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Always: the Love Stories of Irving Berlin
Reviews
The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin
Nadler, Sullivan Provide Energetic Performances In 'Always'
By: Tom Gallagher
It's almost cheating to take the stage armed with the repertoire of the man commonly accepted as the greatest American songwriter of the 20th century. What wasn't cheating was the energetic performance Mark Nadler and KT Sullivan brought to the Gisela & Dennis Alter Mainstage of Philadelphia's excellent Prince Music Theater for Wednesday's opening staging of "Always: The Love Story of Irving Berlin." Even if you're too young to have lived when these songs were created and first brought to the world, you can't go wrong with this show. Most times, the performers provide background information on the influence behind the songs before they are sung. Even if you've heard these songs many, many times, you still may come to appreciate them on a whole new level.
Nadler, a veteran of every major caberet in New York City from the Algonquin to Sardi's, is the anchor of the show. He spends nearly all of the performance at the piano and delivers faithful song renditions as well as comical imitations of Berlin's nasal speaking voice. It's Sullivan though who brings the party. She'll captivate you with her catty behavior, make you laugh with her dumb blond act, then shock you with her vocal range. Playing the women Berlin fell in love with, Sullivan's graciousness turned to flirtation mixed with humor, makes Berlin's love for these women understandable.
It was said, "Irving Berlin has no place in American music - he is American music." Not bad for a poor immigrant who had only two years of formal schooling and who never learned to read or write music but still earned millions from his songwriting. Because Berlin brought great joy through his music, one would think that his personal life was of a similar vein. It also would seem that the show's title implies that the love in his life was always happy. Not so. We're told in the dialogue between numbers that his first wife died just two months after their marriage. Determined to live the life of a confirmed bachelor, it was well over a decade before he met the second woman he was to marry. Not so fast though. The girl he fell for was the daughter, Ellin Mackay, of a wealthy Irish Catholic man who forbade her to marry Berlin.
A tumultuous relationship ensued with the daughter torn between her respect for her father and her love of Berlin. Not only did Berlin win the hand of the young lassie, but the stock market crash of 1929 humbled the girl's father financially and eventually he and Berlin became good friends. Tragedy soon struck when the first-born child of the newlyweds died in its infancy.
"Always: The Love Story Of Irving Berlin" is limited to 10 performances with the final show on Oct. 29. The show includes more than 40 Berlin hit songs, plus six unpublished songs and one that has never been performed before. It's a wonderfully emotional evening of great music and revelations into the force behind some of the greatest music ever created.
by Chuck Lavazzi
One of the wonderful things about the Grand Center Cabaret series - aside from its ability to attract the kind of big-name talent that you'd otherwise have to travel to New York to see - is the fact that, after eleven seasons, it still manages to surprise and delight. Just when you think you've seen every possible version of a cabaret act, another one comes along that you hadn't thought of.
It's like having Christmas on a monthly basis, starting just after Labor Day.
The sparkling holiday surprise this year is KT Sullivan and Mark Nadler's ALWAYS - the Love Story of Irving Berlin, now on stage at the Sheldon. Something of a cross between a cabaret concert and a book musical, ALWAYS is a scripted and meticulously staged biography of one of America's greatest (and, along with Eubie Blake, one the longest-lived) songwriters, told to the tune of over fifty (!) of Berlin's own songs. It's called The Love Story of Irving Berlin because the story of Berlin's long life is, inevitably, the story of those he loved. That includes those he lost (like his sister, father, his first wife and - most tragically - his baby son) and the one he didn't: his wife of 62 years, the former heiress Ellen Mackay.
Disclaimer: I'm normally not much for biographies of artists. I prefer to let them speak through their art. Still, there's no escaping the fact that the joys and sorrows of Berlin's love life are clearly reflected in his songs, just as there's no escaping the fact that Berlin's life was inextricably bound up with Ellin's. When she died at the age of 84, it was a signal that Berlin's time was almost up as well; and, in fact, the composer died two years later at the age of 101.
Besides, it's just impossible to resist a biography when it's told in such a completely entertaining and captivating fashion.
The show's structure is innovative. Rather than simply string together related sets of Berlin songs interspersed with biographical tidbits, Nadler and Sullivan interweave the story of Berlin's life with extended medleys of those songs. Sometimes you get a verse or two, sometimes little more than a melodic fragment, and often two completely different songs combined in the kind of point-counterpoint duet that was one of Berlin's trademarks (think "You're Just in Love", "Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil", or "An Old-Fashioned Wedding" - all of which show up during the evening). The overall effect is almost cinematic and slightly dizzying - a sort of cabaret equivalent of a good Firesign Theatre album, albeit without the drug jokes.
The results are often quite funny, given that both Nadler and Sullivan are protean comic talents, but just as often the show is touching and even tragic. Nadler's rendition of "When I Lost You" immediately following the story of the death of Berlin's first wife (of typhus, on their honeymoon in Cuba) is sure to bring a lump to the throat, for example, as is his performance of "Say It Isn't So" - illustrating the composer's bafflement as the failure of his 1962 show Mr. President. In those moments when he's actually playing Berlin, in fact, Nadler captures the man's voice and manner so well that he even looks a bit like him - as though the late composer had decided to drop in a tell a bit of the story himself. Nadler is also an impressive pianist who gets to dazzle the audience early on with a thunderous reading of Berlin's "International Rag".
KT Sullivan is, to some extent, the ice to Nadler's fire - cool, collected, and vocally assured, she provides a wonderful counterpoint (both musically and theatrically) to her partner. That's not to say that she doesn't get her chance to make you laugh, of course. A case in point is her version of "You'd Be Surprised", which makes the most of Berlin's double entendre lyrics without stepping over the line into vulgarity. She's clearly the stronger singer of the two but never overpowers Nadler, and their voices blend beautifully in their many duets.
This is, in short, no dearth of brilliant musical and theatrical moments in the course of this two-hour show. I was particularly struck by the medley of Berlin's World War II songs. The set includes comic classics such as "Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" (one of the few songs that Berlin actually recorded himself) and "This is the Army" along with the wistful "Home Again" and - most impressively - a rendition of "God Bless America" that managed to retain the song's inspirational power without burdening it with the jingoistic baggage that has lately become its lot. Even if this were the only coup de theatre in the evening (and, rest assured, it isn't) it alone would justify a trip to the Sheldon.
KT Sullivan and Mark Nadler will be unwrapping their dazzling pre-Christmas present at the Sheldon, 3648 Washington, just west of the Fox, through Sunday [December 5, 2004]. It's a fitting finale to another stellar season.
''Always,'' The Irving Berlin Story at The Prince, Revives a Master Songsmith
by Bob Nelson
Are you one of those who complain about the state of American popular music? Where, oh where are the songs that once embraced our "Hit Parade" -- hummable, danceable, singable melodies from Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley?
We are fortunate to have at the Prince Music Theatre (through early November) Mark Nadler and KT Sullivan, a pair of musical talents -- historians as much as performers -- recreating the lives and works of two of the giants of those golden years: Irving Berlin and, further down the line, Cole Porter.
The Berlin panorama is titled, Always: The Love Story of Irving Berlin.
We know that Berlin arrived a penniless immigrant and became the most prolific and famous songwriter in our history.
The program at The Prince is not just two performers and a piano but a heart-stirring musical narrative of the man responsible for thousands of songs from 17 film scores, 21 Broadway shows, and individual pieces (not all of which were chartbusters). We witness episodes from Berlin's marriage of 62 years to the former Ellin MacKay, a relationship which inspired a number of Berlin songs.
"Always: The Love Story of Irving Berlin," with Mark Nadler and KT Sullivan (above) at the Prince Music Theatre.
