The 1941 musical play titled Lady In The Dark featured a novelty number in which an effete photographer expressed his affinity for Russian composers by proceeding to name 49 of them. Since the actor playing the role was a young vaudevillian named Danny Kaye, the tongue-twisting roster was performed in a mind-boggling 38 seconds, and the rest is history. This lyric by Ira Gershwin, set to a melody by Kurt Weill, is at the foundation of Mark Nadler’s one-man ‘comedy-in-music adventure,’ stopping off in Chicago at the Royal George on its way to Broadway.
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Playwright: Mark Nadler
At: Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted
Phone: 312-988-9000; $34.50-$55
Runs through: June 15.
Photo by Michael Brosilow.
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‘I can’t sing anything unless I know what it means!’ declares Nadler at the start of the show, his subsequent research into every last one of the classical tunesmiths cited by Gershwin comprising the framework for a lecture augmented by audio and visual aids that frequently meanders—with impeccable logic and impish audacity—into the American Songbook. The revelation that Peter Ilich Tchiakovsky was gay, for example, is followed by a sweet rendition of Frank Loesser’s ‘The Ugly Duckling’, enhanced at the appropriate juncture by a riff from—what else?—Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Or the similarities in the themes of Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka’s 1836 A Life For The Czar and Richard Rodgers’ 1943 Oklahoma, which lead to a discussion of the latter’s famous offspring, two of whom—Adam Guettel and Mary Rodgers—are represented by full renditions of the passionate ‘Icarus’ and, for a scherzo, the nostalgic ‘When Daddy Wore His Very Soft Shoes.’ Playgoers hoping for a learning guide to all the music played in the show will not find one in the playbill, but Nadler, ever the nurturing professor, assures us repeatedly that we are bright enough to absorb his analytic circumlocutions, even to joining in a sing-along with the polysyllabic patter-ditty by the end of the evening.
Part Tom Lehrer, part Liberace, part Red Skelton, part (a large part) Danny Kaye, Nadler epitomizes the brand of entertainer known on the Catskills circuit as a ‘tummler’—a multi-talented clown whose purpose is to create tumult, whether engendered by verbal witticisms, physical gymnastics or old-fashioned sentimentality. Certainly, someone who can tap and shuffle with his feet while simultaneously massaging the ivories and warbling in triple-forte deserves some sort of award for sheer stuntwork. And if Nadler sometimes comes off like an overachieving schoolboy showing off for his mother’s clubfellows, no one can deny that he keeps his promise to send us home smarter than when we arrived.