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Feinstein’s at Loews Regency – October 19
Laurie Beechman Theatre – January 31
The defining moment in Raissa Katona Bennett’s strong Feinstein’s debut one-nighter came three-quarters of the way through her show. After she’d told us about having played a slew of ingenue roles, among them Luisa in The Fantasticks and Christine in Phantom of the Opera, she sang “Bye, Bye Ingenue.” Written by Michael John LaChiusa expressly for this engagement, this remarkable song progresses from rueful awareness of no longer being young to serene acceptance of the adult that has emerged. It is a killer, and Bennett’s delivery was both commanding and moving.
The song was also a turning point, for it informed the songs that followed, giving new shades of meaning to a pairing of “Much More” (Schmidt & Jones) and McCartney & Lennon’s “I Will,” and then to “A Piece of Sky” (Michel Legrand, Alan & Marilyn Bergman), all given renditions that were vocally and emotionally rich.
The rest of the evening had much to recommend it. Actually, it got off to only a so-so start. Bennett opened with Amanda McBroom’s “Make Me a Kite,” singing quite pleasantly, but lacking the inner fire this song cries out for. She fared better with Maury Yeston’s “I Had a Dream About You,” connecting solidly with the song—until the last few lines, when she dropped focus. [See my note below about the placement of welcoming patter.] However, she hit her stride with a medley of “Darn That Dream” (Jimmy Van Heusen, Eddie DeLange) and “I Had the Craziest Dream” (Harry Warren, Mack Gordon)—and she maintained it for the rest of the show.
A pairing of “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” (Beth Slater Whitson, Leo Friedman) and Sondheim’s “One More Kiss” was a delectable concoction of schmaltzy soprano romanticism. With a gently rhythmic instrumental accompaniment to Bennett’s spare but sensual vocal, Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate on You” was exquisite. (This arrangement was by David Caldwell.) Bennett pulled off a neat hat trick with Schmidt & Jones’s “Is It Really Me?”: the first half of her rendition was infused with tender wonder, then she dropped in a line of dialogue that established a completely new context for the lyrics and turned the second half into an expression of comic surprise; the first part was affecting, the second hilarious, and the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Later, she displayed her comic skills again in Christine Lavin’s “Good Thing He Can’t Read My Mind,” managing to keep this oft-heard song fresh and funny.
The show’s director, the very busy Eric Michael Gillett, joined Bennett for a rapturous duet of “Stranger in Paradise” (Borodin, Wright & Forrest), and he stayed for a passionate and dramatically compelling duet of “Don’t Know Where You Leave Off” (Marvin Hamlisch, Craig Carnelia, from Sweet Smell of Success).
Before saying bye-bye to being an ingenue, Bennett sang “Think of Me” (Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe), giving evidence of (a) at least one reason that Phantom of the Opera has been such a phenomenal success, and (b) the wisdom of her having been offered the role of Christine. The show ended with Leonard Bernstein’s “Build My House” (from his Peter Pan), segueing into David Wilcox’s “Show the Way.” The mawkish Wilcox song was a regrettable follow-on to the Bernstein piece, which has majesty; it would have been better to do a fuller treatment of the Bernstein. However, by that time Bennett had won over the audience so completely that the song choice was merely a let-down, not a calamity.
The accompaniment throughout the evening was a model of musicianship and sensitive support: the musical direction and arrangements were supplied by Mark Janas, who accompanied on piano; Mayra Casales was on percussion, Sean Harkness on guitar, and Ritt Henn on bass.
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Comment on the placement of welcoming patter
To begin her second number, Bennett sang a few bars of “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” then delivered her welcome to the audience and segued into “I Had a Dream About You.” In other words, she interrupted a medley of the two songs with her welcoming speech. This isn’t a grievous error; indeed, it is preferable to its more common variant, which is interrupting a song to welcome the audience. However, not only is this device a little silly, it has become rather a cliché. More generally, I maintain that songs should never be interrupted to make a comment of any sort unless there is a damned good reason to do so, and saying hello to the audience does not qualify. (By the way, I believe that one reason the Maltby & Shire/John Weidman musical Big was not as successful as it might have been was that songs were too often interrupted by dialogue, so they were not allowed to have the impact they should have qua musical numbers. It’s the same principle in cabaret.) Note that in this specific case, there was no particular reason to include those few bars of “Dream a Little Dream of Me” at all.
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.
