Betty Buckley’s touring show integrates the performer’s split personalities: the consummate Broadway diva and the eclectic jazz/pop chanteuse. The voice is older, more worn, the range narrower, but Buckley still weaves a web of magic threads with her great poise and stage presence. Add in some very cute personal stories and some non-Broadway gems, and you have a very fine evening of song.

By her third number, Avenue Q’s “There’s a Fine, Fine Line,” Buckley had settled into her rhythm— beautifully expressive ballads sung softly in a fragile and delicate alto. Ray Noble’s “The Very Thought of You,” the Oscar Levant/Edward Heyman standard “Blame It on My Youth” and “I’ve Been Here Before”  from the Maltby-Shire revue Closer Than Ever,  demonstrate a great stylist with the wisdom and experience to individualize her material and move the audience deeply.

She pays homage to friend Elaine Stritch by singing the wry “I Never Know When to Say When” from 1958’s Goldilocks and performs a lovely medley of “We Kiss in a Shadow”/”I Have Dreamed” both from The King & I. A highlight of the evening was her stunning rendition of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s paean to disappearing small towns, “I Am a Town,” where Buckley flashes the brilliance of her storytelling.

Closing with the oft over-the-top “Home” from The Wiz, Buckley’s wise and measured version centers on the deeply felt lyric and refused the big finish. Her encore of Billy Joel’s bittersweet “And So It Goes” put an exclamation point on an evening with a true American musical treasure.

Steve Murray
Cabaret Scenes
May 3, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org