"Tribute shows are usually done after someone passes away,” offers Jillian Laurain, after singing an opening medley of five classic Barbra Streisand songs. “I wanted to do this show before I was gone.” And as the full house at the Laurie Beechman responds with hearty and knowing laughs, the bemused yet contented look on Laurain’s face tells you that she’s really wanted to do this show all her life. It turns out that it was worth the wait, for both her and the audience.

Taking on the Streisand songbook not only requires talent, it takes humor, emotion and, most of all, chutzpah, all of which Laurain displayed in spades during her one-performance-only show. It’s hard not to relate to and pull for an entertainer paying passionate tribute to her musical muse, especially when that hero is one of the greatest singers to ever grace a stage or screen. But talk about a tightrope walk! Too much stylistic interpretation and you run the risk of turning off an audience intimately familiar with the material and the sound. Too much homage and you fall into a morass of mimicry.

But Jillian Laurain brings too many years of experience in opera and cabaret singing to step on those tribute show landmines. Throughout her 19-song set (plus the opening medley, which began perfectly with “Look at That Face” from Roar of the Greasepaint… and ended with “I’m the Greatest Star” from Funny Girl), Laurain was touchingly reverential but always stayed true to her own powerful and technically proficient voice (with the exception of the obligatory Streisand-esque “Hello, Gorgeous” greeting at the end of the medley). Looking lovely in black from neck to toe, including a classily feminine tuxedo jacket, Laurain launched into a musical Babs biography, delivering those dreamy ballads from Streisand’s early albums and television specials. Though a little tentative on “Where’s That Rainbow?” (Rodgers/Hart), she started hitting her stride on “C’est Si Bon,” “How Does the Wine Taste?” and Harold Arlen/Truman Capote’s “A Sleepin’ Bee,” in between totally nailing the memorably manic “Minute Waltz” (from Color Me Barbra).

If the midpoint of the set had a theme, it wasn’t about the choice of songs or a particular period of Streisand’s career. It was more about Jillian expressing her deeply personal adult life journey through emotionally charged songs such as “He Touched Me” (Milton Schafer/Ira Levin) from the My Name Is Barbra, Two album, a lovely “unplugged” version of “Why Did I Choose You?” featuring Sean Harkness on guitar, and “Free Again,” from the Je m’appelle, Barbra album.

The mood lightened up considerably on Jillian’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” and “Guilty” medley, with the charming Harkness serving the Neil Diamond and Barry Gibb roles for the famous duets. Not only did Harkness hold his own in the singing department, his jazzy guitar licks throughout the show provided a Nat King Cole trio-like sound to the festivities. The ubiquitous Musical Director/pianist Barry Levitt led a tight quartet—including David Dunaway on bass and Howie Gordon on drums—that perfectly complemented Laurain’s compelling vocal instrument.

At this point in the show, there were only a few minor kinks in what was otherwise a seamless show. While Laurain displayed a gift for ad-libbing and a breezy banter with Levitt, her between-songs script was a tad uneven and a bit long on the familiar Streisand anecdotes. She also seemed to prefer the security of the piano crook on songs that would have been even more powerful had she worked the stage and brought in the audience. No doubt that another performance of this show down the road will smooth out the minor flaws.

The final third of the set fittingly focused on Streisand’s greatest movie hits and the order of the songs was almost operatic in structure. The sequence began with Laurain’s evocative “Evergreen” (from A Star Is Born) and transitioned into a wistful “The Way We Were” before reaching a crescendo with the classic Funny Girl songs: “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “People,” and “My Man.” There was only one more place for this daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants to go, and when she soared on “A Piece of Sky,” from Yentl, it wasn’t just Jillian Laurain that was flying, but her entire audience.

Stephen Hanks
Cabaret Scenes
April 9, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org