Brian d'Arcy James
Under The Influence
Dunstan Playhouse Adelaide Festival Centre June 18 - 19 2014
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
In a conservative cabaret grey
suit, subtle tie and polished black shoes actor, singer and Music Theatre star
Brian d’Arcy James looks more like a public servant than the Broadway shining light of such shows as The Apple Tree, Next To Normal, Titanic
and Shrek the Musical in which he
played the title role. His is the uniform of the cabaret greats – of Sinatra,
Martin, and Bennett. Smooth and svelte and with a voice capable of gliding with
gentle emotion and soaring with passionate power, d’Arcy James fondles the
microphone like an old friend and acknowledges his backing band on piano, Bass,
drums and guitar with appreciative warmth.
Under the Influence honours
the artists that inspired the kid from Saginaw, Michigan. The pop singers of
the seventies and eighties stirred the ambitions of a lad destined to be a
Broadway star with two Tony Award nominations to his name. His one hour cabaret
show is recognition of the link between those teenage musical heroes and the
Broadway musicals, some of which are now being composed by artists such as
Sting, Carol King, Bob Dylan and Phil Collins. His hero, Billy Joel has written
the musical Moving Out with Twyla Tharp.
From Sondheim to Stevie Wonder,
another Saginaw lad, d’Arcy James takes his eager audience along the varied
musical paths that have shaped his career but never veered from his love for
the songs that inspired him along the way. There is no artifice to the
performance. His voice is strong and sure, his breathing the well-trained
servant of his passion and his charm relaxed and easy with band and audience.
He is the artist in whose company you feel entirely secure, willingly seduced
by his song and his stories of auditioning
for his idol, Billy Joel, or his mentor, the late, great Marvin
Hamlisch. His respect for their great talent imbues his renditions of Billy
Joel’s She’s Got A Way or Marvin
Hamlisch’s I Cannot Hear The City from
his musical Sweet Smell of Success with
sweeping emotion that carries the listener along on his song of sentiment.
Pop, Rock and Roll and Musical
Theatre merge in d’Arcy James’s catalogue of influences. The less familiar Tempted By The Fruit of Another by The
Squeeze features with the lesser known song We
Can Build A City Of Man from Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell or the haunting A Light
In The Dark from the smash hit musical, Next
To Normal. Along the way, d’Arcy-James casts his heart back to the Saginaw
composers, whose names may be unknown, but whose songs are classics of their
time. Isham Jones’s It Had To Be You, John Legend’s All
Of Me and of course Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely. d’Arcy James’s love
affair with his Pop and Rock heroes and his indulgent fantasies that have
shaped his career find their resounding climax in Who I’d Be from Shrek the
Musical.
This is d’Arcy James’s first
visit to Australia and audiences at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival can count
themselves lucky to be seduced by his charm, overwhelmed by his easy
professionalism and entertained by a voice that holds his audience in its Pop,
Rock and Musical sway. If you ever have the chance to see this star of
Broadway, don’t stay in the dark. Happy are they who can say “I came under the
influence of Brian d’Arcy-James”.
