Tired of Cardie B and Harry Styles? Had your fill of Eminem and Taylor Swift? Then have I got a cure for you – the Great American Songbook will raise your spirits and imbue your life with that patented Broadway bounce. If you can’t get enough of celebrated musicians and lyricists such as Burton Lane, Vernon Duke, Kurt Weill, Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, and E.Y. Harburg, then scurry over to Ovations Night Club for tonight and next Monday evening where Paul Hope Cabaret holds center stage with its sparkling revue Heather on the Hill in Glocca Morra.
Hey, wait a minute, I hear you Broadway babies saying, Heather is from Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon and Glocca Morra is from Harburg and Lane’s Finian’s Rainbow. What’s up, Hope? Well, Hope’s a Houston theater baby who knows his history, dish and all, and he’s put together a combo revue, a double bill, he calls it, that celebrates the work of the above-named Broadway (and Hollywood) musical stars and their collaborative efforts – Burton Lane with “Yip” Harburg (Finian’s Rainbow), Harburg with Vernon Duke (“April in Paris” from Walk a Little Faster), Lerner with Weill (Love Life), Lerner with Loewe (selections from Paint Your Wagon and Brigadoon), and Harburg with Harold Arlen (“Lydia the Tattooed Lady” from the Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races) and Harburg with Jay Gourney in the Depression-era anthem “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.” It’s a rich and varied a revue as any around.
Of course what’s a musical without singers? Hope has supplied that with a Who’s Who from revues past: Brian Chambers, Seth Cunningham, Richard Paul Fink, Grace Givens, Susan Shofner (who’s been M.I.A. in recent seasons, so it’s great to have her back on stage), Tamara Siler, and a brilliant new star in Lauren Salazar. Where has she come from and when can we see her next? What a find. What a voice. A natural performer with stage presence to spare, her voice is creamy and lush. Listen to her rendition of Lane and Harburg’s lilting “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” with that slight Scottish burr and ringing pianissimo. Perfection. Or hear her lusty comedy take on “The Love of My Life,” also from Brigadoon, as she relates her constant failures in finding her man. Exquisite.
Set to the nimble piano playing by Jim Benton, the others rise to her level. Operatic baritone Fink doesn’t need amplification. His powerful voice is a force of nature, but he’s also a very subtle actor. Listen to the heartbreak in “Brother Can You Spare a Dime” from 1932’s musical revue Americana, which, after Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee’s recordings, turned the shattered-dreams anthem into a smash hit. Hear his unforced raw power in “They Call the Wind Maria” from Lerner and Loewe’s Paint Your Wagon. Fink ends it softly with a prayer, “Blow my love to me.” Dramatic and wonderfully chilling.
Siler shines in her low-down version of “Economics,” from the forgotten Weill/Lerner 1948 Love Life, one of the first concept musicals, and in the hot-to-trot “Necessity” from Finian’s Rainbow. Smooth Brian Chambers finds the right comic smarm in Og the leprechaun’s “When I’m Not Near the Girl I Love” from Finian’s Rainbow and the rousing libido of “I’ll Go Home with Bonnie Jean” from Brigadoon. Givens shimmies with Finian’s “Ol’ Devil Moon” and then sweetly sings Brigadoon’s “Heather on the Hill” as if dreaming. Lovely. Shofner shows off her theater chops with a gossamer take on “Look To the Rainbow;” Cunningham purrs through Lerner and Weill’s “Here I’ll Stay” and Duke and Harburg’s delicious “What is There To Say” from Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, with that Harburgian line, “My heart’s in a deadlock, I’d even face wedlock with you.”
The evening’s blessed by special guest appearances by Houston theater veterans Kevin and Teresa Cooney who perform the wacky “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” with all the intact magic the couple exudes; and famed banjoist/guitarist Ray Rogers elegantly performs the plaintive Lerner/Loewe ballads “I Still See Elisa” and “Wand’rin’ Star,” both from Paint Your Wagon.
It’s almost a family affair at a Paul Hope Cabaret. Hope, an Alley Theatre emeritus actor, loves his Broadway and always makes it accessible to his audience who laps up the trivia, the dish, the backstage stories he weaves so well. At 14, Burton Lane was the youngest professional musician on Tin Pan Alley; he also discovered Judy Garland when she was Francis Gumm; Alan Jay Lerner wore gloves to prevent his obsessive nail biting; he also had eight wives, not at the same time; Nanette Fabray won a Tony as Best Actress in a Musical for the forgotten Love Life; and Agnes deMille hated Gene Kelly for eliminating the chorus dancing when he filmed Brigadoon in 1954. It’s tidbits like these that make Hope’s cabaret’s special and warmly inviting. His own performance of Lane and Harold Adamson’s “Everything I Have Is Yours” from Astaire’s first musical film Dancing Lady (1933) is lovingly sung. Even when they flub lines, forget lyrics and start again, it’s all part of the camaraderie.
If Broadway’s your thing, then Heather on the Hill in Glocca Morra will be catnip.
Heather on the Hill in Glocca Morra continues at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 18 and Monday, October 24 at Ovations Night Club, 2536 Times Boulevard. For more information call 713-522-9801 or visit paulhopecabaret.ticketleap.com. $15-$25.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
