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WHAT MAKES A MAN: A REVUE OF CHARLES AZNAVOUR THAT'S OUT OF FOCUS
The Globe and Mail, Canada
Oct 10 2014
J. Kelly Nestruck
What Makes a Man is Charles Aznavour as you've never heard or seen
him before.
Those uncertain the French-Armenian chansonnier needed reinvention,
however, will be left unconvinced by this poorly focused show that
makes you yearn for the original's vibrato and bravado.
Director Jennifer Tarver and musical director Justin Ellington have
fashioned a revue out of a couple dozen of songs from Aznavour's
melancholic catalogue - from well-known world hits like La Bohème
and Take Me Along (Emmenez-Moi), to lesser known tunes like The Times
We've Known (Les Bon Moments) and Take the Chorus (Prends le Chorus).
We're firmly in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris
territory here. As with that long-running off-Broadway revue,
two men and two women sing songs in English translation - and act
them as fiercely as they croon them. (Andrew Shaver has provided
new translations for several songs - but they are mostly ones the
multilingual, international singer has used himself.)
Aznavour's gravelly tenor is iconic, and the way he spins out long
lyrical lines like he's auctioneering battered hearts and broken
dreams is inimitable. No one tries to copycat here, thankfully.
After the six-member band plays an overture, Kenny Brawner, a
jazz-funk bandleader, is the first interpreter to take the stage
(a set of steps in black and blue designed by Teresa Przybylski).
Brawner, known for his Ray Charles tribute act in New York, sits down
behind his keyboard and breaks into an enjoyably bluesy rendition
of Yesterday When I was Young (Hier Encore) - sometimes speaking
the lyrics, sometimes singing them: "The thousand dreams I dreamed,
the splendid things I planned, I always built, alas, on weak and
shifting sand."
>From the sands of time behind him, three other singers emerge. Andrew
Penner plays an eager young country-inflected busker, his hat on the
ground, his suitcase his drum.
Saidah Baba Talibah, who gives her songs a jagged, gospel flavour,
plays an angelic youngster at first - but later delves into more
devilish territory.
And then there's Louise Pitre, the Tony nominee dressed here in
an androgynous outfit, all vehemence and barely suppressed anger,
throwing in the occasional line in the original French.
Are these four performers, moodily moving about, meant to represent
different parts of the same personality? Are we looking at four
separate lives? Or are we simply watching four performers in the
theatre, here and now?
In her program note, Tarver - Necessary Angel's new artistic director
and better known for her meticulous work on plays by Samuel Beckett
and Harold Pinter - suggests that even she is not quite sure what she
has created. Originally, she wanted to paint a picture of Aznavour's
divided self - poet, lover, performer and survivor. But now she writes,
"the lens of the performer has become the central focal point for
the story."
When your lens is also your focal point, it's going to be hard to see
what's right in front of you. And What Makes a Man is ultimately not
much more than a cabaret/concert - and taken on that unpretentious
level it has its charms.
There are stories within the songs to latch onto. The title of the show
comes from a sensitive one written by Aznavour about a gay man in a
time when that would have been risque; What Makes a Man is sung here
by Penner and anchors a night otherwise ever-shifting in its sexual
point of view. "So many times we have to pay for having fun and being
gay," he sings, sensitively. But, though the song was progressive in
its time, Aznavour's lyrics about a man with a passion for sewing who
lives with his mother and cats now seem out of tune with the times, and
with no attempts to contextualize them by Tarver, Penner's rendition -
like much of the evening - seems painfully earnest.
Aznavour's performances were full of theatrical flourishes and winks
when he was young - on YouTube, you'll still find the youthful singer
performing a pirouette all the way off stage at the Olympia music
hall in Paris at the end of Emmenez-moi.
There's still something in his more contained performances today - at
90, he continues to tour, though he was hospitalized for an infection
on Friday - that suggests he is both serious and unserious at the
same time, a Gallic quality that tempers potential sentimentality.
Brawner captures that spirit of Aznavour best, letting out a knowing
smile that shows he's aware he's being a bit much.
Stuck off in a corner, the band occasionally overpowers the singers
in this acoustic nightmare that is Berkeley Street Theatre. Speakers
hanging high above the singers try to compensate for this, but
it undercuts the intimacy of their performances. There's a lot of
disconnect - in language, style, time and sound - in What Makes a Man.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/theatre-reviews/what-makes-a-man-a-revue-of-charles-aznavour-thats-out-of-focus/article21049103/
The Globe and Mail, Canada
Oct 10 2014
J. Kelly Nestruck
What Makes a Man is Charles Aznavour as you've never heard or seen
him before.
Those uncertain the French-Armenian chansonnier needed reinvention,
however, will be left unconvinced by this poorly focused show that
makes you yearn for the original's vibrato and bravado.
Director Jennifer Tarver and musical director Justin Ellington have
fashioned a revue out of a couple dozen of songs from Aznavour's
melancholic catalogue - from well-known world hits like La Bohème
and Take Me Along (Emmenez-Moi), to lesser known tunes like The Times
We've Known (Les Bon Moments) and Take the Chorus (Prends le Chorus).
We're firmly in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris
territory here. As with that long-running off-Broadway revue,
two men and two women sing songs in English translation - and act
them as fiercely as they croon them. (Andrew Shaver has provided
new translations for several songs - but they are mostly ones the
multilingual, international singer has used himself.)
Aznavour's gravelly tenor is iconic, and the way he spins out long
lyrical lines like he's auctioneering battered hearts and broken
dreams is inimitable. No one tries to copycat here, thankfully.
After the six-member band plays an overture, Kenny Brawner, a
jazz-funk bandleader, is the first interpreter to take the stage
(a set of steps in black and blue designed by Teresa Przybylski).
Brawner, known for his Ray Charles tribute act in New York, sits down
behind his keyboard and breaks into an enjoyably bluesy rendition
of Yesterday When I was Young (Hier Encore) - sometimes speaking
the lyrics, sometimes singing them: "The thousand dreams I dreamed,
the splendid things I planned, I always built, alas, on weak and
shifting sand."
>From the sands of time behind him, three other singers emerge. Andrew
Penner plays an eager young country-inflected busker, his hat on the
ground, his suitcase his drum.
Saidah Baba Talibah, who gives her songs a jagged, gospel flavour,
plays an angelic youngster at first - but later delves into more
devilish territory.
And then there's Louise Pitre, the Tony nominee dressed here in
an androgynous outfit, all vehemence and barely suppressed anger,
throwing in the occasional line in the original French.
Are these four performers, moodily moving about, meant to represent
different parts of the same personality? Are we looking at four
separate lives? Or are we simply watching four performers in the
theatre, here and now?
In her program note, Tarver - Necessary Angel's new artistic director
and better known for her meticulous work on plays by Samuel Beckett
and Harold Pinter - suggests that even she is not quite sure what she
has created. Originally, she wanted to paint a picture of Aznavour's
divided self - poet, lover, performer and survivor. But now she writes,
"the lens of the performer has become the central focal point for
the story."
When your lens is also your focal point, it's going to be hard to see
what's right in front of you. And What Makes a Man is ultimately not
much more than a cabaret/concert - and taken on that unpretentious
level it has its charms.
There are stories within the songs to latch onto. The title of the show
comes from a sensitive one written by Aznavour about a gay man in a
time when that would have been risque; What Makes a Man is sung here
by Penner and anchors a night otherwise ever-shifting in its sexual
point of view. "So many times we have to pay for having fun and being
gay," he sings, sensitively. But, though the song was progressive in
its time, Aznavour's lyrics about a man with a passion for sewing who
lives with his mother and cats now seem out of tune with the times, and
with no attempts to contextualize them by Tarver, Penner's rendition -
like much of the evening - seems painfully earnest.
Aznavour's performances were full of theatrical flourishes and winks
when he was young - on YouTube, you'll still find the youthful singer
performing a pirouette all the way off stage at the Olympia music
hall in Paris at the end of Emmenez-moi.
There's still something in his more contained performances today - at
90, he continues to tour, though he was hospitalized for an infection
on Friday - that suggests he is both serious and unserious at the
same time, a Gallic quality that tempers potential sentimentality.
Brawner captures that spirit of Aznavour best, letting out a knowing
smile that shows he's aware he's being a bit much.
Stuck off in a corner, the band occasionally overpowers the singers
in this acoustic nightmare that is Berkeley Street Theatre. Speakers
hanging high above the singers try to compensate for this, but
it undercuts the intimacy of their performances. There's a lot of
disconnect - in language, style, time and sound - in What Makes a Man.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/theatre-reviews/what-makes-a-man-a-revue-of-charles-aznavour-thats-out-of-focus/article21049103/