Shana Farr
It’s Not Where You Start: The Songbook of Barbara Cook
Laurie Beechman Theatre, NYC, October 18, 2018
Reviewed by Elizabeth Ahlfors for Cabaret Scenes
There are not many who would attempt a tribute to the late, great Barbara Cook, singer and interpreter extraordinaire, but Shana Farr pulls it off at the Laurie Beechman Theatre with It’s Not Where You Start: The Songbook of Barbara Cook. With Mark Janas (substituting for music director Jon Weber at this performance) accompanying with some imaginative piano wizardry, Farr, sleek and elegant, presents a remarkable journey through Cook’s life, the memorable theater years, the collapse and the return, and her indelible touch of musicality.
Anyone who has seen Barbara Cook in those early Broadway days will be taken aback by Farr’s opening rendition of “This Is All Very New to Me” (Plain and Fancy by Albert Hague and Arnold Horwitt). Following is a The Music Man (Meredith Willson) medley: “Goodnight, My Someone,” a gorgeous “My White Knight,” and “Till There Was You,” all examples of why Cook was the princess of the Golden Age of Broadway Musicals. Looking inside for a melancholy “Hello, Young Lovers” (Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I), Farr shows the moving depth of these ballads, remembering Cook’s advice of “living inside a song and singing my way out.”
Vocally, while Farr proves her own lyric soprano perfection in Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s “Vanilla Ice Cream” and Leonard Bernstein and Richard Wilbur’s “Glitter and Be Gay,” she fails to let loose in these exuberant songs and let the fun take over. Even with “A Wonderful Guy” (Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific), the song was bouncy but did not approach the verve and vitality called for.
After battles with depression, weight gain, and alcoholism, Cook returned to singing and moved into the intimacy of cabaret with a deeper understanding and emotional connection.
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She became a primary interpreter for Stephen Sondheim, and Farr offers an authoritative nod to favorite Cook renditions of “Losing My Mind” (Follies), “Send in the Clowns” (A Little Night Music), and “Not a Day Goes By” (Merrily We Roll Along).
Her ending? “It’s Not Where You Start,” (See Saw by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields), a perfect cap to this rich and full tribute. Cook was not in the musical, but she recorded a CD of Dorothy Fields songs and often performed this number in cabaret.
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Farr’s encore: Noël Coward’s sentimental “If Love Were All.
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