Originally reviewed for GaySocialites.com. 

In Tyne Daly’s previous nightclub act at Feinstein’s, her cabaret debut, she couldn’t find a theme to connect the songs she wanted to sing, so she simply titled it “Songs.” This time, in a show called “The Second Time Around,” Daly has settled on the theme of the blessings and curses that the passage of time brings. It’s a more reflective show, with Tyne showing a more subtle side that’s equal parts expansive emotion and steely-eyed realism.

That’s not to say the stage and screen persona for which she’s known — a “broad” who’s so brassy that it’s dangerous (many have called her 1989 performance as Mama Rose in Gypsy “terrifying”) — doesn’t make an appearance. Her take on Bessie Smith’s murderous “Send Me to the `Lectric Chair” is satisfyingly intense, and she makes a very solid case that she should play Countess Aurelia, The Madwoman of Chaillot, in Jerry Herman’s Dear World (by way of a climactic medley from that show).

More typical of the tone of the show, however, is her wistful take on Bill Withers’s “Ain’t No Sunshine.” Thoughtful and hushed, it’s a more textured approach than you might expect from Daly, although what she gains in nuance, she loses in magnetism. This way of working is a mixed blessing, intriguing but not what I would call compelling.

That said, there isn’t a moment that Daly doesn’t exude both a heartening confidence and a surprising vulnerability. It’s not a rousing evening, but it is in its own way quietly rewarding.

For tickets, click here.