4. Review of THE GIRL I
LEFT BEHIND ME (May 9, 2013)
Ms. Walker, a slim, petite blonde,
with delicate features and a boyish haircut, wears white tie and tails to take
us through her biographical introduction to the backgrounds and songs of Vesta
Tilley (the most famous name), Hetty King, Annie Hindle, Ella Wesner, Ella
Shields, and Gladys Bentley. She sings in a pure soprano, altering her tone for
different songs and periods, but always keeps to something that sounds very much
like what audiences must have heard when the songs were current. In other
words, the arrangements and Ms. Walker’s interpretations seem close to the
originals, but she nevertheless invests each number with deep feeling and
intelligence. Ms. Walker talks of male impersonators who were so much like men
that audiences were confused about their true identities. The goal, she says,
was illusion. But in her own case, there is no illusion at all. She is a
makeup-wearing woman dressed in man’s clothes, and there is no ambiguity at all
about her gender.
The ambiance in the tiny Theatre C
on the third floor differs markedly from that at the York. The audience sits at
small cabaret tables facing a postage stamp-size platform with a piano, a hat
rack filled with different hats that come into use in the performance, and a half-curtain
that, when opened, displays the words of an old song, “Down by the Old Mill
Stream,” which the audience is asked to join in for a sing-along. By the way,
this is not the popular song of the same title that goes, “Down by the old mill
stream, where I first met you.” The tune and lyrics are quite different, except
for the line “down by the old mill stream.” The sixteen songs in the show, the
oldest from as early as the 1870s, and the youngest from 1924, include such
long-forgotten tunes as “I’m the Idol of the Girls,” “I Love the Ladies,” “Angels
without Wings,” “Don’t Put Your Foot on a Man When He’s Down,” “I’ve Got the
Time, I’ve Got the Place,” and the song that gives the show its title. More
familiar are “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” (1919) and that gay 90s
blockbuster “After the Ball” (1892). There are also two operatic arias, one
from Mozart’s MARRIAGE OF FIGARO sung by Cherubino, the other from Strauss’s
DER ROSENKAVALIER sung by Octavian. The arias aside, I wonder whether everyone
will appreciate a single soprano singing so many of these dated ditties, some
of which begin to blend into each other as the show progresses.
I found Ms. Walker far more
congenial company than Mr. Nadler because she performs with much greater ease
and comfort and never seems to be straining. On the other hand, the show, even
at 70 minutes (without an intermission), does eventually flirt with boredom.
There are a few innuendo-laden chuckles embedded in the fairly extensive
narrative patter, as might be expected from a show focused on cross-dressing
women, but the effect is of rather straightforward history, lightened by the
musical underscoring and the many songs yet never quite losing its mildly
didactic tone.
A side note: yesterday when I participated
in the reception for Drama Desk Awards nominees at the JW Marriott Essex House,
I met and chatted with many of the nominees. One of them was Tim Minchin, the
British-born, Australian-raised writer of the music and lyrics for Broadway’s
newest blockbuster, MATILDA. Tim was at 59E59 tonight, seeing BULL, and it was
fun to run into him again so soon after just having met him. At 37, this guy,
who is also a performer, has a phenomenal career ahead of him. And he seems to
be a pretty decent bloke to boot.
