Michael Hughes

September 15, 2012

“Mickey and Judy”

The Duplex  –  September 10, 15, 20

We’ve seen it before, of course. The one-person confessional about how an obsession with show business, most often in the form of movie musicals, helped the subject escape from or overcome a difficult and/or lonely childhood somewhere far away from the bright lights of Broadway and Hollywood. Frequently, Judy Garland is involved. Much is different this time out, however. Michael Hughes’s parents and three siblings were either neutral about, or downright supportive of, his obsession, from an early age, with writing and performing songs and shows, playing all the parts and dressing in a variety of costumes, mostly female. Also, he grew up in Toronto, hardly a backwater where the performing arts are concerned. Best of all, there’s a total absence in Hughes’s act of the “look-what-they-did-to-me” syndrome, which is usually a staple of these short autobiographical entertainments. Rather, Hughes, an engaging performer with impressive pipes, positively celebrates what his childhood inclinations have allowed him to become.

Oh, there was some schoolmate bullying along the way. And there was a family jaunt to a child psychology clinic and a Dr. Birnbaum, but that was an effort to at least understand young Michael’s show-biz and dress-up predilections, not to force him to overcome them. In his 50-minute set, in its New York debut after successes in Toronto and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Hughes mostly makes fun of his young self and supporting cast. Besides, among the movie icons encouraging his youthful forays, the most constant was and remains Judy. Songs associated with Garland comprise much of the musical portion of the act. (The “Mickey” of the title is not, as you might suppose, Judy’s sometime “let’s put on a show” film partner, the now-nonagenarian Rooney, but, rather, Hughes himself, who answered to the same nickname, Mickey, as a kid.) Thus, his song set runs a somewhat predictable gamut, from the opener “(Dear Miss Garland) You Made Me Love You”—a slight rewrite of the Roger Edens rewrite of the James Monaco/Joseph McCarthy original—to the encore, which you’ve already guessed is “Over the Rainbow” (Harold Arlen, E.Y. Harburg, from The Wizard of Oz). In between we get his perfectly decent performances of the Garland evergreens “The Man That Got Away” (Harold Arlen, Ira Gershwin, from A Star Is Born) and “The Trolley Song” (Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane, from Meet Me in St. Louis).

“Some People” (Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, from Gypsy) is the most effective of the non-Judy songs, as it sets up Hughes’s early determination to get out and at least try to make it in the business of show. His all-out delivery of this number seemed to be a deliberate homage to Ethel Merman, who introduced it, but as later selections proved, it was his own legit voice, formidable and brassy when it needs to be. Two Gershwin songs, “Do It Again” (George Gershwin, Buddy DeSylva) and “But Not For Me” (George and Ira) are not properly set up by Hughes’s spoken narrative, which never really ventures into the personally romantic. And some of his selections and their introductions are overly on the nose: Hughes’s father suggests comedy as an antidote to those bullies, which leads us right into “Make ‘Em Laugh” (Nacio Herb Brown, Arthur Freed). And when Hughes finally makes it to his promised land, the Big Apple, he commemorates the event with not one but three familiar anthems: “N.Y.C.” (Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin, from Annie); “Lullaby of Broadway” (Harry Warren, Al Dubin, from the movie Gold Diggers of 1935); and, you guessed it again, “New York, New York” (John Kander, Fred Ebb, from the movie New York, New York). While he performs all of these songs well, it’s too much of a muchness on the same small subject.

Hughes is to be hugely congratulated for not introducing half the people in his audience, which seems to be an ever-growing trend. But he was remiss in not acknowledging, by name, his music director/pianist Andrew Smithson, who is a subtly important part of this act. A quick, silent hand wave on the way to a similar nod to the resident sound/light booth is simply not enough to thank Smithson for what he is doing.

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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.