All For You: Kate Baldwin & Aaron Lazar
Kate Baldwin and Aaron Lazar are two of the most attractive artists in musical theater today. They also have two of the most splendid voices. The American Pops Orchestra helmed by Luke Frazier is an excellent ensemble. Arrangements are appealing. Baldwin and Lazar have, they reflect, worked together once every ten years. This show is meant to break waiting time. The two clearly appreciate one another. You would think these components would be a recipe for success.
In fact, the two performers- this show, is sorely in need of a director and perhaps a writer. After making sure we know their resumes, the pair gives us sloppy, oddly disparaging Cliff Note synopses of every musical from which they’ve drawn songs, in my opinion, unnecessary for a New York audience. Patter is so loosey goosey it’s awkward.
Having shared the stage in The Bridges of Madison Country (Jason Robert Brown) one might think inhabiting those characters for a couple of songs would come easily. Instead the vocalists deliver perfect empty performances neither acting a situation nor relating to one another. Only when across the room do the two sympathetically align. Otherwise, it seems an afterthought. Nor do Baldwin and Lazar involve themselves with the audience. Like many theater thespians, they look out, even turn, but never connect, never look into eyes sharing experience- the essence of good cabaret.
Baldwin (having starred in Finian’s Rainbow– in which I liked her) lends her longlined, silken voice to “Old Devil Moon” (Burton Lane/Yip Harburg) without enchantment or heat. “Could I Leave You?” (Follies by Stephen Sondheim) comes off way too nice girl to embody signature bitterness. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein) is missing signature courage- and focus. Only “Always Better” (from Bridges) unquestionably lands.
Lazar has a room full of women leaning into superb tenor love songs and leaves them ultimately untouched. “If Ever I Would Leave You” (Camelot by Alan Jay Lerner/Frederick Loewe) arrives without sincerity. Imagine the effect of “Il Mondo”- in Italian (from his role in Light in the Piazza by Adam Guettel -in which he shone) if he looked to the women before him for empathy with suffering. “Finishing the Hat” (Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim) shows no signs of obsession.
“A Little Priest” (Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim) is the most blatant example of need for direction. Gestures are vague. Neither artist projects the wicked glee of innate Grand Guignol.
A frustrating and disappointing show, if a pleasure for the ears.
Photo Courtesy of 54Below
All For You: Kate Baldwin & Aaron Lazar
MD- Luke Frazier
The American Pops Orchestra
54Below 254 West 54th Street
Also July 21 & 23
