Maria’s track record bears comparison with any, in the West End or on Broadway: The Woman In White, Chicago, Sunday In The Park With George, Ragtime; Café Carlyle (three seasons) and many more. She’s won three Olivier awards. She has a wide vocal range and she can establish a rapport with her audience – as she quickly did in her two-setter, Maria Friedman Re-Arranged at the Menier Theatre (it used to be a chocolate factory).

Her song-list, played by an 11-piece orchestra playing some excellent arrangements by Jason Carr, Michael Haslam & Chris Walker, was both eclectic and esoteric; heavily skewed in Sondheim but with songs by Bernstein, Brel, Herman, Legrand, Newman and Henry Purcell (!), among others, there was something for everyone. (Aficionados of the American Songbook had to be satisfied with a minor Berlin and a minor Styne.) Maria told me she preferred songs that hadn’t been done to death and enjoyed performing new songs.

Her audience clearly enjoyed both her performance and the following Sondheim anecdote: When Anyone Can Whistle was on its out of town run, Stephen wasn’t satisfied with his lyrics and during one performance he left his seat, strode through an exit and sat down on some steps, leaning forward with his hand over his eyes, so as to concentrate. A few minutes later, a member of the audience came through the exit and, seeing Sondheim in that pose, exclaimed "So you put money into the show, too?" Altogether, a very pleasant evening. Maria also told me she wouldn’t be doing any more musicals. Musicals’ loss is cabaret’s gain.

Jack Jaffe
Cabaret Scenes
April 4, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org