Take Me Home Tonight: The Songs of Mira Spektor

May 6, 2013

Metropolitan Room  –  Aprll 15, 22, 29

Cast of Take Me Home TonightA trio of singers—Julie Reyburn, Shana Farr, and Mark Campbell—teamed up, along with pianist/music director Bill Zeffiro, to perform the music of Mira J. Spektor in this Metropolitan Room revue, directed by Karen Carpenter. All three vocalists were poised and confident, and the hour-long presentation included some stirring and elegant performances. Nevertheless, I’m not sure I came away with a sense of the full range of Spektor’s talents.

Part of the problem was that twelve of the nineteen selections listed in the program came from the score of The Housewives’ Cantata, a book musical that Spektor wrote with lyricist June Siegel in the early 1970s and that was produced Off Broadway in 1981. There are some effective songs from that show, some of which work quite well out of context of the Housewives libretto. “Maybe Someday Blues” (sung by Reyburn and Campbell) has an appealing Harold Arlen-ish sound and thoughtfully explores the ways in which procrastination and rejection can thwart artistic creation. And “Open Road” (sung by Farr) is a powerful paean to the vagabond life. But other Housewives songs in the program (“Legs,” “White House Resident”) seemed perhaps a little quaint to listeners’ ears, four decades after their creation.

The non-Housewives songs on the menu included three songs from the much more recent Giovanni the Fearless (lyrics by Carolyn Balducci) along with a handful of other titles. But according to the program notes, Spektor has written an array of musicals and chamber operas over the years, along with songs for films and TV projects. I wish this show had balanced the set list with more music from these other parts of her career. Incidentally, Spektor is also a poet, and the lyrics for two of the best songs in the set—the rhythmically complex “Have Song Will Travel” and the evocative “Take Me Home Tonight” (both sung by Reyburn and Farr)—were actually penned by the composer herself. Are there many more songs for which Spektor wrote both words and music that might have been featured here?

Reyburn and Campbell both have sturdy, athletic voices (Campbell’s resounding, theatrical baritone seems to me to be in the same league as that of Brian Stokes Mitchell). Farr has an assured sound as well, but her soprano has a lighter, sweeter quality. In the group numbers for the show, Farr’s notes shimmered above the other two anchoring voices, creating very pleasing harmonies. Adding welcome variety to the evening’s vocal mix, Zeffiro sang solo on one number, “I Was a Young Man” (lyrics by Balducci).

The program was briskly paced, with spare use of narration. I only wish that the tendency to force the humor had been curbed—especially in the case of Campbell. It’s almost always a better strategy to let the music, lyrics and text create the comedy, rather than winking at the audience about how amusing it all is. If the material is strong, pushing it is unnecessary. If the material is weak, no amount of grimacing is apt to compensate.

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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.