Patti LuPone at Les Mouches

Patti LuPone’s latest release, "Patti LuPone at Les Mouches," is a lively mix of 20 selections from the American songbook, Broadway and pop music, set to terrific arrangements -- some with a Latin beat, some rock -- and given a high-voltage performance. Laced in between is LuPone’s wicked humor and bubbly patter. Add in the audience’s enthusiastic response, and I felt I was right there with all of them in the nightclub.

The performance is actually decades old, but the recording, released earlier this month, has been welcomed by LuPone’s many fans. The CD, digitally restored from original soundboard tapes of her 1980 club act, reached #25 on this week's Billboard Heatseekers Chart, marking the first time in LuPone's career that one of her solo recordings has charted on Billboard.

To listen, you would never know that it’s extracurricular singing. During her Tony-winning run in the original Broadway production of Evita, LuPone spent 27 consecutive Saturday nights at midnight -- following her 8 p.m. performance in the tour de force title role -- at the now-defunct gay disco/cabaret Les Mouches in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. The run was supposed to be only for four weeks, but it won raves and drew such crowds that it kept being extended. This recording, on the Ghostlight Records label, captures the thrill of those shimmering live performances, which were created and written by David Lewis, LuPone’s accompanist, and LuPone.

Most of the selections are standard cabaret fare, juiced up by LuPone’s sassy personality and extraordinary voice. But she does gentle too. I was delighted she included “It Goes Like It Goes.” I loved this song as soon as I heard it in the movie “Norma Rae,” but none of the vocalists whose recordings I have -- and I have shelves and shelves of albums, tapes and CDs -- had recorded it. I never forgot the lines of the chorus: “And maybe what’s good gets a little bit better/And maybe what’s bad gets gone.” It’s a gentle song on a CD that certainly wouldn’t be called gentle, yet it doesn’t seem out of place.

The complete list is:
Intro
Latin from Manhattan/I Got Rhythm
I've Got Them Feelin' Too Good Today Blues
Love for Sale
Not While I'm Around/Come Rain or Come Shine
Meadowlark
Squeeze Me
Heaven Is a Disco
Downtown
Street of Dreams
Because the Night
Everything I Am
Mr. Tambourine Man
Rainbow High
Don't Cry for Me, Argentina
Look to the Rainbow
Superman (I Wish I Could Fly)
It Goes Like It Goes
Thank yous/I've Got Them Feelin' Too Good Today Blues (Reprise)
Goodnight Sweetheart

I was wowed by her interpretation of these songs, and I loved her giggly interaction with the audience. At one point she acknowledges an esteemed guest, Stephen Sondheim, and declares that it is “my dream, my fantasy” is to appear in one of his shows. "If this happens I'll retire," she says. I certainly hope she drops that idea now that she’s appeared in two Sondheims. She was fabulous several seasons ago as Mrs. Lovett, the part originated by Angela Lansbury, in the revival of Sweeney Todd. In June she won her second Tony for what is being called the role she was born to play, Rose, in the revival of Gypsy, now at the St. James Theatre until March 1.

LuPone’s power to entertain that is so well known now was just starting to be recognized back in her Evita days. Luckily someone thought to record 10 of the Les Mouches performances. Joel Moss, one of the CD’s producers who worked on the digital restoration and editing, writes in the liner notes about his excitement in learning of the cassettes, “ceremoniously protected in a Thom McCann shoe box in the back of a closet.” “I’ve often thought about the countless historical performances that have been resigned to anecdotal urban legend because no one had the presence of mind to document them in any way.”

Thankfully someone did have the presence of mind all those years ago, so now we too can experience Patti LuPone at Les Mouches. Put this one on your holiday shopping list. It’s a treasure.

Struggles and Triumphs: Retelling the Stories of Historical Women

Pleasant Word has released a new novel, Struggles and Triumphs, by Cynthia L. Simmons. Simmons, a former nurse and homeschooling mother of five, shares her passion for history and for the women who helped shape history. While visiting the Smithsonian Museum one year, Simmons was particularly interested in an exhibit detailing the impact of women on politics. After researching a number of possibilities, Simmons settled on nine particular individuals.

Struggles and Triumphs offers a glimpse into the lives of nine prominent women from history — many have faith, several don’t; all experience fears, expectations, challenges, dangers, oppression, and grief. Those who know Christ find their way through heartache with God’s help and guidance. Follow the stories of these nine remarkable women from the past — some who overcame insurmountable odds by putting their faith and trust in God:

• Katie Luther, wife of Martin Luther
• Susannah Thompson, later Mrs. C.H. Spurgeon
• Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria
• Queen Kateryn, wife of Henry VIII of England
• Louise, Duchess of Coburg
• Caroline Bauer, wife of Prince Leopold
• Ellen McCallie, wife of Thomas Hooke McCallie
• Princess Vicky, daughter of Queen Victoria
• Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk

“Each of the [women in my book] had something that made me feel a connection with them,” Simmons says. “For instance, I particularly liked Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria, because she was a nurse. She had some serious questions about her faith and found answers.”

Peanuts wisdom

"Be yourself. Everyone else is taken."
-- Charles Schulz

To Have, Give All to All

“When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that you will last forever. Perhaps you think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death, because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life. . .

“The body is the symbol of what you think you are. . . If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be stronger than the body. Every miracle demonstrates this. . . .

“To the Holy Spirit, there is no order of difficulty in miracles. . .

“Egos do join together in temporary allegiance, but always for what each one can get separately. The Holy Spirit communicates only what each one can give to all. . . Once they have chosen what they cannot complete alone, they are no longer alone.”

A Course in Miracles, Foundation for Inner Peace

Billy Elliot: The Musical

At intermission, I wasn’t really sold, but by the final curtain I felt ready to soar through the air like Billy. Billy Elliot: The Musical tells the same story as the movie, but the tone is quite different. Once I gave in to the funky nature of this version, which has been a hit in London for more than three years, I was hooked, as most of the audience at Broadway's Imperial Theatre seemed to be.

Like the 2000 movie “Billy Elliot,” the musical is about an 11-year-old boy in northeast England who lives with his father and older brother, Tony, both coal miners, and his addled grandmother, his mother having died years earlier. One day after his boxing class, lingering at the gym, Billy gets caught up in the girls’ ballet class that follows and is awakened to his first experience of beauty. He begins taking lessons and discovers he has a gift that can take him far from his bleak world with its lack of opportunity. Stephen Daldry, who directed the charming, simple film, directs this supercharged stage variation as well.


What kept me at first from being moved as I had been by the film was the uneven score, with music by Elton John and lyrics by Lee Hall (who also wrote the book). Some songs I really liked, such as the opening number “The Stars Look Down,” sung by the full company on the eve of what will be a central element of the story, the 1984 miners’ strike that deeply wounds Billy’s community. I also loved the full company’s rousing singing of “Solidarity,” but other songs were limp and disappointing.

Peter Darling’s choreography, however, was a marvel from start to finish, whether traditional for Billy’s ballet performances or stylized, and at times surreal, for larger numbers that intertwine the stories of the dancers, the miners and the police. Because of the demands of the title role, three actors alternate as Billy -- David Alvarez, Kiril Kulish and Trent Kowalik. It was an extremely winning Trent the night I was there.

I also liked Gregory Jbara as Billy’s father. After being the gruff, uneducated miner in the first act, he is able to bring the tenderness of the movie into the second. Afraid Billy will become a “puff” if he pursues ballet, he forbids him from taking lessons. Billy continues in secret until one day his father finds him at it and is awed by his son’s talent. He then makes the painful decision to break ranks with his other son and fellow striking miners to cross the picket line and become a scab to get money for Billy to go to London for an audition to the Royal Ballet School. He breaks into tears, singing, “He could go and he could shine, not just stay here counting time.” In the moving scene that follows, other miners and members of the town come up one by one to offer him a coin or two for Billy’s chance. It is lovely, and one of the reasons I liked the second act better. I was captured on an emotional level beyond just the razzle-dazzle of the earlier scenes.

I did appreciate the humor in the first act. I loved Billy’s friend Michael, played with personality galore by Frank Dolce, who, as in the movie, likes dressing up in his sister’s clothes. “Expressing Yourself,” the scene in which he and Billy tap dance around in girlie clothes, is a riot. (David Bologna alternates as Michael.)

Other key roles are: Haydn Gwynne, who reprises the role she created of dance teacher Mrs. Wilkinson in the show's original London cast, Tony-winner Carole Shelley as Grandma and Santino Fontana as Tony. The creative team includes Ian MacNeil (scenic design), Nicky Gillibrand (costume design), Rick Fisher (lighting design) and Paul Arditti (sound design).

The London production, which opened in 2005 and is still playing, won the 2006 Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Darling picked up the Best Theatre Choreographer Award, while the Best Actor in a Musical Award was shared by James Lomas, George Maguire and Liam Mower, who originated the title role.

For tickets to New York’s Billy Elliot, visit telecharge.com or call (212) 239-6200 or (800) 432-7250. For more information, visit BillyElliotBroadway.com.

My Vaudeville Man!

I love shows that bring to life performers of another time. My Vaudeville Man!, a York Theatre Company musical, puts legendary tap star Jack Donahue back on the boards, with Shonn Wiley giving a smashing performance in the title role.        

The story unfolds largely through letters between Jack and his long-suffering mother, Mud (Karen Murphy), and are drawn from Donahue’s book, Letters of a Hoofer to His Ma. His was the classic show business story in so many ways, a young man with dreams of stardom who refuses to follow in his father’s footstep by working in the shipyard.  At 19, in 1910, he slips away to join the Vaudeville circuit, playing small theatres up and down New England.

Wiley, fresh faced and wholesome looking, brings abundant energy and enthusiasm to the role. Like Jack, he seems born to tap. He fills the tiny stage of The Theatre at St. Peter’s Church with spirit. He also ably handles the singing side, giving his all to the songs by Bob Johnston and Jeff Hochhauser (who also wrote the book).

Similarly, Murphy gives depth to a character that is all too common --the struggling Irish immigrant mother, with the stereotypical brogue, whose husband drinks too much and who puts her hopes on her oldest son, whom she does not want to go into “the show business.”

But Jack cannot be contained. He saw his first Vaudeville show when he was 5 and “that’s when I came alive,” he sings. “Vaudeville was the only dream I ever dreamed from that day on.”

His mother sees things differently, believing that “when St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland they went into Vaudeville.”   Still, she keeps her son’s performance schedule in the kitchen so she can write to him at each stop. He writes back, sharing his triumphs and frustrations, always promising to send money, money he actually uses for fancy new shoes and nice hotels.

The two do have their loving moments together. I especially like “Picnic in the Kitchen,” a song and dance number in which Jack remembers a time when their furniture had been taken by a collection agency and he and his mother had a picnic in the floor. “Why not pitch in, no sense bitchin’,” they sing.   

Mud’s concern for her son deepens, though, as she suspects he’s “drinking like your father and your granddad do,” sung poignantly in “My Son, I Know.” She’s all too familiar with this heartache. In ”So the Old Dog Has Come Home,” she sings of loving her husband in spite of his drinking. Murphy is powerful in this number.

And Mud does come around to accepting her son’s career, prompted by an unlikely source. In the final number, she sings of being his biggest fan and he pledges to be her “Vaudeville Man.”

Just before that rousing ending, Wiley and Murphy inform the audience about the rest of Jack’s life, earning a gasp of sadness when they recount that his life ended in 1930 when Jack died from his drinking at the age of 38. But he had achieved much of his dream, working his way up the Vaudeville ranks to play in Broadway musicals, and Ray Bolger would later play him on film

My Vaudeville Man! is directed and choreographed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett, with Wiley serving as co-choreographer. James Morgan designed the simple sets, David Toser the period costumes, and Mary Jo Dondlinger the lighting. The three-piece band is directed by Douglas Oberhamer.  

This engagement marks the musical’s Off-Broadway premiere. It had its world premiere at last year’s NY Musical Theatre Festival under the title Mud Donahue and Son.

The York Theatre Company is located at Saint Peter's in Citigroup Center on Lexington Avenue just east of 54th Street. Tickets are available by calling 212-935-5820. For more information, check out www.yorktheatre.org . For Group Sales, contact MATCH-TIX at 212/354-2220.

Wintuk

I had a really good time at Wintuk, Cirque du Soleil’s latest production, now at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden. It manages to be both spectacular and down-to-earth at the same time, making for a delightful evening of entertainment.

The “story’ is about Jamie, a little boy who longs for snow to come to his city; Wintuk is the name of the imaginary place in the north where he must journey to bring it back. I put the word story in quotes because Wintuk isn’t really about Jamie, even as appealingly portrayed as he is by Darrin Good. Under the direction of Fernand Rainvillet, it’s about presenting one marvel after another, from acrobats, jugglers, trapeze artistes and more. Choreographer Catherine Archambault has one happening flow easily into the next, so much so that the nearly two-hour show flies by.

I enjoyed every bit of it, but I was especially delighted with the disco dogs -- Terrance Harrison, Cindy Whiteman, Alexandre Tessier, Rémy Bakkar, and Lurian Duarte Avelino in costumes designed by François Barbeau. They start out just being fun to look at but then really dazzled when the trampoline comes out and they get to whirl and twirl with the best of them. I also loved the roller skaters who swoop up and down the hills of Patricial Ruel’s sets.

This was my first experience with the show. Press notes indicate it has undergone significant changes, including a trampoline act called “Power Track” and brand new puppet designs by Tony and Emmy Award-winner Michael Curry. I loved his giant cranes -- two performers in costume on stilts.

The entertainment is topped off by the best fake snowfall I’ve ever encountered. A multitude of giant white and light blue tissue paper snowflakes, shaped like fat daisies, are released from overhead and continued to fall for several minutes. It’s glorious.

Wintuk is the first Cirque du Soleil show created specifically for families, although the audience the night I was there seemed to be made up mostly of adults without children. It marks the 21st Cirque du Soleil production and joins the 15 others currently performing throughout the world.

Tickets for Wintuk, which plays through Jan. 4, range from $40 to $220 and can be purchased at www.cirquedusoleil.com, www.ticketmaster.com or by calling Ticketmaster at 212-307-1000.