The amazing Patti LuPone appeared at the Mahaiwe in Great Barrington.
“I could’ve BEEN Peter Pan! I could’ve BEEN Mary Martin…but you people turned me into Ethel Merman!” – Patti LuPone
Suddenly she was standing there – larger than life – on the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center stage before an adoring sold-out audience. For many in the Berkshires, the appearance of this legendary actor and singer was a dream come true, Patti in the Berkshires, at last! As she began her almost two hour performance (with one intermission) the audience was buzzing with excitement, she had them in the palm of her hands.
Patti is an irresistible force of the Broadway theatre, though often lured away from the great white way by film and television’s lucrative call. Still, she always returns, sweeping aside complaints about her absence the second she begins to sing.
Patti LuPone won numerous awards for "Gypsy."
Patti LuPone swept the 2008 theatre awards winning the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress in a Musical and the Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance for her performance as Rose in the critically-acclaimed new Broadway production of the classic Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents musical Gypsy, and she delighted the crowd with a song from that show. Hers is not the most refined voice in theatre, but her stage presence keeps you on the edge of your seat nevertheless.
Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda is normally a show she does with Symphony Orchestras, but in Great Barrington she was ably accompanied by Joseph Thalken on the piano, and her dialogue with the audience was pretty much identical to that of her original show, penned by the diva herself and Jeffrey Richman, the entire production conceived and directed by Scott Wittman to whom the concert was dedicated in his loving memory.
From ballad to show-stopper, it was a trip through the years with stops at both roles she made famous, and those she never got to play. Of course there was the rousing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” in which she did a self-mocking glance at her watch as she held her arms upright for a good minute before getting to sing.
As Eva Peron in Evita.
She wasn’t afraid of parody songs, either. She sang “Trouble” from The Music Man better than Robert Preston ever could, and that starts with P and rhymes with T and that stands for trouble. Right here. On Stage. Soon she was having fun being both Chita and Rita in “A Boy Like That/I Have a Love” and I swear half the audience was wetting their pants, they were laughing so hard.
But there were absolutely elegant moments, too. As when she sang the sweet “Never, Never, Land”. Equally touching were “Meadowlark” by Stephen Schwartz from The Bakers Wife and “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma.
Included were a divine selection of Stephen Sondheim songs, from “Send in the Clowns” to “The Ladies Who Lunch.” At least we got to hear the trademark Elaine Stritch song, even if not that performer who detoured to Broadway at the last minute, her appearance date taken in turn by Barbara Cook this fall.
Leaving the Broadway songbook, she took on the totally appropriate anthem that is even more fitting for her than for Frank Sinatra: “My Way”.
As Maria Callas in "Master Class".
And the fans indeed had it their way. After finishing her second set, she returned for three more songs, and then in the great tradition of live performances, had the sound system turned off, the piano silenced and sang us all a goodnight song, a capella, letting the gorgeous acoustics of the Mahaiwe carry her notes to the topmost rows of the balcony.
It was a glorious, unforgettable evening.
