WPCNR The Night Life. By Stagedoor Johnny. Review November 24, 2007: Somebody’s always swinging with style at The Emelin Theatre in Mamaroneck these nights. Friday evening, Brenda Starr and I had our second most enjoyable experience at “The Em” in a month, being intimately entertained by the Broadway Songbird, Penny Fuller original star of Barefoot in the Park, Applause, and Rex, emoting, evoking,belting, styling and singing personally to you as only a Broadway babe can.
The intimate audience created a very cozy atmosphere in the laid back swoop of “The EM.” Ms Fuller is a throaty saucy seasoned blonde with a past. A songbird of silky, slinky sophistication as smooth as a sip of Glenlivit scotch.
Ms. Fuller demands sipping and savoring to enjoy the depths of her very personal voice that goes from soft and sexy to brassy and Broadway in a moment. She’s a lady of easy-to-love, hard-to-forget style whose show features songs from composers of shows she has played in in her Broadway runs.
Ms. Fuller brings her Manhattan sophistication to little old Mamaroneck as part of The Emelin Theater in Concert Series, the brainstorm of Michael Bush, the new Artistic Director of the EM. It is a unique series of cabaret performances in a theatre setting, plus two theatre works aimed apparently to win new friends as “EM” gears up for a major $10 Million expansion into a major “performing arts center.” Its Board of Directors sought Michael Bush, former impresario at the Charlotte Repertory Theater (2002-2004) and prior to that Director of Artistic Production at the Manhattan Theatre Club for 25 years to build the customer base to set the stage for the expansion.
Ms. Fuller is a great start.
Previously, Brenda Starr’s attempts to culturate the CitizeNetReporter at The EM yielded a splendid experience listening to Maude Maggert, who delivered her unique interpretation of songs about women – many of which I had never heard before that were simply sublime as was the compelling Maggert voice.
Solo performers have to be at their best in the cozy Emelin. The patron gets to experience the up-close-and-personal atmosphere of a club performance for a most “unclubby” price, where the artists perform with an immediacy and impact as if you were hearing them in Cole Porter’s apartment in the Waldorf, high above the perfect Manhattan.
Mr. Bush welcomed the audience in person. He said this Theatre In Concert sequence of two performances each by musicians and artists is to show the community what the theatre is all about and to celebrate all the influences and styles the theatre has delivered over the years. He did not say this, but the next two weeks of artist festival seems designed to get the public to think of the Emelin as a place where there is always an attraction good to see from discovering Broadway delights like Ms. Fuller to new plays .
Bush has chosen apparently to go the new play route and performances by some of his associates, like Ms. Fuller, over the years. Over the next two weeks, the venue is filled days of two different performances each day – of singers, musicians, improvisers, one-man shows. It is eclectic to say the least. Bush is mixing in his own unique touch in this series supplementing previously scheduled shows with his artistic palette of New York sophistication, even country coming up next week.
The Blonde with a Past
With Ms. Fuller he showcased “diva diversity,” where the Blonde with a Past reprised songs from composers of shows she has starred in on Broadway — creating “Eve” in Applause opposite Lauren Bacall (she belts out Eve’s “I’m Here” her showstopper in that classic); She sings Do I Hear a Waltz? From Carousel, her first Broadway show. Her blue eyes (why do all Divas have blue eyes?) freeze you, her catlike movements retain such sophisticated precision and controlled sexuality the theatre is alive with the emotions she portrays. When she moves, you feel her move.
She began the set with Where or When, most appropriate for this is a show all about Penny and the composers in the shows she has appeared in.
She springs an interesting song that was dropped out of Cabaret where she understudied the role of Sally Bowes, then delivers the classic, Cabaret.
She reminisces about her Broadway experience with each show and then delivers a song from the composer of that show.
The highlight of the 1 hour and 20 minute set, non-stop, was her reminiscing of Harold Arlin when she was on a competition judging panel with this great. She told how he always dressed in a high collar, a boutonniere in his suit lapel even on the hottest days. She looked back before our eyes, as if watching him again play the piano during a break in auditions and how he sang a special line just for her.
Then she sang, One for the Road the classic Arlin song that begins “It’s a quarter to three. There’s no one in the place but you and me. So set em up, Joe and make it one for my baby and One for the road.”
The place was so quiet as she velvet-voiced One for the Road. All that was missing was the tinkle of ice in an Old-fashion glass, and a Lucky Strike in my mouth — because the memories weaved by her elegant articulation floated like cigarette smoke in a spot light. You hear every lyric of every song.
She smoothed this into a medley of My Old Flame, when her smoky voice made for a pillow, gets inside your soul and makes you remember your old flames. You know the ones that you’d go anywhere just to see them again once more. Ms. Fuller makes you feel down in the dumps and feel good about it. She brought us out of the depths on the ninetieth floor, finishing off the bluesy set with ‘I’m not,” a song new to me that breaks you out of the blues with a new attitude. She does the blues real good.
Ms. Fuller’s show business insider stories about Applause are like a conversation.. Ms. Fuller is either a great actress, or she really enjoys telling her stories because she gets so into dishing, she occasionally fails to seat herself on the piano, or position herself on the singing stool – but that is part of the charm of this performance. It comes across as honest, that she is really enjoying herself, and the songs well, they sing for themselves.
Ms. Fuller has the presence that she could handle the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, easily enthralling a younger man. Her pianist Paul Greenwood plays a muted nostalgic piano while bassman Louis Tucci provides jazzy minimalist accompaniment. The sidemen support the great instrument that Ms. Fuller is.
Dressed in black slacks with sequined white sweater and heels, her look is informal, the style, entertaining friends. The effect is more intimate than if she wore a formal gown that somehow puts distance between performer and audience, while her casual attire creates the intimacy of raconteuring in song in a very dark little club with the neon light flashing outside.
Other numbers to note are her plaintive, and clever song she weaves from a job application, she’ll tell you the story how that came about. And, her encore, Time, that is a new song not too many have heard, since it is from a new musical written by Barry Kleinbort. It is worth hearing for its sweep and its melancholy.
Penny Fuller has performed Friends in Deed in New York at the Metropolitan Club. The show brings the New York late night cabaret experience to Little Old Mamaroneck. For Box Office lowdown on the rest of Mr. Bush’s Theatre In Concert Series, go to www.emelin.org. or call the box office at (914) 698-0098.
No need to go to the Carlyle or the ‘Quin. Penny Fuller creates that Broadway elegence of Manhattan.
But, that’s not really where this songbird comes from.
Penny’s from Heaven.
