BWW Reviews: Adelaide Cabaret Fringe – CRAZY WITH SONDHEIM Pleases Fans of His Musicals

Reviewed 8th June 2013

Stephen Sondheim has written songs for many crazy people in his musicals, some permanently so, and some pushed beyond their limits by circumstances who become temporarily that way. Sondheim's music is often exceptionally difficult and a classically trained trio, Blake Parham and Tahlia Ries, accompanied by Joshua Mollart on keyboard, is an ideal combination to do his work justice.

In their show, Crazy With Sondheim, they have put together a collection of songs all about going crazy, opening appropriately enough with baritone, Parham, singing Going Out of My Mind, from Follies. From the craziness of being madly in love and losing track of everything he moved to Anyone Can Whistle, from the show of the same name, describing what it is like to be driven crazy by being able to do so many difficult things and yet being completely unable to do something simple.

In Company, April, Kathy and Marta sing, You Could Drive a Person Crazy about Robert, a man who cannot commit and, no doubt, the song had that effect on Ries as she tackled the number, singing all three roles. Another type of crazy comes from the dim blonde slave girl, Philia, from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Faced with being sold to another, she tells her true love what she will do to her owner, as she sings That'll Show Him.

They do not come much crazier than Sweeney Todd, the murderous barber, although he is equalled by Mrs. Lovett, who turns the corpses into meat pies. Parham begins by singing to his razor in My Friends, a laugh raised when he picks up a safety razor instead of the traditional cut-thoat razor. Joined by Ries, they embark on an exposition of the menu, joking about the contents of the pies in A Little Priest. This proved to be a stumbling block, but a quick back up of a few bars and they took off again to finish the number, and the audience were not at all bothered by that little hiccough.

The numbers kept coming, one favourite after another, with songs from Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, Leonard Berstein's West Side Story, for which Sondheim wrote the lyrics, as well as more from shows already visited. It was a veritable feast for lovers of Sondheim's music, and the performers' enthusiasm for the chosen songs was obvious.

Parham ands Ries did more than just sing the songs, though, adding appropriate charaterisations to each of their performances, and linking the songs with some humorous observations on the nature of craziness associated with each one. Well-chosen snippets of dialogue from the shows also helped to set the scene.

Taking into account all of their formal training, it almost goes without saying that their voices are superb and their interpretation of the songs was exceptional. Joshua Mollart provided a solid foundation for the singers, even making Sondheim's accompaniments look easy.

The intimacy of the venue, The Soul Box, suited the performance nicely, and the friendly welcome and great service deserve mention, too. The quality of the sound mixing also gets full marks. The Adelaide Cabaret Fringe is presenting some real gems once again this year.

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