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Noah’s Very Unusual Insight
February 7, 2012
The Duplex – January 27, 28
The premise of Noah’s Very Unusual Insight (directed by Stephanie Fittro) is pleasingly silly. Patient “Noah A.” (Michael Hanko, who also wrote the script), a gay man living in New York, is introduced to the audience by his longtime psychotherapist, Dr. Lorna Gallo (Peter Lappin). Noah suffers from ABD (Amorous Bipolar Disorder)—in other words, an “indiscriminate approach to romance.” It seems that everywhere he turns (the steam room at the gym, the dance floor of a Chelsea nightclub, the local Starbucks) Noah falls in love. Dr. Lorna is determined to put him through a course of treatment called “Cabaretics.” She will have him publicly sing a prescribed selection of show tunes and standards. This, she says, will help him change his unhealthy behavior patterns and find happiness.
Let the therapy—and the song set—begin.
In my medically untrained opinion, Noah’s issues go beyond his tendency to fall in love too easily. He seems, in fact, to be a full-tilt Jekyll and Hyde. When he relates his romantic history to the Cabaretics audience, he is manic to the point of loopiness. But then Hanko begins singing, and we hear these rich, deep notes coming out of Noah’s mouth. The patient’s renditions of such songs as Rodgers & Hart’s “A Ship Without a Sail” and Lerner & Loewe’s “From This Day On” are concentrated and serious-minded. So, one moment Noah is Mario Cantone, and the next he’s Mario Lanza. I found the absurdity created by this dichotomy to be weirdly appealing, even though Hanko seems at times to be presenting a tribute to Jim Nabors, whose Gomer Pyle persona would sometimes burst into measures of bombastic baritone song between goofball exclamations of “Shazam!” and “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
Dr. Lorna monitors Noah’s treatment rather carefully, but at one point she’s not watching and the patient misguidedly sings a selection not on the list of prescribed songs: the 1960s pop number “Anyone Who Had a Heart” (Burt Bacharach, Hal David). This sends Noah into a frenzied fit of grimacing. He grabs the microphone stand and dances with it like an out-of-control Elvis Presley. The doctor must interrupt the performance and get him back on course. It’s a funny moment.
As the therapy progresses, we learn that Dr. Lorna herself has harbored unspoken ambitions to be a cabaret performer. It’s amusing to watch the prim and perky doctor—who looks a little like Rachel Maddow in a lab coat—launch into a medley from Jerry Herman’s score to Mame (“It’s Today”/”If He Walked Into My Life”). I enjoyed Lappin’s refreshingly restrained approach to this drag role.
After the treatment is taken to its logical conclusion, with Noah singing Maury Yeston’s “Unusual Way” (dedicated to “every guy I’ve ever met”), patient and doctor are ready for their encore, a rollicking “Together, Wherever We Go” (Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim). The team seems ready to take its psychotherapeutic act on the road.
Hanko and Lappin get solid support from musical director Byron Sean on piano and, especially, cellist Wendy Law. While a more conventional Cabaretics treatment would probably call for a piano-bass-drums trio, Law’s warm playing proves a good match for Hanko’s smooth and resonant singing.
The habit of putting together a cabaret act in order to iron out the kinks in your psyche is one that is overdue for a trenchant satirical treatment. Noah’s Very Unusual Insight isn’t that show. It’s merely good, goofy fun. But goofy fun is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.
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.
