Len Cariou (Photo Credit: Carol Rosegg
It
shouldn’t come as a surprise to discover how many of the most romantic and
comical songs contained among the countless treasures in the great American Musical
Theatre songbook can be effortlessly linked to the prose and poetry of William
Shakespeare. The Bard’s plays, his rhapsodically inclined characters, including
the rapscallions, have famously been the inspiration for many contemporary
composers from Rodgers and Hart to Cole Porter to Lerner and Loewe to Bernstein
and Sondheim and on and on.
It
is also not a surprise to see how craftily and cleverly the links have been integrated
and dramatized with an obviously deep affection for his subject by the terrific
Canadian-born, Shakespearean trained seventy-six year old lauded stage, screen
and film actor/singer Len Cariou (“Sweeney Todd,” “A Little Night Music,” “Applause,”
“Teddy & Alice.”)
You may choose to swoon as you hear Cariou speak Orsino’s
opening reverie in “Twelfth Night” - “If
music be the food of love, play on” - leading so effortlessly into both “Love,
I Hear” (from “A Funny Thing...”) and “Falling in Love with Love” (“The Boys
from Syracuse”.) And what a wonderfully humorous jolt it is when Henry V’s “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...”
demands a little “Applause” (title song from the show). I could go down the
list of the perfect segues that Cariou uses as he embraces the likes of Richard
II, Iago, Petruchio, Benedict, Jacque and Prospero and on and on, but let the
others be a pleasant surprise.
Cariou’s singing voice may be a little frayed around the
edges, but not so his bravura acting or the way he finds the essential emotional
core of each song. Beautiful songs we have heard time and again such as Bob
Merrill’s “Her Face” (“Carnival”) and “Lucky to Be Me,” and “It’s Love” both
from the gorgeous Berstein, Comden and Green score for “On the Town.” resonate anew
with Cariou’s impassioned interpretation and delivery.
Aside from deftly using fragments, soliloquies and asides
from the Bard’s canon, Cariou also finds suitable bridges to personal anecdotes
about his long and impressive career. But mainly this one-man show is a joyous
eighty-minute excursion through almost
two dozen songs relating sometimes drolly but mostly divertingly in response to
a brief scene or speech.
The setting created by Josh Iocavelli has the haunted-by-its-past
look of a theater’s stage with its token ghost light, ropes, pulleys and various
props but also with a stool (that is used) some photos and a bust of
Shakespeare. The most notable prop is the piano which is expertly played by
musical director Mark Janas, who contributes not only superb accompaniment but an
occasional vocal assist.
As conceived
by Cariou, Janas and director Barry Kleinbort, this Amas Musical Theatre
production is modest and intimate by design but made memorable by
Cariou’s polished and personable performance. It is often emotionally affecting
as it moves along making you forget how quickly the time has passed, even if
you haven’t taken the time to “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”
The performance
schedule for “Broadway and the Bard” is: Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday at 8pm,
Thursday & Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 2pm & 8pm, Sunday at 3pm. There
will be additional performances on Sunday, January 31 at 7pm and Monday,
February 1 at 7pm. Tickets are $70 and available at Telecharge.com/
(212) 239-6200.
