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Claiborne Cary: Claiborne Cary Alive! |
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At: Danny's Skylight Room
Reviewer: David Roberts for Theatre Reviews Limited |
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Claiborne Cary is moving back to Manhattan and there could be no better news for the city's world of live performance. Though living in Los Angeles never really kept Claiborne Cary from visiting and performing in New York City, it will a very good thing to have this gifted performer "back where she belongs."
Currently, Ms. Cary is back at Danny's Skylight Room performing every Thursday and Saturday in August at 9:00 p.m. And what a performance this is! No one can style a song quite the way Claiborne Cary can. And very few performers are capable of moving from the comedic to the reflective modes (and back!) in the way Ms. Cary can. She is a singer and an actor who truly knows how to exercise both crafts with grace, style, and dignity. Whatever Claiborne's first music teacher imparted in Lone Tree, Iowa (in addition to "pinching pennies") certainly has equipped her for a successful and multi-faceted career on stage, in film and television, and in the recording studio.
  
Ms. Cary's show "Alive" is an unabashed celebration of the totality of what we call "being alive," from the vagaries of the current dating scene to the deepest places of existence where love and loneliness often seem to vie for equal time. Claiborne Cary is as comfortable with "I Don't Want To Play In Your Yard" (Philip Wingate/H.W. Petrie) and "Mean To Me" (Roy Turk/Fred E. Ahlert) as she is with Murray Grand's haunting "Too Old To Die Young." Any lyric, any note is home to Claiborne Cary and another opportunity for her to mine the rare gems of the American songbook and to showcase the tunes that will be the standards of the future. Sammy Cahn/Jule Styne ("As Long As There's Music"), Andy Razaf/Thomas (Fats) Waller ("Honeysuckle Rose"), and Irving Berlin ("Say It Isn't So") are some of the wordsmiths and composers that Claiborne brings to new life in her live show (with the help of her great band) and on her recordings.
Hearing Claiborne sing and watching her perform Billy Barnes' "Something Cool" is to receive a rare gift from a treasure of an artist. There's not a wasted movement here, not an empty glance, not even one frivolous gesture from this generous actor and song stylist. Yet she can move in an instant from this focused emotional place to one of sheer playful fun with her own "Couch Potato Patootie" (though there are some oddly similar themes in these seemingly disparate songs).
Near the close of her "Alive" show, Claiborne sings John Wallowitch's "I Live Alone Again." This is a bittersweet song of love and love lost, of relationship and singularity, of all humankind's hopes and dreams to be separate yet connected and healthy in either state. Ms. Cary sings this song with a passion for life and love that touches the most tender place in even the most world-battered soul. There is "Nothing Like A Live Performance (Claiborne Cary) and there will never be anything quite like a live performance given by Claiborne Cary. It's so nice to have you back.
Reviewed on Friday, June 11, 1999 (Reprised on Thursday, August 5, 1999)
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At The Skylight Room at Danny's Grand Sea Palace, 346 West 46th Street. Showtimes: Thursdays (August 5, 12, 19 and 26) and Saturdays (August 7, 14, 21 and 28) in August at 9:00 p.m. The cover charge is $15.00 plus a $10.00 food/drink minimum. Call 212-265-8133 for Reservations.
WITH: David Berkman (musical director/pianist), Steve LaSpina (bass), Paul Murphy (guitar), and Michael Mecham (drums).
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