He won't go away. In observance of the one-year anniversary of the U.S. election, Jeremy Lawrence brings back his fearless alter ego, Tante Fritzy, a Weimar era drag queen who stared down a madman at the twilight of a new Nazi regime. The already twice-extended "Lavender Songs -- A Queer Weimar Berlin Cabaret" returns to Pangea, 178 Second Avenue, for a special election anniversary edition on Tuesdays October 10, 17, and 24, all at 7pm.
Directed by Jason Jacobs, with music direction by Ariela Bohrod, this updated version of "Lavender Songs," which won a 2008 Bistro Award for Lawrence and Jacobs, and which Time Out NY calls "intimate, illuminating and surprisingly moving," began once-monthly performances on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017. During its critically acclaimed sell-out run, Bistroawards.com called it "a beautifully realized evocation of a club in Germany in the '30s," adding that it's "a thrilling reminder of the power and strength of cabaret at its best."
Filled with remarkable gems and curios by LGBT composers and performers from the Berlin underground in Nazi Germany, "Lavender Songs" features a new book by Lawrence -- who also writes the English lyrics. "Lavender Songs" is "genuinely moving and melancholy," according to The Jewish Standard, which adds, this is "a perfect time for this kind of entertainment." Theaterscene.net asserts that, "Lawrence's superb performance in this bold production is simultaneously entertaining and chilling."
Writing in TheaterPizzazz.com, Alix Cohen declared, "I can't recommend this evening highly enough." And QLife deemed it "an important show. Now, as then, we can't lose hope, and must fight that power."
Lawrence, whose extensive translations of German repertoire are in wide usage, is the official English translator of songs by Friedrich Hollaender and Franz Waxman. He also created the English lyrics on Ute Lemper's widely praised recording, "Berlin Cabaret Songs." As an actor, Lawrence has had a long career on New York and regional stages, screen and television (most recently on The Blacklist and Shades of Blue). His one-man Tennessee Williams shows have received international acclaim.
Based on an evening created in 2002 by Alan Lareau for the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington DC (in conjunction with the exhibition "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945"), "Lavender Songs" includes songs originally written or performed by Lothar Brühne; Richard Fall; Friedrich Hollaender; Horst Platen; Rudolph Nelson; Ernst Sennhofer, and Mischa Spoliansky. The original German texts were written by Bruno Balz; Raimund Dannberg; Willy Hagen; Friedrich Hollaender; Fritz Löhner-Beda; Marcellus Schiffer; Kurt Schwabach, and Kurt Tucholsky.
Seven of the show's eleven composer-lyricists were Jewish. Two of these died in the camps, two committed suicide, one survived in hiding in the Netherlands, and two others escaped to exile -- Hollaender in America and Spoliansky in England. Of all the queer artists celebrated in the show, the best known is Marlene Dietrich, who emigrated to America. Only two others survived -- one in obscurity and poverty; the other was allowed to continue his career.
A poignant and chilling evocation of Weimar Berlin's queer underground as it faced the imminent danger of Hitler on the rise, this subversive cris de coeur against the dangers of intolerance returns to Pangea,
178 Second Avenue, for three Tuesdays in October -- October 10, 17, 24, all at 7pm. There is a $20 music charge $20 + a $20 food and drink minimum. To purchase tickets online visit
www.pangeanyc.com , or for info call
212/995-0900.
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