Think of a Broadway show shrunk down to cabaret size with a tiny room and a corner stage. Think of Broadway in 1959, a year when you could see almost two dozen musicals including West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Flower Drum Song, and Take Me Along. Journeying back, Jeff Harnar’s 1959 Broadway Songbook at 59E59 Holiday E Cafe is an evening of flair, taste, and immaculate organization of smart patter and timeless tunes.

Jeff Harnar has a special affinity for 1959. Besides the musicals that gave him landmark songs, the hula hoop, Barbie doll, and the Etch-A-Sketch, 1959 was the year he was born. What a hook for a cabaret show! With a few crisp and witty remarks, Harnar introduces the “Overture” by pianist David Gaines, and then it is curtain up for his two sidekicks, Klea Blackhurst and Anna Bergman — “Together, Wherever We Go.” (Gypsy).

You’ve got the essentials: the versatile baritone, the comic belter, and the soprano. These three talents, however, show they can step into each other’s shoes with no pinching or squeezing. Harnar has a secure rangy voice with a falsetto that he tosses in for variety. He is also a poised, amusing commentator with a sly sense of humor. He and pianist Gaines look back at the vaudeville days with their segment from Fiorello!, including a little soft-shoe to “Little Tin Box.” Blackhurst is best known for belting the Merman songs and she proves it, wringing out all the humorous references from “Shy” (Once Upon A Mattress), and also affecting with a melancholy, “The Party’s Over” (Bells Are Ringing).

Soprano Anna Bergman’s singular moments include a softly moving “I Say Hello” (Destry Rides Again) and, “Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair?” (Billy Barnes Revue). She joins Blackhurst in a good-humored doo-wop backup for Harnar’s “Intermission” hit song of the year, “A Summer Place.” The three blend harmonically for “’Till There Was You” (The Music Man) and “’Til Tomorrow” from Fiorello!.

With director Sara Louise Lazarus and musical supervisor/arranger, Alex Rybeck, Harnar used the familiar theme of falling in love to fit into the musical comedy format of “Overture,” “Intermission,” “Entr’acte” and “Curtain Call.” The performers have solo songs to sing, and they interweave song clips. The pacing is light-hearted and fluent.

Jeff Harnar first did a solo version of this show in 1991 at the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room. Back then, it was a big show in a little room, and it works even better today. Broadway did not shrink to cabaret size. Cabaret expanded to welcome a spirited and tuneful songbook of one year on the Great White Way.

Jeff Harnar’s The 1959 Broadway Songbook runs from December 3 to 12.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
December 3, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org