Review: Lerner-Loewe, with Tulsa touch

Review: Lerner-Loewe, with Tulsa touch
By JAMES D. WATTS JR. World Scene Writer
2/19/2007

One of Barry Epperley's ambitions for the orchestra now known as the Signature Symphony at Tulsa Community College was to celebrate and showcase local talents.

That ambition was well-served Friday night at the VanTrease Performing Arts Center for Education as the orchestra presented its first of two concerts of music by the team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

The "all-Tulsa" show drew soloists from the TCC Concert Choir as well as from the Signature Chorale, the vocal ensemble affiliated with the orchestra.

It was also -- for a pops concert by the Signature Symphony -- a fairly low-keyed affair: no narration to put the music in any sort of historical context, and Lisa Stefanic's simple and direct staging of each number.

Perhaps that's because the music of Lerner and Loewe doesn't need to be gussied up to be entertaining. As for context, they are a bit like the mythical town of their first hit, "Brigadoon," which appears once a century. They are within the history of American musical theater, but not quite of it.

The songs that composer Loewe and lyricist Lerner wrote during their relatively brief partnership are unique in how they marry the lilt and lightness of Viennese operetta to words that are at once conversational and poetic.

Of all the icons of American musical theater, Lerner and Loewe are easily the most European. That's why the faux rusticness of "Paint Your Wagon" -- their only show with American subject matter -- never sounds quite natural (the way Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" does, for example).

The Signature Symphony played a lot of "Paint Your Wagon" -- six selections, including "I Talk to the Trees," "They Call the Wind Maria" and "I'm On My Way," to name the best-known tunes.

The best of these was "They Call the Wind Maria," which featured the TCC student Garrett Lawson, who sang with great feeling and authority; Jordan Cox's performance of "Another Autumn"; and the wistfulness that Joe Simmons and Carrie Eben brought to "I Talk to the Trees."

"Camelot," the duo's final success, was represented by three songs. Paul Mabrey sang the title song as he wandered through the audience, and he joined Sherry Kennedy on stage for "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" Nick Perez gave an impassioned performance of "If Ever I Should Leave You," and did excellent jobs with some of the other romantic standards by Lerner and Loewe, including "Come to Me, Bend to Me" from "Brigadoon" and "On the Street Where You Live" from "My Fair Lady."

One could make a case for this concert being "An Evening with Paul Mabrey," as he also sang the majority of the tunes from "Gigi," adopting a suave tone and a slightly cartoonish French accent that is perhaps necessary to defuse the inherent creepiness of "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." But the accent was less necessary for "Gigi" and "I Remember It Well," the latter of which was a duet with Cynthia Mabrey.

Mabrey also did a fine job with "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" from "My Fair Lady." Lerner and Loewe's masterpiece, it was properly represented by 10 numbers. Eben did a fine job with "Wouldn't It Be Loverly," Sue Wilson gave an operatic turn to "I Could Have Danced All Night" and Marla Patterson (with some assistance from Perez) turned "Show Me" into a knockabout comic number.

Epperley and the orchestra opened with a "Lerner and Loewe Overture" that was a bit like the CliffsNotes for the show, quoting just about every standard by the two. Throughout the evening the orchestra played with great energy and more than a little finesse.

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James D. Watts Jr. 581-8478
james.watts@tulsaworld.com