Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx), The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (William Finn), and a tech-speak monologue by Eric Beale (his character on NCIS). His work in this medley is so specific and spot-on that it becomes easy to see why he is on such an upward track in Hollywood.

Having at last relaxed and settled into his show, Foa then becomes downright daring with “The Beauty Is” (Adam Guettel, from The Light in the Piazza), rescued from its usual archness by an inspired folk-pop arrangement, followed by Rufus Wainwright’s The Art Teacher. Each of these songs is sung by a female character, but without comment, without fear, he inhabits each one in the most subtle, moving ways. The effect on the audience and the show is transformative. We are completely in his more-than-capable hands from that point forward. He sang a tender, passionate “New Words” (Maury Yeston) to his young nephews in the audience that was so personal that the rest of us almost felt as if we were eavesdropping.

A riotously funny take on Les Misérables’ “One Day More” (Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil, Herbert Kretzmer) as performed by seven less-than-stellar members of a community theatre group shows off both his vocal wizardry and his comedic chops to great effect. It got, and deserved, an extended ovation. After this powerhouse turn, he ends sweetly with yet another medley: “Goodnight Is Not Goodbye” (Billy Goldenberg, Marilyn & Alan Bergman, from Ballroom—how nice to hear a song from this great show!) and “Goodbye Until Tomorrow” (Jason Robert Brown, from The Last 5 Years). It strikes just the right chord, and the forced energy of the early part of the evening has totally disappeared. His “Hamiltonian” rap encore of “Def-Ass Musical Theatre Gangsta Jam” (Michael Kooman, Christopher Dimond) is awe-inspiring, side-splitting, and the perfect ending to a highly entertaining evening.

Even when the vocal attack stumbles here and there, the work of music director/pianist Ian Weinberger, Ethan Pakchar on guitar, Martin Isenberg on bass, and Joseph Nero on drums is of the highest level throughout the show, as are the sparkling background vocals of “The Foa-natics”—Jane Bruce and Nora Schell. The arrangements by Weinberger and David O and the direction by Christopher Youngsman also add immeasurably to the show’s ultimate success.

“Grin and Barrett”
Feinstein’s/54 Below  –  June 3, 7