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Nicholas Wuehrmann
August 4, 2009
“What Can You Lose?”
The Duplex – August 7, 9, December 20
With hundreds of performances in musical theatre, opera, operetta, drama, and comedy to his credit—in addition to considerable experience as a director and teacher—Nicholas Wuehrmann recently made his solo cabaret debut. All of the ingredients of a first-rate cabaret artist are on display: an uncommonly resonant and beautiful tenor voice, superior acting ability, crackerjack comic timing, attractive stage presence, and a very likable personality.
He gets off to a jolly start with Andrew Lippa’s “The Life of the Party,” and he delivers a delightfully playful rendition of Kander & Ebb’s “Sara Lee,” with vocal participation and tomfoolery from Nathaniel Beversluis, who throughout the evening provides impressive piano accompaniment. His interpretation of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” is filled with feeling. Best is a pairing of two Sondheim works, “Take Me to the World” and “What Can You Lose?”; this number is masterfully conceived, set up, arranged, acted, and sung.
In developing this show, he’s made a few injudicious decisions. He abruptly stops a strikingly dramatic rendition of Andrew Lippa’s “What Is It About Her?” for a light-hearted personal anecdote that serves to announce that he’s gay, then he goes back to complete the song. By doing this, he’s undermined the impact of his strong vocal interpretation. If he’s intent on coming out on stage, he could relate the same story after the song. Mind you, while there is nothing wrong with revealing one’s sexuality in a show, being gay is not a particularly interesting piece of news—it is hardly a rarity in New York, and Lord knows it’s not in cabaret.
Ray Stevens’s country western “Happy Hour” segues into Bill Russell and Janet Hood’s “My Brother Lived in San Francisco,” which then segues into Adam Guettel’s “How Glory Goes” from Floyd Collins. The first segue is unexpected and very effective. However, Wuehrmann chooses to do a truncated version of the second song, which robs this touching piece of its poignancy. He should have done the complete song and ended there. If he wanted then to do the Guettel piece, it should have been its own number.
Wuehrmann takes the approach so many people do when presenting their first cabaret show: he not only structures the show around his life story, he fills his patter with autobiographical information. We learn more about his personal experiences trying to connect with men than we need to—or than I, for one, care to. (This will apparently come as a surprise to people who think it a good idea to regale their audiences with tales of their own amatory experiences: there is only one person whose sex life interests me, and whoever you are, I can assure you it ain’t you.) There is nothing distasteful in what he says, it’s just that as a topic of conversation, the search to hook up with another man is every bit as vapid and tiresome as is the more conventional quest to pick up girls.
Finally, Sondheim’s “Being Alive” should not be done as an encore; rather, it should be the last song in the show because it sums up the evening.
I’ve spent so much time commenting on the negative because so many performers make similar errors that I believe this focus is warranted. Putting things in perspective, there is far more that is excellent in this show than not. Wuehrmann is a gifted singer/actor, and I very much look forward to seeing his next outing (no pun intended).
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Additional comments
For more discussion on the inclusion of autobiographical information in cabaret shows, please see my Commentary No. 2, “It’s Not About You,” on the MAC web site.
For further thoughts on medleys, see my Commentary No. 6, “On Medleys and Other Matters,” on the MAC web site.
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.
