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“It Will Never Be That Way Again”
Metropolitan Room – March 24, April 9, May 23
Fran Leonardis couldn’t have picked a better—or truer—song for her opening number than Marvin Laird and Joe Paley’s “Born to Entertain.” With it, she proclaims exactly what she’s about, then for the next hour she proceeds to prove it. When she performs, she lights up the stage—no, she brightens the entire room. To misquote a line from Gypsy, she’s a 5-foot bundle of dynamite.
She delivers marvelously funny performances of two very funny songs: Mel Brooks’s splendidly silly, Kurt Weillish “He Vas My Boyfriend” and “It Will Never Be That Way Again” (like the opening number, from Laird & Paley’s Ruthless! The Musical!). She kills with Kander & Ebb’s “And the World Goes Round,” grabbing hold of the song and not letting go until her knock-’em-off-their-feet finish. She can also enhance her material. For example, Chuck Pelletier’s “It’s All About Me” is a cute song, but with her verve, her flair for comedy, and her adorableness she makes it even better. Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey’s “More… and More… and More (Costco)” is not quite as clever or funny as it’s meant to be; however, her spirited performance—abetted by the amusing idea of the song—scores solidly.
Leonardis, who was a runner-up in the 2011 MetroStar Talent Challenge, is making her solo cabaret debut with this show; its theme is autobiographical: a housewife-and-mother who was born to entertain. Under Peter Napolitano’s direction, and with musical direction and piano accompaniment by Barry Levitt, the songs are neatly worked into the theme, and the dialogue smartly sets up the songs. She reprises a number that she and her creative team originally devised for the MetroStar competition: “Que Sera Collage,” in which several pop hits from the ’50s are woven into Jay Livingston and Ray Evans’s “Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).” It’s an inspired medley that makes a delightful silk purse out of the parent song’s icky and fatalistic sow’s ear.
Though her strength is comedy and all things up, she tries her hand at a few ballads. In general she does a pretty good job on them, but I believe she can go further. Her best are Brian Lasser and Gary Gardner’s “I’m Becoming My Mother” (her interpretation has an affecting sweetness, but her delivery is just a wee bit over-gestured) and Maltby & Shire’s “Stop, Time” (her performance is nicely centered; now she should delve one layer deeper). Wisely, she takes Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner’s “Wait Till We’re Sixty-Five” slowly, at least for most of the song—which is so much more effective than the bouncy arrangement the song had when first presented, in the Broadway musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever; now she needs to make her line readings more specific, which would bring out the song’s wit. (To hear what can be achieved with this song, one should listen to Mabel Mercer’s rendition.) And Mack Gordon and Harry Warren’s “At Last” would benefit from her being more centered and still, the piano accompaniment softer and less lush, and the interpretation slower and more reflective.
The evening’s only serious error occurs with Kander & Ebb’s “Arthur in the Afternoon.” Not only does she overplay it (too much speed and energy), I believe there is a fundamental problem with trying to do this piece in a cabaret show—a problem not with the song’s quality, but with its nature. [For more on this issue, see below.]
To her and her collaborators’ great credit, I can’t imagine anyone leaving Fran Leonardis’s show not feeling happier than when he entered.
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Additional comments on “Arthur in the Afternoon”
Because I’ve seen so many other talented performers come a cropper with “Arthur in the Afternoon,” I’ll elaborate on why I think it’s generally a bad idea to sing it in a cabaret show. It was written for the Broadway musical The Act, where it had the benefit of Liza Minnelli’s razzle-dazzle performance and the irresistibly appealing performance and presence of Roger Minami. More significant, though, is that it wasn’t just a song, it was a choreographed number, and as such it was wonderful. In no way was the audience expected to view the lyric as anyone’s actual personal confession.
When “Arthur…” is included as a song in a cabaret show, whatever words the singer uses to lead into it invariably come across as exactly what they are: a set-up. What’s more, this set-up, despite its obvious hokeyness, would have us accept, at some level, the literalness of the lyric. Making matters worse, the set-up is usually expressed in the first person, but the lascivious action described in the song has always been—at least in my experience—at odds with the persona of the singer. I think it would be possible for “Arthur…” to work in a nightclub act, but to get it to work in a cabaret show would require frankly acknowledging and then bridging the gap between the honesty one expects in cabaret and the song’s showbiz glitziness. And then you would have to confront the fact that the song has been done a lot: your interpretation would require freshness and originality if it is to hold our interest; you couldn’t get away with merely doing it reasonably well.
Roy Sander has been covering cabaret and theatre for over thirty years. He’s written cabaret and theatre reviews, features, and commentary for seven print publications, most notably Back Stage, and for CitySearch on the Internet. He covered cabaret monthly on “New York Theatre Review” on PBS TV, and cabaret and theatre weekly on WLIM-FM radio. He was twice a guest instructor at the London School of Musical Theatre. A critic for BistroAwards.com, he is also the site’s Reviews Editor; in addition, he is Chairman of the Advisory Board of MAC.
