Patti LuPone. Don’t Monkey With Broadway.
Conceived and directed by Scott Wittman. Musical direction by Joseph Thalken. Canberra Theatre Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. June 25. 2018
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
 |
| Patti LuPone - Don't Monkey With Broadway |
A vase of lush red roses on a
Grand. Nearby a glass of water and at the piano musical director and
accompanist Joseph Thalken against a mauve cyclorama. Enter Broadway legend
Patti LuPone, winner of multiple Tony
and Grammy awards and an inductee into the American Theater Hall of Fame,
LuPone strides smiling onto the Playhouse stage to the instant outburst of
applause from adoring devotees. She is among the acolytes of her forty year
Broadway and West End career. Broadway has come to Canberra and the audience is
ecstatic.
After a momentary mike
malfunction, a cheerful, unflurried and consummate professional LuPone launches
into her opening number, Don’t Monkey
With Broadway. LuPone’s opening number is an anthem to the iconic temple of
American musical Theatre that has been he profession, her passion and her love
since she graduated from the Juilliard School as an actress and singer in 1973.
The evening is a celebration of love. From Irving Berlin to Rodgers and Hart
and Rodgers and Hammerstein, from Stephen Schwarz to Stephen Sondheim and
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, LuPOne shares anecdotes, intimate stories, told
with the wicked assurance of a humour laced with experience and natural flair
for comedy and opinions with an audience hungry for every morsel of this
phenomenal artist’s amazing journey through the legendary shows of the past
four decades. Don’t Monkey With Broadway for
the fans is the hottest ticket that has come to town in ages.
 |
| Patti LuPone sings the songs of Broadway |
LuPone and her musical director
Joseph Thalken share an obvious synchronicity and Thalken’s accompaniment
sparkles with sheer exuberance, in one with LuPone’s passionate joy. Her
talent launches a personal campaign for
the preservation of a Broadway, steeped in nostalgia and nurturing the spirit
of the songs that have inspired, excited and moved the generations who have
filled the theatres to escape, celebrate or be entertained by the great
composers, lyricists, performers and producers of the Broadway musical. With a
word of warning LuPone admonishes the Disneyfication of 42nd Street,
the proposal to raise the Judy garland Theatre to build a mall below or the
changing character of iconic Times Square. LuPone is Queen of the Golden Years
of Broadway and her show serves as a celebration of the glorious age of musical
theatre and artists such as Kate Smith, whom she watched on television as a
young child and musicals such as South Pacific and Sweet Charity.
Throughout a two hour evening of
classic LuPone songs, audiences are treated to stories of the legends of the
musical. theatre Power and emotion, sensitivity and sentiment, nostalgia and humanity
are the spirits of her song. With a voice as magnetic as ever, but now maturer
and bursting with feeling, LuPone endows every number with its unique sound and
meaning. The heart rending delivery of Easy
To Be Hard from rock musical Hair to Rodgers
and Hannerstein’s comical I’m Just A Girl Who Cain’t Say No from Oklahoma to Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and Company and one of LuPone’s
signature songs, Ðon’t Cry for Me Argentina
from Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s
Evita. – every song is given new life by a singer in total control of her
instrument, a range that can reach from the depths of pain to the heights of
elation. LuPOne is the enchantress, casting her spell but never mystifying. The
audience is rapt.
A surprise is just around the
corner. The theatre techs set up three microphone stands and at the start of
the second half, a music ensemble of some of Canberra’s brightest musical
theatre talents appears to accompany LuPone’s forceful rendition of Ya Got Trouble from The Music Man among
others. The thrill shines in their
eyes – to be sharing the stage with Patti LuPOne – to be in the presence of
this down to earth, fun loving, genuine, enduring and immensely talented
shining star of Broadway.
 |
| Patti LuPone |
The surprise does not end there. As
she says, the advantage of doing a one woman cabaret is that she can take on
every role and she brings the house down with a solo duet between Maria and
Anita from West Side Story. Add to
this her sardonic rendition of Ladies Who
Lunch from Sondheim’s Company and the tender, ironic Nothing
Else Can Harm You from Sweeney Todd and the audience is treated to a cavalcade of
highlightsts from the old and the new, the familiar and the unknown in an
evening of celebration and tribute to the magic of Broadway and the stupendous
talent and personality of its shining star, Patti LuPOne.
A closing, feisty and triumphant
rendition of Give My Regards To Broadway foreshadows
the end of an unforgettable evening with the audience cheering and applauding on
their feet . LuPOne is Broadway and for one night in June, Broadway came to
Canberra.
