Mame in Concert

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Mame in Concert

Feinstein’s at the Nikko, August 11, 2016, San Francisco, CA

Reviewed by Steve Murray for Cabaret Scenes

mame-in-Concert-Cabaret-Scenes-Magazine_212Continuing its tribute to Jerry Herman, the successful team that brought last month’s Hello, Dolly! in Concert is presenting Mame, the 1966 musical version of Auntie Mame, the novel by “Patrick Dennis” (pen name of Edward Everett Tanner III) which became a Broadway play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (who also wrote the musical version’s book).  The stage comedy and subsequent 1958 film adaptation both starred Rosalind Russell as the madcap, bohemian Mame.
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Of course, people love the Herman score, but what elevates these shows are: the wonderful book by Director F.
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Allen Sawyer, chock full of tasty backstory tidbits surrounding the various productions; Darlene Popovic’s delightful work as the narrator; and the consistently excellent musical direction of local favorite Joe Wicht. Add to the mix cabaret and musical theater heavyweights Sharon McNight and Meg Mackay, and you’ve got a fun dose of Herman.

If you haven’t seen Russell’s tour de force film version, Auntie  Mame, you’ve been living under a rock. It’s a camp classic, was the highest grossing film of 1959 and was nominated for six Academy Awards. Dennis had also written another novel, a sequel called Around the World with Auntie Mame and the unrelated show biz saga titled Little Me. The latter became a 1962 musical starring Sid Caesar, with a Cy Coleman/ Carolyn Leigh score.

Following these successes, the original producer of Auntie Mame, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee (now partnered with Joseph and Sylvia Harris) brought in Jerry Herman to write the score. Rosalind Russell turned down the change to be a musical Mame, and the producers had Mary Martin in mind for the title role. When Martin passed on the role, a lofty string on heavyweights was considered, including Ethel Merman, Gwen Verdon, Simone Signoret, Mitzi Gaynor, Judy Garland, Kate Hepburn, Doris Day and even Phyllis Diller!

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But Herman wanted Angela Lansbury who became a huge star and won the Tony Award. After 775 performances, she was replaced by Janis Paige, then Jane Morgan, and finally Ann Miller. (Sawyer throws in an amusing anecdote about Miller being clocked on the head by a failing prop.)

Sawyer has done his homework and provides the background minutiae that is every musical theater aficionado’s lifeblood. A little-known story of Frankie Michaels, the youngest Tony Award winner ever for his role as little Patrick, selling his Tony to pay for medical bills before his death, elicits a touchingly sad response. Mame in Concert doesn’t just regurgitate the entire score of the musical, but rather smartly chooses material from the early film, the ’66 musical and the disastrous 1974 musical film starring Lucille Ball. In Concert opens with “It’s Today,” for which Herman re-used the melody of an old revue number called “Show Tune in 2/4,” and includes a line adapted slightly from a saying of his mother’s: “Parties can happen whenever you feel the urge, even on a weekday.” 

Laura Arthur sings the 1958 film’s theme song, “Drifting,” composed by Bronislau Kaper, originally an instrumental (lyrics added later by Kim Gannon), and shines on the comic “Gooch’s Song.”  “Bass of the Bay” Benn Bacot lends his bottom voice on the title track, and Jesse Cortez lends a childlike innocence on “My Best Girl,” a duet sung with Meg Mackay as Mame.

Sharon McNight, as Vera Charles, sinks her teeth into “Vera”—a clever riff on Herman’s “Mame” with special lyrics written by Tom Orr—the comic “The Man in the Moon” and, of course, the famously sarcastic “Bosom Buddies” duet with Mame. Branden Noel Thomas sings “That’s How Young I Feel,” originally a Mame number, where she teaches the youngsters to jitterbug. Mackay deftly handles the powerful ballad “If He Walked Into My Life.” Popovic is wonderful on “Loving You,” sung by Robert Preston in the 1974 film version.

It’s all held together with Wicht’s lovely accompaniment and Popovic’s sometimes unscripted banter. Hopefully Sawyer and Wicht will team again for another project —Sondheim or Lloyd Webber perhaps?

Steve Murray

Always interested in the arts, Steve was encouraged to begin producing and, in 1998, staged four, one-man vehicles starring San Francisco's most gifted performers. In 1999, he began the Viva Variety series, a live stage show with a threefold mission to highlight, support, and encourage gay and gay-friendly art in all the performance forms, to entertain and document the shows, and to contribute to the community by donating proceeds to local non-profits. The shows utilized the old variety show style popularized by his childhood idol Ed Sullivan. He’s produced over 150 successful shows, including parodies of Bette Davis’s gothic melodramedy Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte and Joan Crawford’s very awful Trog. He joined Cabaret Scenes 2007 and enjoys the writing and relationships he’s built with very talented performers.