An Evening With Jason Robert Brown - Review

London Palladium



****

Jason Robert Brown

A packed Palladium saw Jason Robert Brown, supported by the lush BBC Concert Orchestra and the composer’s own rhythm section record a Friday Night Is Music Night show for future broadcast. The music was grand and with the stunning talents of Betsy Wolfe and Norm Lewis also flown in specially from Broadway to join the British Isle’s very own Rachel Tucker, the vocal talent was top notch too.

The evening was a pot-pourri drawn from across a range of Brown’s shows - and whilst he may have amassed a couple of Tonys to date, it was with a self-deprecating charm that Brown introduced Tucker’s take on Stars And The Moon from the Songs For A New World song-cycle, as a “medley of my greatest hit”, a wry acknowledgement of the Broadway commercial success that has so far eluded him.

Wolfe and Lewis were the evening’s vocal stars, Lewis wowing the crowd with his Elvis-infused Higher Love (from Honeymoon In Vegas, a show that carries whispers of a possible West End stint) and Wolfe bringing the audience to their feet in rapturous applause with her unsurpassed interpretation of I Can Do Better Than That from The Last Five Years. It remains an interesting comment that both that number and Stars And The Moon, both of which are quite possibly Brown’s most famous songs are singularly about, even if not drawn from the writer’s experience, female aspiration. From this reviewer’s perspective one cannot comment upon the perception of Brown’s writing - other than to mark this tiny trend and the remarkable popularity of both songs.

Brown’s first modestly major Broadway show, Parade, got a look in with the writer himself singing The Old Red Hills Of Home and commenting to the audience how much he relished the opportunity to return to the production’s original lavish, Broadway orchestrations. Having seen numerous Parades, each staged in a modestly-budgeted fringe venue, that score in particular works best when delivered away from the luxury of a fully stringed 60 piece ensemble, the beautiful brutality of Brown’s work remaining best played by a small, tightly structured band, with the striking, punching percussive staccato of the opening drum-beat lending itself to the chilling echoes of the Conferederate marching band it suggests. The Palladium gig may have offered up a useful comparison for sure. But a fully orchestrated Parade? No thanks.

The music was perfect throughout under Larry Blank’s baton. Brown added a suite of suites to the set list for good measure and with Tucker spectacularly flying home to Flying Home at the close, the Radio 2 audience are unlikely to be disappointed.

The Last Five Years - 2013 Off Broadway Cast Recording

*****

Earlier this year, Jason Robert Brown directed an off-Broadway production of his partly autobiographical The Last Five Years. An essentially modern musical, it tells of a doomed love between an increasingly successful young writer Jamie and his actress girlfriend Cathy. They fall in love, marry and separate, with the show’s gimmick being to tell Jamie’s tale chronologically, whilst Cathy’s tale plays out in reverse. An unconventional show, we meet Cathy post- separation, “Still Weeping”, whilst in the sharpest of paradoxes Brown introduces us to Jamie in Shiksa Goddess a comic tale of his characters back-story, acknowledging the guilt of his Jewish identity as he finds himself irresistibly drawn to Cathy. 

The songs are perceptive and honest. Brown lays the moral responsibility for the marriage break-up squarely at the feet of Jamie who finds himself tempted by other women as soon as he is married. Though as Jamie’s writing star ascends Cathy struggles as an actor, cleverly sketched in When You Come Home To Me and the disparate nature of their experiences of success and Cathy’s inability to support her husband, is hinted at as her failing by her errant spouse.

Adam Kantor brings a youthfully loving but ultimately profoundly selfish style to Jamie. His hollow words of desire to a young lover as his marriage to Cathy is ending in Nobody Needs To Know, are as tender as they are cruelly ironic. We have heard his lies before and they make the song even more poignant. Kantor is flawess in his delivery and one senses that Brown has carefully polished every word that is sung in the show. 

Much like Kantor, Betsy Wolfe simply brings excellence to Cathy. Her carefully weighted words in See I’m Smiling, a song beautifully crafted but painful to consider as we hear her try to retrieve their marriage from the ashes of Jamie’s infidelity, are heartbreaking and through her performance and Brown’s direction, her character’s grief is tangible.

It was an unexpected treat that a recent visit to New York City should coincide with a live bookstore promo of the CD, performed by Kantor and Wolfe with Brown on piano. Having missed the show’s run, the three songs performed at the launch gave a tantalising peek at just how fine the staging must have been and whetted the appetite for a more leisurely appreciation of the recording. The Last 5 Years is a frequently performed piece of musical theatre. It's minimal cast (of two) ensures that a production budget can often be minimised, however with the show being so affordable to stage, it can often be the case that mediocrity creeps in however well-intentioned a production’s actors and creative folk may be. To thus glimpse (albeit literally) the show in a form that is entirely of its writer's creation is a rare moment of privilege.

We catch a hint of Cathy’s back-story in I Can Do Better Than That, a mini-biopic of a song that hints at Billy Joel’s Scenes From An Italian Restaurant in its tale of young folk growing up. Brown has updated his lyrics from the original and a fleeting reference to Tom Cruise has now been airbrushed from the page, replaced by the far more tacky, though nonetheless rhyming, “tattoos”. (Though quite why the nod to Duran Duran has been retained is a wonder.) And when it comes to a song’s middle eight, even prosciutto wrapped, no one writes them better than Brown. 

The CD has an air of "this is how the show should be". First produced some twelve years ago, it is clear that the writer has allowed the complex components of The Last Five Years to settle over time, before returning to personally define how his story should be told. It’s a classy move by Brown and those writers and emerging writers who still possess the faculties and abilities to direct, may do well to follow his example. This recording makes for inspirational musical theatre.

The album can be purchased and downloaded here