If you loved Gilda Radner, have I got a show for you!  It’s Francesca Amari saluting the woman she continues to admire. It’s not a “greatest hits” show, since Radner was not a singer.  Rather, it’s a biography of the Saturday Night Live comedienne who created such characters as Lisa Loopner, Emily Litella, Judy Miller, Baba Wawa and Roseann Roseannadanna.  Amari did brief imitations of each one, just to remind the audience how they sounded, but she does not try to become Radner, nor to reproduce her sound, but simply to tell her story.

Amari looks a lot like Radner, though that isn’t particularly important.  What is important is the truth and sincerity in her singing, the earnest way she delivers a lyric and the honesty of her feelings that comes through again and again — particularly on “Bring on the Rain” (Billy Montana/Helen Darling), a ballad of defiance sung with tremendous power by Amari at the point in Radner’s life when she began her battle with ovarian cancer.

Significantly, despite knowing how Radner’s life ended, the show is never maudlin.  Amari keeps the tone light and bubbly and humorous and uplifting, much as Radner did, even in her darkest days.

Amari sets the evening in motion with “You Make Me Laugh” — written by her Musical Director, Shelly Markham, and Tom Toce years ago —to express the joy Radner created, then reprises the song late in the show as a poignant commentary on the star’s personal struggles. But the show is mostly fun and upbeat, with Amari noting that Radner was named for the title character in the movie Gilda, which featured “Put the Blame on Mame” (Doris Fisher/Allan Roberts) — sung in a sweeter, more innocent way by Amari than the sexy way Rita Hayworth sang it in the movie.

Amari also recalled an appearance Radner made on The Muppet Show, where she did a dance routine to “Tap Your Troubles Away” (Jerry Herman, from Mack and Mabel).  As she talks, Amari dons tap shoes and then sings and taps.  She did well for a novice, but made fun of the moment at her own expense, telling the audience, “At one point I decided, why?  Why should I practice?”

Along the way Amari sang a lovely version of “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” (James Hanley), in an arrangment by Markham that allowed her to vary the tempo and mood of the song as it progressed; an evocative “Times Like This” (Lynn Ahrens/Stephen Flaherty from Lucky Stiff) about Radner’s love for her dog, Sparkle; and a pretty version of “Two for the Road” (Henry Mancini/Leslie Bricusse), reflecting Radner’s love for husband Gene Wilder.

Amari ended the show with a lovely “Pure Imagination” (Leslie Bricusse/Anthony Newley) from the movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, in which Wilder starred.  But she brought the mood back up with her encore, the very funny “Let’s Talk Dirty to the Animals” (Michael O’Donoghue) from Gilda Live, Radner’s one-woman Broadway show.

Amari’s show comes with a very high pedigree:  Andrea Marcovicci as creative consultant; Clifford Bell as Marcovicci’s self-described “co-pilot”; Markham as Musical Director; and Shelly Goldstein as author of some special material.  Amari said she plans to donate proceeds from this show, as she tours it, to various cancer groups around the country.

Elliot Zwiebach
Cabaret Scenes
April 9, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org