Opening her concert Songs for the Theater: The Next Generation as part of the Barbara Cook’s Spotlight series at the Kennedy Center, Rebecca Luker discussed her affiliation with emerging works for the musical theater and her decision to do an entire evening of them.  “I became fascinated and hopelessly smitten with these new songs.”

The evening concentrated on songwriters such as Joesph Thalkin (also her music director), Jeff Blumenkrantz, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Steve Marzullo – names hardly known outside of some very specific theater and cabaret circles.

An evening presenting this kind of material involves commitment and work from both the performer and audience.  Luker scored especially strongly on material that allowed her to tell a fairly direct story – especially Blumenkrantz and Beth Blatt’s “Lovely Lies,” a poignant mother/daughter exchange, and “He Never Did That Before” (Debra Barsha and Mark Campbell), with a clear journey of post-coital elation turning into relationship doubts.  The Goldrich/Heisler numbers “Out of Love” and “The Last Song” once again proved their great audience appeal.

Interestingly, Luker’s greatest strengths – the utter magnificence of her voice and her terrific skills as an actress occasionally worked against her.  On some of the more abstract songs it was easy to get distracted by them and lost in the shear beauty of her singing.  And her skill at moving from character to character in her songs made one feel that one was watching excerpts from various workshops instead of the cohesive statement of a single artist.  But the warmth of Luker’s connecting remarks and her warm stage presence always brought the audience back to her.

This sort of music brings two distinct challenges to a music director.  Richard Thalkin superbly handled the musical virtuosity required to play this material, reducing complex musical ideas to an audience-friendly single-piano backing for Luker.  However, the music direction never provided arrangements that felt like signature arrangements specifically-tailored for the artist.

As I was leaving, I overheard an audience member say, “I loved her.  Some of the songs, I didn’t understand them.”

Michael Miyazaki
Cabaret Scenes
November 8, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org