Gerrilyn Sohn
If Joe Allen’s Walls Could Sing & Other Hidden Gems
Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, July 31, 2022
Reviewed by Bart Greenberg
One thing must be said for cabaret chanteuse Gerrilyn Sohn: she is a survivor. On an extremely hot summer afternoon the air conditioning in the Brick Room of Don’t Tell Mama decided to go temperamental. After much effort to make it a more comfortable environment for the sold-out audience, eventually reality had to be accepted, and mics, cameras, bass, and audience had to be shifted to the venue’s other space. The show finally began a half hour late (it says much about the star’s charm and popularity that not a single audience member departed), and then in the middle of the third song, the wonderful sultry beguine “Blame It on the Summer Night,” the mic went dead. Sohn just kept singing with enough power to allow the audience to continue to enjoy her delivery.
The idea for the program was a clever one: a salute to wonderful songs from Broadway failures. The title of the show, If Joe Allen’s Walls Could Sing & Other Hidden Gems, referenced the custom of the Broadway landmark restaurant to hang posters from theatrical flops on its walls. It’s surprising that some major songwriters’ names appear in this category, including Stephen Schwartz, Alan Jay Lerner and Charles Strouse, Leonard Bernstein, and even Stephen Sondheim. There were many delicious surprises presented on stage, along with a few notorious ones, such a songs from Dude, Lily Rosenbloom and Don’t You Ever Forget It, and the first musical to shutter on opening night, Kelly. However, the diva proudly boasted there would be nothing from Carrie.
Under the inventive direction of Lennie Watts and with the major assistance of music director/pianist Steven Ray Watkins and bassist Sean Murphy, Sohn’s performance was smooth and well-prepared throughout. In the first part of the show, the singer did seem a bit distanced from her lyrics, skimming along the top of them. But, as the concert went on, her emotions and commitment grew and grew. If “Here’s That Rainy Day” from the short-lived Carnival in Flanders felt a bit perfunctory, Prettybelle’s “To a Small Degree” and Is There Life After High School’s “Diary of a Homecoming Queen” were devastating without any trace of being overly emotional.
Three mash-up of tunes revealed a great deal about each. “Darn That Dream” and “The Gentleman Is a Dope” are very different numbers in very different styles. The arrangement cleverly reversed the tone of each; the first came across as a straightforward show tune, and the second as a jazz tune. The second mix had two melodies more similar in theme and brought out the two emotions in both—“Time Heals Everything” and “Not a Day Goes By.” The finale of the show was a moving combination of “A Quiet Thing” and “There Won’t Be Trumpets,” which Sohn imbued with a fine physicality as well as dramatic depth. The afternoon may not have been the smoothest on record, but it added up to a most satisfying time.
