Karen Oberlin: Secret Love: A Centennial Celebration of Doris Day

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Karen Oberlin

Secret Love: A Centennial Celebration of Doris Day

Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, November 14, 2022

Reviewed by Bart Greenberg

Karen Oberlin

Karen Oberlin and Doris Day, the object of her affection in her program Secret Love: A Centennial Celebration of Doris Day, have a great deal in common: an optimistic and positive personality, the blonde attractiveness, and most of all a clear and uncomplicated approach to a song. Like the singer and movie icon, Oberlin has surprising depths when it comes to the darker aspects of her material, all of it drawn from the Day songbook. With fine support from her music director Jon Weber, she explored a wide range subject matter and a wide range of emotions all while remaining true to the spirit of her inspiration.

Of course, some of Day’s biggest hits were included in the program—“It’s Magic,” “Sentimental Journey,” and “Put ’Em in a Box, Tie ’Em with a Ribbon”—among others. The song she hated, which became her signature, “Que Sera Sera,” was given a brief showing. Still, some of the gems of the evening were less expected, such as “While the Music Plays On” (Eddie Heim/Irving Mills & Lupin Fien), a song from Day’s big band days that Oberlin delivered with an effective bluesy style, very different from Day’s version. There was also a delightfully whacky duet with Weber entitled “I’d Rather Be with You” (Roy Alfred & Frank Comstock), a list song that played on the celebrities of the day and that Oberlin updated to include today’s notable names with amusing results.

There were also heartfelt medleys of songs that complemented each other; early in the show a merger of “A Foggy Day” with “Day by Day” captured the romantic flair of both of the numbers. There was also a heartbreaking combination of “Night and Day” and “The Night We Called It a Day,” and a perfect combination of “Secret Love” (Day’s finest moment on film) and “I Got Lost in His Arms (which she sang in a fine studio recording of the movie version of Annie Get Your Gun). These mash ups were both theatrically effective and a sample of the intelligence that guided this evening. Bringing it to a close, Oberlin performed a simple and direct “unplugged” performance of “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” which was emblematic of this uncomplicated and deeply emotional celebration of one excellent singer by another.

Bart Greenberg

Bart Greenberg first discovered cabaret a few weeks after arriving in New York City by seeing Julie Wilson and William Roy performing Stephen Sondheim and Cole Porter outdoors at Rockefeller Center. It was instant love for both Ms. Wilson and the art form. Some years later, he was given the opportunity to create his own series of cabaret shows while working at Tower Records. "Any Wednesday" was born, a weekly half-hour performance by a singer promoting a new CD release. Ann Hampton Callaway launched the series. When Tower shut down, Bart was lucky to move the program across the street to Barnes & Nobel, where it thrived under the generous support of the company. The series received both The MAC Board of Directors Award and The Bistro Award. Some of the performers who took part in "Any Wednesday" include Barbara Fasano and Eric Comstock, Tony Desare, Andrea Marcovicci, Carole Bufford, the Karens, Akers, Mason and Oberlin, and Julie Wilson. Privately, Greenberg is happily married to writer/photographer Mark Wallis, who as a performance artist in his native England gathered a major following as "I Am Cereal Killer."