Linden Waddell

Hello Again! The Songs of Allan Sherman

Tom Rolla’s Gardenia, West Hollywood, CA, January 30, 2016

Reviewed by Les Traub for Cabaret Scenes

Linden Waddell celebrated the songs of Allan Sherman by making them her own. She honored the songwriter and kept the mood of the evening joyous by sticking to his clever parodies and not delving much into his personal story with its dark side. While most of these songs have laid fallow since the Sherman era of the early Sixties (and it was his era, as he was major force in the record business at that time), they have a timelessness to them. The ones that don’t, like “Green Stamps,” convey a nostalgic look back at that period.

Linden set the tone for the evening with her own clever parody to Sondheim’s “Comedy Tonight,” which she turned into “Parody Tonight.” Moving through the Sherman repertoire with an extremely high energy level, she wrung every bit of humor out of the material with just right the nuance to the lyrics and facial expressions and gestures that provided appropriate punctuation.

With songs to work with like “There Is Nothing Like a Dame” turned into “There Is Nothing Like a Lox” and “Moon River” into “Liver,” Linden generated a steady stream of laughter. Turning “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” into “The Ballad of Harry Lewis” alone would have earned Sherman parodist immortality.

In a show clocking in at well over an hour, Linden never let down the energy level.

The audience was left breathless by the fast pace and the rich amount of lyrics to absorb. With even more material available, this could easily be turned into a two-act evening, but perhaps as a one-act evening, a song or two could be cut without taking away any appreciation of Sherman’s songs or Linden’s spot-on delivery.

Musical Director Marjorie Poe and director Janet Miller added their own special touches to the show.