Connie Champagne has been channeling la Garland for quite some time now, mining the Great One’s fan base for a consistent career that delights in its technical skill and charm. It’s not often you see a woman play this illusion and Connie performs it with a natural zeal that wins you over with Garland’s great big bag of smash hits. Yes you get the really big numbers like the opening medley of "You Made Me Love You/For Me and My Gal/The Boy Next Door/Trolley Song/Get Happy," "Born In A Trunk," and "San Francisco."  Connie’s Judy is the late 1950s, when the voice is lighter, cleaner and higher, not the huskier, vibrato laden '60s Judy where we all rooted for her just to make it through a big number.

What I like about this show is the incredibly smart song selection, worked out between Champagne and director Allen Sawyer. It can get darn exhausting listening to one big Judy number after another, but Encore Judy has elevated a tribute show to a fresh, compelling look at what Judy might have done has she not met an untimely demise. The show features rock numbers from Aerosmith ("Dream On"), Queen (a deliciously funny "Bohemian Rhapsody") to a perfectly suited version of Amy Winehouse’s sardonic "Rehab." I kept thinking to myself – yes, Judy would definitely have sung these songs and well, that’s the point of this show. We’re treated to  a lovely "All I Wanted Was the Dream" written by Peter Allen (Judy’s son-in-law) for the show The Boy from Oz , a lighthearted medley of Oz songs ("Tin Man," "Be A Lion" and “Scarecrow’s Lament") from The Wiz, as well as the signature song “Defying Gravity" from Wicked. You just know the self-deprecating Judy would’ve loved poking fun at herself with this material.

Act 2 contains the most amazing of this ‘newfound’ Judy repertoire: the haunting "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from Sunset Boulevard (a role Judy might have played), the poignant "Another Winter in a Summer Town” from Grey Gardens, Stephen Sondheim’s "Being Alive" and the powerful “I Am Changing” from Dreamgirls. Remarking on Rufus Wainwright’s recent revival of Judy’s famous Carnegie Hall concerts, Connie launches into his witty “Oh What a World" and “I Don’t Know What It Is" sung with the earnestness of a old legend admiring modern hipness. An over-the-top"‘Wig in a Box" from the underground sensation Hedwig and the Angry Inch had the audience singing along. The show returned to Garland roots with the quintessential closer “Over the Rainbow." 

Encore Judy Garland rises high above illusion. You get not only the essence of Garland, but a new, thoughtful perspective. The lost years since June 1969 dissipate in an evening of clever, expertly delivered entertainment. Well conceived, wonderfully delivered and thankfully received.

Steve Murray
Cabaret Scenes
march 28, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org