I once wrote that Sally
Kellerman walks like an anchovy. At Feinstein’s at the Regency, where she has
taken a leave of absence from the screen long enough to try out her first New
York nightclub act in 30 years, her curves, her sideways waddle and her sensual
body language are still intact. She has a lusty, suggestive way with both
lyrics and words, and from the way she oozes into her skintight pants, I’d
guess her California lifestyle prohibits the ingestion of any diet richer than
a plate of broccoli sprouts. Whatever she’s doing, it defies the passing of
time. (She’ll be 64 in June, and she hasn’t changed a bit since her giddy role
as “Hot Lips” in Robert Altman’s MASH
made the whole world drool back in 1970.) The lady is still, to put it bluntly,
a goddamn knockout. Oh, yes: The show is pretty terrific, too.
She calls it “More Than
You Know,” and that’s exactly what she means. Before she’s through, you may
even know more than you wanted to know. Undulating her way into the spotlight
with a belting version of Leiber and Stoller’s feminist anthem “I’m A Woman,”
she sets the stage with an abundance of energy, personality and charm that is
unflagging throughout. “I can be a tramp, a scamp, a sloe-eyed vamp … or just
plain old me,” she sings in the same mellow boy’s-choir baritone that punches
up her movie roles. But there’s nothing plain or old about this tomato. And
like the multiple personas in Sybil ,
it soon becomes obvious there’s more than one Sally Kellerman.
The show, which plays
through Feb. 8, is both a carefully tailored showcase for her unique talents
and a song cycle that celebrates the multitudinous facets of women, and with
her honed acting skills, she plays them all. Between songs like “Nobody Else
But Me” and “Younger Men Are Beginning to Catch My Eye,” she talks in a flaky,
Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness style (so casual you’d never suspect it was
scripted) about her days at Hollywood High; getting picked up by a young Marlon
Brando when she was waiting tables on the Sunset Strip; her first record
contract at 18; losing her virginity at 21; being a single mother in the
1970’s; her affairs; her therapy; her one true, long-lasting marriage to Mr.
Right at 39; the chaos of parenthood with three adopted children; and her
famous singing commercials and unmistakable voice-overs for Woolite, Volvo and
Hidden Valley Ranch dressing. If she leaves out anything that is killing you
with curiosity, just ask her. She talks incessantly to the audience, and when
nobody answers she just goes right on talking to herself.
The cumulative effect of
so much chumminess and candor lands the audience right in her curvaceous lap
and makes converts of the most jaded cynics. Although she’s waving a flag for
the distaff side, one of her funniest quips involves men. Women, she says, can
ask for directions, cry at the drop of a hat, muscle up in the workforce and
then take it out on their guys at the end of a bad day. Men, on the other hand,
always have to act like men, and then they end up with prostate problems. With
her flip humor, vulnerability, understanding, tenderness and wisdom about life
and people, she’s like a sexy nurse. Every depression clinic should have one.
But this is not just a
hip Hollywood comedy act. Under the superb musical direction of Michael Orland,
she illustrates her narrative with songs to fit the anecdotes, singing with so
much self-assurance and such a passion for music that she can switch
effortlessly in style and tempo from the raucous pop-rock of the Pointer
Sisters to the navy-blue jazz phrasing of Billie Holiday with the snap of a
finger. The centerpiece of her eclectic act is a long and comprehensive tribute
to lady songwriters whose disparate styles have influenced music through the
decades. Beginning with Helen Reddy, Annie Lennox and Bonnie Raitt, she moves
backward through time in a medley that fearlessly encompasses Laura Nyro and
Tammy Wynette, then Marilyn Bergman, Carolyn Leigh, Betty Comden and Peggy Lee,
all the way back to the turn of the century and Katherine Lee Bates’ beloved
“America the Beautiful.” This exhausting fireworks display ends with the Civil
War, Julia Ward Howe and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Doing what she loves and
loving what she’s doing, Sally Kellerman is a blast of West Coast vitamin C in
a dreary Manhattan flu season. You get your money’s worth-and at Regency
prices, that’s really saying something.
Comstock Headlines
After a healthy run in
the Off Broadway musical revue Our Sinatra , singer-pianist Eric Comstock has turned over his piano
bench to his equally talented colleague, Ronny Whyte, and is now making his
first solo appearance as a headliner at the Algonquin’s fabled Oak Room
(through Feb. 17). He’s grown so much as a performer and musician since the
days when he tickled the ivories in the piano-bar lounges of cabarets while
everyone waited for the main room to open that he can no longer be labeled one
of New York’s most promising newcomers. He is now the real thing.
He has a lifelong
dedication to the art of the American popular songbook, a joyous and witty
exuberance, and a scrubbed demeanor that makes him look like he’s wearing his
dad’s borrowed tux for a night on the town. But don’t be fooled. He’s a serious
and accomplished musician and a mellow baritone who demonstrates a craving for
standards by Kern, Hammerstein, Berlin, and Rodgers and Hart that belies his
years. He’s also developed into something of a rakish raconteur. At the
Algonquin, he tells some amusing stories about Cole Porter, who once attended a
party for Monty Woolley with the bearded lady from the Ringling Bros. and
Barnum & Bailey Circus on his arm and introduced her to everyone as Monty’s
sister. Then, on Mr. Porter’s familiar “Let’s Do It,” he’s added some new
lyrics about Dan Rather, Kevin Spacey, Sam Donaldson, Linda Chavez and John
Ashcroft that are both politically incorrect and completely endearing.
A number of the songs
featured in his new solo act are selections from his tuneful CD All Hart , but in addition to evergreens
like “My Heart Stood Still” and “Mountain Greenery” he’s come up with a
beautiful, undiscovered Lorenz Hart lyric, previously heard only in a
short-lived London show called Lido Lady
with an appropriately cynical title, “What’s the Use?,” that could serve as the
philosophy behind Larry Hart’s short, unhappy life. Some new piece of mischief,
“An Andrew Lloyd Webber Song,” is a cruel and accurate attack on schmaltz, with
some of the funniest lyrics I’ve heard on a cabaret stage this season. From
Duke Ellington to Oscar Brown Jr., the songwriters Mr. Comstock favors are
first-rate, and he honors them all with verve, polish, sound intonation and a
playful way of tweaking lyrics.
His lovely reading of
“This Moment,” a song by John Wallowitch that Dixie Carter used to sing, loses
some of the boyish pep and reflects the stages that build a man, and my
personal highlight of his act is the poignant way he turns “Never Gonna Dance,”
the classic movie tune Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields wrote for Fred Astaire,
into a three-act play. This is the kind of evening in which blasé New Yorkers
used to revel. Now it is all too rare. Eric Comstock is keeping a cherished
tradition-sophisticated songs in a soigné
setting-alive and ready for a new generation. The justified recognition and
deserved applause he’s finally getting are long overdue.
I Got You, Babycakes
More tips: Pete ‘N’ Keely , which snuck in during
the Christmas break, is a late-holiday stocking stuffer at the John Houseman
Theater on West 42nd Street that has Broadway insiders cheering. Cleverly
directed by Mark Waldrop, the Wunderkind
behind the riotous When Pigs Fly , and
satirically written by James ( A Christmas
Survival Guide ) Hindman, the show is about an ab-fab singing team (more
Steve and Eydie than Sonny and Cher), divorced but reunited for one of those
overstuffed TV variety specials in 1968 that used to be hosted by Ed Sullivan
and sponsored by Studebakers and cheese dip.
Adorable Sally Mayes and
camera-ready Rock Hudson clone George Dvorsky are the zoned-out,
over-stimulated stars who are in on the joke and milk the gags for
all they’re worth. Bob Mackie has designed a dazzling array of costumes for
them that reflect the flared bell bottoms and sequins of late-60’s fashions
with humor and panache. As Pete and Keely try to hide their mutual hatred and
bare their caps in frozen smiles, the show takes the audience on a nostalgic
tour of their career that includes a hilarious recap of their one flop Broadway
show, a spoof of Antony and Cleopatra
called Tony and Cleo , and a
flag-waving national tour comprising a medley of 50 songs, one for every
state in the union.
The plot evaporates
faster than the fizz in a glass of Dr. Pepper, but Ms. Mayes and Mr. Dvorsky
will make you surrender unconditionally when they do what they do best, which
is sing, sing and sing some more. She knocks your snow boots off with a hot
arrangement of “Black Coffee,” he stops the show with a hip-swirling “Fever,”
and a big, tongue-in-cheek production of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”
looks like one of those Fourth of July extravaganzas at Disneyland and has to
be seen to be believed. A magnet for celebrities (Mary Tyler Moore, Bette
Midler and Reba McEntire were there on the same night), Pete ‘N’ Keely is Broadway in a bottle-the brightest, happiest and
most entertaining little show in town.
