Ave Maria

Based on Maria Friedman’s first two stints at the Café Carlyle, we weren’t much looking forward to her seeing her again, since we had felt that she didn’t seem truly comfortable as a cabaret performer. But with Maria Friedman Sings Sondheim, her third outing at this famous venue, she has come into her own as a chanteuse.

It helps that the songs she’s singing are very close to her heart. Her affection for the composer and his work shines through in her charming patter. More importantly, Friedman is intent upon communicating her feelings about Sondheim’s work through her song selections. She sings a medley from Passion, calling it “Passion Suite,” and offers a similar suite from Sunday in the Park With George. (These are two shows in which she starred in London.) We’re not usually keen on medleys, or suites; but Friedman doesn’t try to concoct something new by combining songs, as so many contemporary cabaret artists do. She simply sings a substantial part of each number before segueing to the next, and then the next.

Her affection for Sondheim is perhaps best displayed when she sings “Isn’t He Something” from Bounce, directing the song to the composer himself. And in ballads like “I Remember Sky” (from Evening Primrose), she puts to work her best attribute: her acting ability. Friedman has a lovely voice; it’s not very big, yet she makes up for its lack of size with insightful phrasing, personality, and interpretation. We liked her on Broadway in The Woman in White, and we’re glad that she can now truly be counted among The Women of Cabaret.

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Viva La Luker!

Last December, Broadway star Rebecca Luker launched a brand new career with just four performances of her cabaret act at Feinstein’s at the Regency. Consolidating her position as a practitioner of this intimate art form, she has how brought An Evening with Rebecca Luker back to Feinstein’s for a longer engagement (through May 20), turning her impressive debut into a knockout return engagement.

This show is essentially the same as the one we saw five months ago. It’s devoted primarily to female songwriters, a concept that suits Luker beautifully. Many people who have seen and heard this performer in her musical theater roles have loved her voice but have found her bland on stage. Well, the voice is still remarkably beautiful, but now there’s a riveting actress — not to mention a wonderful personality — on stage.

Nowhere is the deepening of her interpretive skills more evident than when she sings “Lovely Lies,” a story song co-written by Jeff Klumenkrantz and Beth Blatt, about a young Southern woman having a heart-to-heart talk with her mother. And when Luker performs the Michel Legrand-Marilyn and Alan Bergman classic “On My Way to You,”, the voice and the acting come together in magnificent matrimony. (In fact, Barbara was so moved by her thrilling rendition of this song that she cried.) Luker is expected to return to the Broadway stage soon, but it’s great that she’s now working in an additional, related area of entertainment where, clearly, she was always meant to be.

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[To contact Barbara & Scott Siegel directly, e-mail them at siegels@theatermania.com.]