'Sweet and Hot: The Songs of Harold Arlen': Sweet, hot and intimate at Theo Ubique
THEATER REVIEW: "Sweet and Hot: The Songs of Harold Arlen" ★★★ Through Aug. 8 at the No Exit Cafe, 6970 N. Glenwood Ave.; $25 at 800-595-4849
Sweet and hot as is surely can be, the No Exit Cafe does not leave you a lot of room to hang your hat. To radically change the configuration is to move the performers to the other bare wall. But Fred Anzevino, the genial wizard who consistently stuffs remarkable musicals into this ever-more-lovable Rogers Park joynt, still manages to generate his own Theo Ubique brand of spatial excitement.
It comes right at the top of Anzevino's new production of "Sweet and Hot," the revue of the music of the prolific Harold Arlen. Right on the line, "Mama Done Told Me." All Anzevino (and his choreographer David Heimann) have done is stick half of their six-person cast in one corner of the room and put the other three--oh, about twenty feet away, at most. But when the singing is this strong, and when the performers are this willing to stick their hearts on the line, you feel like you're engulfed by waves of exciting sound. It's acoustic sound too, which makes it all the more thrilling.
Part of the appeal of this revue (which I last reviewed at the now-demolished Drury Lane Theatre in Evergreen Park in 2003) is that most of the audience has no idea that the same guy wrote the music to such a dizzying array of American standards as "Blues in the Night," "Stormy Weather," "Come Rain or Come Shine," "I've Got the World On A String," and a little ditty called "Over the Rainbow" that hasn't done so badly over the years, given its mawkish lyrical sentiment.
This particular show, which was conceived by Julianne Boyd, has its perennial irritations. By pairing "One for My Baby" with the campy "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive," for example, Boyd blows the chance for an actor to fully conceive Arlen's most theatrical, and potentially saddest, song. And although "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" always works its spell--that verse always summons such exquisite anticipation--I've long despised the arrangement in this revue, which makes this iconic song feel dangerously close to muzak. And the Carribbean-themed section of the show always makes me cringe. Boyd had something like 500 potential songs to draw from; she didn't always pick the best numbers or treat them in the best way. Around half-way through the night, I was wishing Anzevino had done what he did so effectively with the music of Jacques Brel, and created his own Arlen revue.
That said, Boyd didn't mess up "Stormy Weather" or "The Man That Got Away," both of which are grandly and poignantly dispatched by Bethany Thomas, who always seems to do her best work under Anzevino's direction. Anzevino understood here that the Arlen songbook needs different types of performers to do it justice. Aside from Thomas, in touch with Arlen's bluesy side, he cast Stephanie Herman, a crisp, removed and glamorous singer who suggests urban nighteries, and the giving Sarah Hayes, who evokes a warmer, softer, needier and yet equally retro persona. On the male side, Kristofer Simmons matches up nicely with Herman (most of the night, at least), Eric Lindahl drives the vocal energy of the show, and the terriffic, multivalent Eric Martin takes care of its heart.
Steve Carson, who plays piano and musical directs with evident craft, barely cracks a smile all night, apparently channeling the cynical brand of Arlen-scored cool that served Frank Sinatra so well. But great composers, unlike great performers, do not need a unified stage persona. Alren could tell you to "Get Happy" and then break your heart a few notes later. You wish the revue was conceived with that paradox more in mind. But this is a cast, and a director, that understands the American songbook has always drawn from the sweet and the sour.
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