Lennie Watts

Shameless: The Lennie Watts Musical

Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, October 12, 2015

Reviewed by Peter Haas for Cabaret Scenes

Shameless is the title—and shameless was the huge, happy laughter and applause that rolled through the audience at Don’t Tell Mama as Lennie Watts took over the cabaret stage with his inventive, one-man multi-character show. One man, that is, except for Steven Ray Watkins providing super support at the piano.
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The show, directed with smooth pacing by Richard Sabellico, was a musical of musicals, a guided tour of the theater as Lennie swept through numbers in turn hilarious and serious.
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His start included songs from The Drowsy Chaperone, Something Rotten and Nick and Nora—and that was only one number. Watts then became the accented servant Max extolling the virtues of Norma Desmond as “The Greatest Star of All” (Sunset Boulevard), followed by “Heart” (Damn Yankees) and “King Herod’s Song” (Jesus Christ Superstar), all with grand gusto.

Soon he morphed into a Christmas elf—no mean feat for a not-very-petit gentleman—to salute the Christmas season with a monologue by David Sedaris from Santaland Diaries, followed by “Nobody Cares About Santa Claus” from Elf: The Musical, then “Away in a Manger”—the latter as it might have been performed by Billie Holiday. More theater-based pieces followed, including “The Ballad of Mack the Knife” (The Threepenny Opera) and a leering “The Moon and Me” (The Addams Family).

Watts’ gifts as an actor came into play as, quick-changing into various wigs and makeup, he assumed a variety of roles, singing “A Little More Mascara” (La Cage aux Folles); the Monologue from Greater Tuna; “You Can’t Stop the Beat (Hairspray); and “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid. There was a tender, straightforward “It All Fades Away” (The Bridges of Madison County). A finale: “I Don’t Believe in Heroes Anymore,” from 3 Guys Naked from the Waist Down.

Stage to black, Lennie off and out. No, not quite. The lights went up over the bar at the back of the room, where he finished with a quiet “Mr.

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Cellophane” (Chicago) —and out the door, to await a meet-and-greet with a long, loving line of happy fans.