What a marvelous storyteller Bebe Neuwirth is. Her tales about a second-rate British chanteuse, a murderess who seeks a career in vaudeville and a girl traveling halfway around the world to meet the love of her life are endlessly captivating. Yet, while most storytellers rely on stories or folktales, Neuwirth's medium is song. Backed by the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Neuwirth recently took pops audiences on a magical journey through the great musical theater songbook.
Her program explored the careers of three distinct musical talents: longtime Broadway collaborators John Kander and Fred Ebb, and the German-born Kurt Weill. Neuwirth has enjoyed a long and profitable relationship with Kander and Ebb, having starred in (and earning a second Tony Award for) their 1996 revival of "Chicago.”
Her opener, "All That Jazz,” bristled with excitement as she demonstrated the seductive powers of Bob Fosse's unusual choreography. Later, she showed her knack for comedy in "Class,” another "Chicago” showstopper that catalogs society's declining use of manners. Neuwirth was equally persuasive in "A Quiet Thing,” an introspective number from "Flora, the Red Meance” in which the main character expresses surprise that happiness isn't accompanied by trumpets, drums or bells. It "comes in on tiptoes,” Ebb wrote.
Most people know Weill as the composer of the gritty "Threepenny Opera,” a 1928 collaboration with Bertolt Brecht that produced the hit standard "Mack the Knife.” One year later, Weill produced "Happy End,” the story of a Salvation Army officer who falls in love with a gangster. Neuwirth offered two songs from that show, the lost-in-reverie "Bilbao Song” and the emotionally raw "Surabaya Johnny.”
Neuwirth chose another Kander and Ebb classic to raise the musical stakes. The title song from "Cabaret,” thought by many to be the sole property of Liza Minnelli, was no less persuasive in Neuwirth's rendition. Two other Weill standards, "I'm a Stranger Here Myself” from "One Touch of Venus,” and "The Saga of Jenny” from "Lady in the Dark” afforded Neuwirth the chance to showcase other aspects of her talents, coy and sexy in "Stranger,” humorous and satirical in "Jenny.”
Joel Levine assembled a musically diverse first half that included an attractive medley from "A Chorus Line,” Mendelssohn's "Wedding March” in anticipation of the many spring and early summer weddings, and the moving "Dream Ballet” from the 1955 film version of "Oklahoma!”Neuwirth battled an insistent cough all evening, alternately apologizing to the audience ("It's so elegant, isn't it?”) and using it to get a laugh ("Do you have the same cold I have?” she asked an audience member who began coughing. "I have lozenges in my dressing room.”).
The New Jersey-born performer paid tribute to her late co-star Jerry Orbach with her encore, "Ring Them Bells,” a narrative-driven number that rivals any Gilbert and Sullivan patter song in lyrical complexity. Her brilliant rendition of "Razzle Dazzle,” another nod to Orbach, offered a lyric that summed up not only her own distinctive talents but the entire evening: "Razzle dazzle 'em, and they'll beg you for more!”
— Rick Rogers
