Month: November 2019

Review: Liz Callaway & Ann Hampton Calllway

On By dramaqueennycIn cabaret, review3 Comments

If your heartstrings aren’t thrumming a few numbers into into this sister act, then I’m sorry to say you simply don’t have a heart. “Broadway the Calla-way” brings some of Broadway’s most emotional songs together with two of the greatest voices to thread the boards. Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway gloriously display the power of siblings harmonizing. They seemingly possess quite different voices. Liz has a muscular yet elegant Broadway soprano, and Ann has a wide-ranging jazz monster of a voice.

And yet, when they harmonize, the blending is utterly seamless, sometimes to the point of not being able to determine who’s singing what vocal line. You can hear this best in a medley of “The Schuyler Sisters” and “Lullaby of Broadway” early in the show. They also have great comic chemistry, doing a barbed version of Gypsy’s “Some People” that’s as hilarious as it is mellifluous – with props no less.

Both sisters soar solo for stretches of the show. Ann shines with an emotional and detailed reading of the tender “If He Walked Into My Life” from Mame, and Liz does a version of “The Music and the Mirror ” from A Chorus Line that can hold its head up with any other version of the song, perhaps not surprising since it is most often sung by dancer-actors rather than a nonpareil singer-actor like Liz.

It’s also clear that the sisters have a lot of gay men in their circle! When word got out that they were putting a show of Broadway song together, oh boy did they get phone calls, e-mails and texts offering suggestions of duets they absolutely must do together. They include a bunch of these suggestions in what they call they “The Huge Medley.” I won’t give away the exact songs – they’re just too delicious – but let’s just say they involve major gay icons belting their brains out. So gay and so fun! Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.

Review: A Christmas Carol

On By dramaqueennycIn Broadway, play, review, theatre1 Comment

This is quite possibly the best stage adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol I’ve seen. And there have been a lot of them: This holiday chestnut is an audience favorite, and – even better for theatres’ budgets – in the public domain. For this Broadway version, which originated at London’s Old Vic, adaptor Jack Thorne brilliantly interweaves sharp social commentary (never far away in Dickens) with ineffable warmth and joy.

Director Matthew Warchus greatly magnifies that warmth even before the show starts, with the cast tossing and passing clementines and cookies to the audience. They even chat congenially with the audience – a friend of mine had some lovely face time with Andrea Martin (who plays the Spirit of Christmas Past). The smell of people peeling clementines hugely helps to conjure the Christmas spirit. Get there early!

Our Scrooge is Cambpell Scott (whose father George C. Scott played the role in a terrific 1984 TV movie adaptation). He brings great nuance to the role, with flashes of vulnerability even early on, which clearly unnerve Scrooge, but also foreshadow his eventual change of heart. And when that change of heart comes, Warchus turns the warmth and joy all the way up with another bit of audience interaction which spectacularly embraces the entire theatre.

Rob Howell’s set envelops the theatre as well, with Victorian lanterns in huge numbers hanging over the stage and audience. Thorne treats the story as an ensemble piece, and when that ensemble includes performers as fine as Martin and LaChanze, you know you’re in good hands. In another super-smart twist, Tiny Tim is played by a differently-abled boy (Jai Ram Srinivasan at the performance I attended) which makes the scenes with him – which can be mawkishly sentimental – much more realistic and all the more genuinely touching for it. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.

Review: Candis Cayne & Lina Bradford

On By dramaqueennycIn cabaret, reviewLeave a comment

They. Are. Legendary. They call themselves drag goddesses, and, honey, they aren’t even trying to be modest when they say it. Besides, “drag queens” suggests boys in dresses, and both Candis and Lina have long since identified as trans women. They are both transgender trailblazers of no doubt – Candis was the first transgender actress playing a regular transgender character in television history, and Lina blazed her own trails as an international DJ. But long before that they were two of the most exciting performers on the drag scene, especially when these sisters performed together.

They are, individually and together, the best dancers in the lip-synching world, so it’s altogether fitting that their show “Life Becomes Her” has lots of fantastic lip-synching and dancing. They hit the stage like a fireball, doing the big fight scene from the film Death Becomes Her, complete with accurate Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn costumes. Then they launch into a high-kicking version of Loni Clark’s “Rushing,” the kind of deep house classic that was their signature style at venues from Palladium to Barracuda and beyond.

The greatest pleasure for me, though, was seeing how much they’ve polished their comedy. They always incorporated humor into their lip-synch (Lina’s no stranger to making faces), but the timing of their patter has become something special. The show is a bit on the long side, but they are so engaging that you almost don’t want it to end. Highly recommended.

For tickets, click here.

To learn about Jonathan Warman’s directing work, see jonathanwarman.com.