Well-known in cabaret circles as the former booking manager at The Duplex, and now filling that capacity at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, Phil Geoffrey Bond’s one-man performance at the Laurie Beechman Theatre revealed some of the other occasionally displayed facets of his persona: playwright, director and actor.

Subtitled “How I Learned to Drink Fast,” My Roaring Twenties was a mostly jocular but occasionally serious biography of Bond’s early adult years in New York and equally of the city and city life itself.  From his youthful arrival in the Big Apple, eager to become one of its Bohemian denizens, through his days as an assistant producer for Disney’s musical theater ventures and his periodic brushes with celebrities — Edward Albee, Carol Burnett, Eli Wallach and others — his tales exude an endearing warmth and charm.

The reminiscences are intriguingly enhanced with concurrent multi-media photo displays and incidental music, and are collected into small chapters.  As he describes his initial bar-hopping with a friend, he notes, “We are pretentious, but we don’t yet realize it.” His shortest segment is titled “Dating Celebrities.”  It consists of one word: “Don’t.”

Five music stands are positioned on the otherwise bare stage.  As Bond concludes an episode, he establishes a change of time or place by leaving one stand and taking up the narrative at another.  The audience – most of whom nostalgically recall their own youthful gaffes and achievements – responds appreciatively The program, however, also touches deeper and sadder emotions with Bond’s description of the September 11^th attack on the World Trade Center.  He recounts the event and his trek uptown through an almost totally-deserted Times Square, as the stage’s twin screens show photographs of the scrawled notes written by desperate people searching for family and friends, stuck on downtown walls.

Before closing the performance, Bond graciously returns to lighter fare, visiting again some maturing moments.  Finally, as Bond notes, “Peter Pan has awakened to find himself in New York City.”  Bond’s My Roaring Twenties is a small treasure: sweet, sentimental and satisfying.

Joey Pier was the technical hand on lights, sound and the projections were orchestrated by Dallas Belk.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
October 22, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org