Fields of Dreams
KT Sullivan and Mark Nadler have become brand names in classic cabaret. Their carefully crafted and sophisticated shows dedicated to the likes of the Gershwins and Irving Berlin benefit from the sort of research and entertaining patter associated with stars such as Mary Cleere Haran and Andrea Marcovicci, while the duo’s vocal styles and abilities — not to mention the fact that there are two of them — set them apart. They also have a wonderful chemistry together that exudes respect and affection. At bottom, they are consummate professionals who have developed a winning formula for presenting tributes to the legendary composers and lyricists who created the Great American Songbook. Their latest show, A Fine Romance, is devoted to lyricist Dorothy Fields.
Weaving insightful and charming dialogue into the show, KT and Mark use their anecdotes to segue smartly into their songs. For instance, after informing us that Dorothy Fields had a particularly unhappy first marriage during which she never spent an entire night together with her husband, they launch into the sarcastic “A Fine Romance,” which includes such lines as “You’re just as hard to land as the Isle de France / I haven’t got a chance / This is a fine romance.”
The stars sometimes make the mistake of using Fields’ lyrics from several songs as the raw material to create combo-numbers that do not reflect what the woman they’re honoring originally wrote, as in their mixture of “I Won’t Dance” with “Never Gonna Dance.” Ultimately, they aren’t true to the greatness of either song. Their best moments are when they sing Fields’ songs free and clear, as they do “I’ll Try” and “Baby, Dream Your Dream.”
KT and Mark have just opened the 25th season of the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel. Their show continues through September 24th.
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A Keen Performance in Keane
Like Leaving Las Vegas, the acting vehicle that brought Nicolas Cage an Oscar, Keane is an art house film that opens today and showcases in the title role the remarkable talent of one-time Royal Shakespeare Company actor Damian Lewis. He plays a troubled father whose six-year-old daughter may or may not have been abducted at the Port Authority bus terminal the year before.
On the verge of madness, Keane constantly demands information about his lost little girl from people in and around the bus terminal. Convincing himself at one point that he’s fingered the guilty man, he attacks an innocent commuter (stage actor Frank Wood). Sanity, or at least normalcy, enters when Keane meets a young woman (Tony-nominee Amy Ryan) and her seven-year old daughter (Abigail Breslin). In befriending these two, who have troubles of their own, Keane will either find salvation or finally go too far.
Lewis gives an astonishing performance, and he has to; he carries the first half of the movie virtually alone. Vulnerable, aching, but still alive and attuned to his senses, this multi-dimensional character is on a single-minded mission. Ryan provides welcome relief, and the kid is a charmer. Admirably written and directed by Lodge Kerrigan, Keane isn’t for everyone; it’s almost unrelentingly sad, but it has honesty, heart, and some of the best acting you will likely see on screen this year.
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Solo Turns
It’s no small challenge to play a legend in a one person show, but Janis Stevens will surprise you — as she surprised us — with her delicate performance as Vivien Leigh in a play by Rick Foster that’s simply titled Vivien. It covers all the essentials in the famous actress’s life, including her relationship with Laurence Olivier and her performance as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.
Stevens doesn’t try to imitate Leigh; rather, she gets at the truth of the character by making clear the tension between Vivien’s ambition and her illness. The play revolves around the actress questioning whether or not she should take the role of the unstable Agnes in Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance. It’s a brilliant conceit upon which to build Vivien, and director Peter Sander helps Stevens keep her performance focused.
Another one-person show, Finding Pedro, over-reaches. James Heatherly is a talented actor but he plays too many parts in a play that has little reason to exist. It’s simply not about enough. This light satire by Heatherly and Lisa Gardner (the latter also directed) is basically an acting exercise that makes you appreciate the star’s physical and vocal abilities as he constantly changes roles, but the piece finally does him a disservice because we soon stop caring about these characters. Nor does the silly contest at the heart of the play pull us in. In other words, there is no need to go looking for Pedro.
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[To contact the Siegels directly, e-mail them at siegels@theatermania.com.]
