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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS VARIETY: MORE THAN MUSIC at The Rochambeau. By John F. Bailey. January 26, 2003: Jim Brownold, the debonair tuxedoed emcee, did a perfect “Ed Sullivan” to supervise the Fort Hill Players traditional Raffle and from that moment on, More Than Music was on its way! All the way to the “our show is at an end” reprise of Those Were the Days the Four Stars of More Than Music premiering their new act gave over 150 enthusiastic theatre goers a “musical history tour” Saturday evening at The Rochambeau School Auditorium.
PREMIER WEEKEND FOR MORE THAN MUSIC
Photo by WPCNR Entertainment
Jim Brownold, Linda Hendrick, Patti Rome and Mark Snyder delivered 90 silk-smooth minutes of perfectly mixed nostalgia, sophisticated banter and ubiquitous vocalizing of the Twentieth Century’s greatest songs, commercials, and entertainer styles with every minute a charmer. It was a night that made you remember.
There is the champagne blonde Linda Hendrick, in her misty chiffon little blue dress, reminding you of those blondes of yesteryear, Doris Day, Dinah Shore and Patti Page at the start of the show. Ms. Hendrick combines with piano raconteur Mark Snyder in a delightful duet styling of Cole Porter’s Let’s Get Away From it All.
A little later, Patti Rome’s misty contralto voice recalls Judy Garland, Peggy Lee and Rosemary Clooney, especially when she performs an audience-pleasing , ingenious Snyder-arranged medley of Memories Are Made of This and You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You. The new fab four of Fort Hill, created by Mark Snyder last summer because he thought the three could put together an act, simply cruised through the evening.
A little Vincent Price, A Little Fred Astaire, A Jim Brownold at His Best
Dashing in between that ageless pianoman, Mark Snyder, (who makes his piano a fifth performer, whose virtuoso stylings backed up all the songs for the full 90 minutes), is the emcee, Jim Brownold.
Brownold created the sound effects for the radio show bits,( at his best on The Lying Lips of Laura Languine bit.) A voice-over specialist for commercials in real-life, he supplies the fastest most versatile announcer voice, and he sings, too.
Brownold, a tall, elegant goateed performer (whose tuxedo trousers have the sharpest creases I’ve seen), performs the sophisticated Irving Berlin hit, White Tie and Tails, with the same élan as Fred Astaire who sang it in the 1950s. Next time, perhaps Mr. Brownold will give us some Fred Astaire dance steps too, and add a cane.
Brownold is also featured in an ode to the joys of dating Dinner at Eight which your Broadway reporter has never heard, which he delivers with comic aplomb that we suspect he may have wrote himself
Musical History Tour
More Than Music is a ubiquitous and polished original show, written by Jim Brownold for the four entertainers’ talents. Song arrangements by Mr. Snyder. It blends musical styles cleverly, paying homage to old radio shows with original skits, and reprises fabulous old commercial jingles seamlessly.
Watching More Than Music unfold is watching a 1930s radio program on the air, a 1940s nightclub act at The Copa, and a 1950s television variety show, like The Dean Martin Show. It traces popular entertainment from the middle decades of the last century. Think of it as an original “special” that never drags, throws something new and unexpected at you, number after number.
Chemistry
The four entertainers have such engaging chemistry together, are so likable and have such great interplay with the audience, you eagerly anticipate each turn of the show.
So appealing were the 4 entertainers’ musical stylings of old favorites that the audience softly sang along with the numbers. This is something unheard of in hard-nosed , hard-to-impress White Plains audiences.
The leading ladies voices and appearances blend like a perfectly mixed whisky sour. Rome’s earthy and sensuous contralto compliments Ms. Hendrick’s frothy and bubbly soprano. The ladies recreate with unerring pitch the singing styles of The Andrews Sisters Sincerely, The Shangri-La’s Remember , The Chordettes’ Mr. Sandman. The Classic Brunette and the Incendiary Blonde combine to make wonderful Doublemint Twins (of Doublement Gum fame) singing the “double your pleasure” commercial and do a robust, perfect-pitched “My Beer is Reingold, the Dry Beer”.
City Center Dancers Set the Pace
Dina Giordano’s newly formed dance troupe, The City Center Dancers, performed different dancing styles from the decades featured in the show. The young ladies, all from White Plains are Dina Giordano, the organizer, Lauren Bernard, Charlotte Couzens, Amanda Culp, Stephanie Kaplan and Amy Schlinger.
The young ladies opened the show in style reminiscent of The Jackie Gleason Show, (It always opened with the June Taylor Dancers , remember?} The got the audience in the mood with switching dancestyles from The Lindy Hop to At the Hop, frugging to Surfin’ USA and actually twisting to Chubby Checker, doing costume changes on the fly, becoming 50s rocknrollers one number, to surfers the next in capris, and surprising the audience with the crisp choreography, mugging and synchronized arm movements in a very small stage space.
In a mellow, casual tone.
Next, Jim Brownold strode on stage and made some corny stage jokes while his partners in crime set up the stage, consisting of Snyder’s piano, 4 music stands and “On the Air” sign.
Simple as it sounds, it worked well and the theatre of the mind did the rest.
Throwing it up there: Something completely different
The show shifts from nightclub atmosphere on “stage left” back to the radio show on “stage right,” and the segues are not to be believed. Can you believe a medley of The Whiffenpoof Song/ Barbara Ann and Bye Bye Love? Well, they do it, and it works! They choregraph together well, and Brownold compliments the two young ladies with a martini-smooth tenor voice with which he does vintage 1950s doo-wop on Sincerely and Jordanaires’ style backup to the girls..
The shows and commercials thrill
The skits from Dick Shorts and Wanda Melons, Private Eyes to Ophelia Pain and The Lying Lips of Laura Languine could use better jokes, but this is satire. So we will cut Mr. Brownold some slack on the jokes and commend him for caputuring the nuances of those old time 30s and 40s radio serials.
The Dick Shorts detective skit has Dick (played by Snyder who never gets up from the piano, and perhaps does more than anyone in any show who sits for 90 minutes), and Wanda on the Case of the Alliteration Murders.
The alliterative script lines cleverly mock the scripts of those old radio detective shows, get the audience really chuckling with laughter and recognition. Ms. Rome as Wanda with a tough Bronx accent, plays off well to Snyder’s Bogart. Around me the audience was sitting and remembering.
Linda Hendrick, not only captures the vivacious wholesomeness of those songbirds of the 50s, but she has a good gift for mugging like the female comediennes Eve Arden, Kay Ballard, and Imogene Coca. Her turn as Laura Languine, in the Lying Lips episode recreates the seductive voice of a Bacall/Dietrich/Garbo. She is equally sexily sinister and adept as The Dragon Lady in The Adventures of Madame X, the Brownold radio take-off on Terry and The Pirates. Senior citizens in the audience you could see remembering the old style of that famous serial.
The Ophelia Pain Skit, recalls mentalists such as Kreskin involving the audience. The American Bandstand record review skit was appreciated by the audience, too. Jim Brownold’s “Moxy10” anti-acne commercial was a perfect, clever parity.
Commercial Recreations are Classic
The tireless crew brings back commercials you love: there is a cigarette medley of The Winston Tastes Good Song, and The Marlboro Song. You hear the wonderful Gillette “Look Sharp” song, with great bell work by Jim Brownold, sound effects creator extraordinaire, and the Robert Hall Song, just to name a few. The leading ladies Rome and Hendrick sing the old jingles wonderfully with loving sincerity.I liked their “Chiquita Banana” jingle the best. The banana headpieces on the girls were a great touch.
As if working together for years.
More Than Music comes off as if it’s been polished for years. The Fort Hill Four only started creating it in August. Saturday night it was paced just right. The adlib bits really appeared adlibbed. The attractive four obviously like each other. Their timing is good together. The likeable four have the gifts of the hosts of an old 1950s variety show. They make an audience feel magically comfortable with them, as if they are your old friends.
90-Minute Man.
Mark Snyder’s virtuoso piano-playing and intriguing vocals, recall George Burns and Jimmy Durante, with a voice a lot like Milton Berle’s, yet also brings to mind Noel Coward and what a piano man! He shifts easily from Cole Porter sophistication to George Burns/Milton Berle/crooner style. He is without doubt, the “Hoagy Carmichael of White Plains.”
Keep in mind that Mr. Snyder is always performing in this show. He has lines between songs, he accompanies the singers on the songs, shifts from rock to Bobby Short stylings effortlessly, and performs for the whole 90 minutes. He arranged all the songs for the singers’ talents. His treatments of the medleys and accompaniments to Ms. Rome and Ms. Hendrick are highly creative, the piano supportive and holding its own, without riding roughshod over the songbirds.
THE LADIES OF MORE THAN MUSIC: Patti Rome, left, and Linda Hendrick are stylists with styles of their own. They are seen rehearsing last week.
Photo by WPCNR Entertainment
Though Ms. Rome and Ms. Hendrick capture the nuances of many songtresses in the show, the ladies deliver songs their own way. Ms. Rome plays the classic torch singer who has been around, in her midnight blue hip-hugging evening gown and glamorous, lustrous, long dark hair. She delivers Someone to Watch Over Me in a sincere, torchy style that’s vintage Judy Garland. Ms. Rome flows into a song, builds it, gets comfortable in it and creates compelling emotion into her songs, hitting them right up the middle. It is trite to say it, but it is true, you feel as if she is singing to you.
Ms. Rome’s Memories Are Made of This/Nobody Til Somebody Loves You medley to close the show simply is the best number in the show. She has the audience really with her.
Ms. Hendrick is the spicy opposite to Ms. Rome, styling with just the right amount of innocence on You’d be So Nice to Come Home To and Catch a Falling Star. Ms. Hendrick articulates well, has a big voice for a little lady, and works well with Ms. Rome to harmonize splendidly. Ms. Hendrick’s voice floats the lyrics in cheery, wholesomeness that makes you want to wrap her up and take her home and sing to you every night.
Brownold is everywhere
Jim Brownold holds the show together in a very non-obtrusive way. He has a great talent for sounds with his mouth, imitating the tone of the “Emergency Broadcast System” splendidly, and the sounds of bubbles on the Double Bubble commercial parody for a big laugh, just to mention two of his funny bits.
The strengths of the show are the stylings of the singers, the reverence and tune-perfect recreation of the commercial jingles and styles, and the clever segues between skits and nightclub scenes.
As the show develops, the jokes in the skits will get better. Only two songs did not seem to belong: When Will I Be Loved and the Dinner at Eight song, though it was very entertaining, no one knew it. But it was still an entertaining number that engaged the audience.
THE PRODUCERS: Jim Brownold created the mock radio shows and the book. Mark Snyder arranged and plays the songs. The Dina Giordano City Center Dancers cavort to The Twist on stage at a recent rehearsal.
Photo by WPCNR Entertainment
The entertainers are entertained by each other.
This revue blends well. Because all four entertainers genuinely like each other. When either of the ladies are singing, or both. Or when one is doing solo, the others can be seen in the shadow, moving to Mr. Snyder’s accompaniment, and enjoying the talents of the other.
The audience thought so too, cheering with “bravos” at the finish, singing along, and being slow to leave. Theatre goers I talked to said it was “great,” another woman said, “I remembered them all,” another, “Great fun!”
Producer Joan Charischak staged this revue around the performers just right. Minimal set. Lighting that enhanced by David Ulman. And miking by Bryan Williams that picked up everything. The cordless mikes worked flawlessly and give the performers mobility and an ease of casuality that added to the intimacy of the evening. There were no glitches. The program could have, and should have included biographies of the stars.
Mr. Brownold wrote the show with Mr. Snyder who did the arrangements. The show has wonderful timing and pace, and unlike some reviews, it built, and got better and better. No dead spots. No drags.
The show has pep, vim, and verve, zing , zip and zinger.
I hope we see a lot more of More Than Music!
