If you spotted a glow in the evening sky over way-West 42nd Street, it may have been emanating from the audience at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Their reason: the room’s evening of musical pleasure titled I Wish It So, featuring two top-flight professionals: Barbara Porteus, a lovely, theater-trained soprano, and Barry Levitt, pianist, musical director and all-around man of music.

Barbara Porteus is a warm, bright-spirited performer, whose clear-as-a-bell singing is a comparatively recent addition to the cabaret scene. Having played leads in professional theater productions, she illuminates her songs with the character and meaning that those shows’ original roles required, at the same time delivering her numbers with the intimacy and direct-to-the-audience spirit of cabaret. And, when a song called for it, she was not above bouncing a note effortlessly off the room’s far wall.

The show’s selections, smoothly assembled around the theme of “wishing,” were a mixture of the familiar and the new. Included were numbers by Rodgers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kander & Ebb, Frank Loesser, and Harline & Washington. If the latter pair is unfamiliar, they’re the duo who wrote “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which Barry sang warmly as a solo. Cabaret songwriters represented were the team of Barry and the evening’s excellent director, Peter Napolitano, with their songs “Looking” and “Be Careful What You Wish For,” plus the versatile Ray Jessel, composer/lyricist of the evening’s sweet finale, “If a Wish.”

Barbara & Barry bring this show to Feinstein's at Loews Regency July 10 & 24.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
May 25, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org