MUSICAL REVIEW: AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AND MANDY PATINKIN
11 Feb'10

This evening for LuPone, Patinkin fans only

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 4 out of 5

Think of it as an evening of basic black and pearls — and as the fashion mavens used to say, it’s hard to go wrong with basic black and pearls.

The basic black? Well, there’s nary a hint of colour in the street-smart costuming affected by the principal players in AN EVENING WITH PATTI LUPONE AND MANDY PATINKIN, which opened a short run at the Royal Alexandra Theatre on Tuesday. There’s a little black dress for her, at least in the second act, and black sweater and slacks for him.

As for the pearls, well, don’t call Tiffany’s quite yet. The pearls here are of the musical variety — a series of carefully chosen and lustrous gems from the musical theatre canon, which string the work of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and that of Stephen Sondheim, onto a silken thread with the work of gifted theatrical songmakers such as Jerome Kern, John Kander, Fred Ebb, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Irving Berlin and a few others.

But other than those composers, this is — under Patinkin’s direction — pretty much an evening as billed. LuPone and Patinkin share the stage with only a pair of musicians and enough ghost lights, one suspects, to supply most of the theatres on the Great White Way. All of which goes down very well indeed with fans of the high-energy, Tony-winning duo — judging from the audience’s opening-night reaction.

It is not just a dream evening for fans of the celebrated pair, however. In the course of the proceedings (conceived by Patinkin and musical director Paul Ford, who provides piano accompaniment), both principals are afforded plenty of opportunity to strut their stuff. They seem to enjoy themselves as well.

They also avail themselves of the opportunity to play roles for which they would never be considered — and to sing the songs written for those roles. Not even their most rabid fans, one suspects, would expect to ever see LuPone cast as SOUTH PACIFIC’s Nellie Forbush, or Patinkin as CAROUSEL’s Billy Bigelow. But, by intertwining a lot of folksy humour and a dollop or two of sentimentality — Ann Reinking’s sweet and simple choreography doesn’t hurt either — they manage to pull off songs such as A Cockeyed Optimist and You’re a Queer One, Julie Jordan in such convincing fashion that you’d almost think they were meant to sing them.

The duo also manage to weave in a few of their own personal faves and high points — LuPone goes for nostalgia with EVITA’s anthemic Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina, then ups the ante with a reprise of Everything’s Coming Up Roses from her recent turn in GYPSY, while Patinkin goes all hyper-kinetic with The God-Why-Don’t-You-Leave-Me Blues from FOLLIES.

But be warned: if the title of the show isn’t enough of a hint, it should be stressed that this is an evening for dyed-in-the-wool fans of this particular dynamic duo. If you’ve ever found yourself wishing Patinkin could commit to life either as a tenor or a counter tenor, instead of fusing the two with heavy-handed vocal embroidery, or if you’ve ever caught yourself wondering why it is that your ear picks up more flat notes than the average Patti LuPone fan’s does, then you might want to give serious consideration to an evening of Olympic TV viewing instead.

The title promises an evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, and that’s precisely what they deliver. How much you enjoy it will depend entirely on just how big a fan of theirs you are.

Directed by Mandy Patinkin
Starring Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin
At the Royal Alexandra Theatre