Review: BARBARA BLEIER AND AUSTIN PENDLETON SING OSCAR AND STEVE at Don't Tell Mama Is Storytelling Sublime

When Barbara Bleier and Austin Pendleton began working on their new show, it was intended as a tribute to Oscar Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim, two musical theater legends who had a personal association in real life. After some much-publicized delays, when the duo took their places on the Don't Tell Mama stage, the program was also a tribute to their late lamented friend and director Barbara Maier Gustern.

Fully titled Barbara Bleier AND Austin Pendleton SING STEVE AND OSCAR, the performance on Sunday night was dedicated to Maier Gustern, whose recent death was a shock to the entertainment community, and as such, a special number was added to start the evening. Michele Brourman, a close friend of the deceased, sent Ms. Bleier a song to perform to honor their friend, a composition by Brourman and Amanda McBroom titled "Saying Goodbye," and although it did not fit in with the title of the show, it certainly matched the theme: love, friendship, and respect. It was a fitting way to begin an evening filled with joy but laced with a tinge of sadness for the friend they, and the community, have lost.

Once their opening number was completed and the twosome moved into the program that was curated and rehearsed, the STEVE AND OSCAR show provided the nearly at-capacity room with a splendid evening of musical storytelling. With Pendleton taking much of the prose for the presentation, Barbara and Austin performed five Rodgers and Hammerstein compositions and nine Sondheim songs, and if the balance seems slightly off, it is forgivable because the quality of the storytelling, in each entry, is noteworthy. While Barbara's moments of rhetoric tend toward her personal experiences with these words and music, Pendleton's paragraphs detailing the history of each composer and their friendship were easily delivered with fluidity and purpose. Both performers deliver all of their dialogue with humor and admiration, not by rote, not from memorization, but because they are facts that these actors simply know, from having been a part of the industry for nearly all of Sondheim's tenure in the business. Pendleton's stories, in particular, are the stories and histories of a legend who was a friend, so sharing them comes as naturally as telling his own personal stories. It is a pleasure to hear him speak on the topic.

It is also a pleasure to watch and to listen to Barbara and Austin perform these compositions, with an occasional vocal assist from Maestro Paul Greenwood. All accomplished actors, the trio understands not only the lyrics that guide the audience through the journey, but the melodic lines and how their construction aids in the visceral experience intended for that journey. Whether working on solo numbers like Bleier's moving "Anyone Can Whistle" or duets like a heart-wrenching "No More" from the two gentlemen, the artists provide a full storytelling experience to be relished. Pendleton and Bleier are not kids, they have some seniority in the business and in life, and their years of experience are showing in their performances, especially their most personal moments, Austin's "Finishing The Hat" and Barbara's "I'm Still Here," both of which display for the audience the clear connection the artists have to the two compositions. Although the contributions to the evening from Misters Hammerstein and Rodgers are equally as well performed as the Sondheim songs, it is apparent how deeply Steve's work resonates with Bleier and Pendleton. Among the Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers, though, highlights include a rarely-performed politically-themed song from The Sound of Music, and a ballad from The King and I that seques (with strange perfection) into a Sondheim ballad from Dick Tracy. Indeed, Greenwood's arrangements throughout are an added bonus to the proceedings, proceedings that were designed to include a great deal of participation from Barbara Maier Gustern but that had to be restructured after the team's recent loss. The restructuring of the cabaret doesn't show; all that the audience sees during the hour-long program are two masterful actors telling musical stories that can be enjoyed by any person with an interest in the art of storytelling. It is an evening of cabaret theater that is simple and elegant, much like Barbara Meir Gustern was and always will be.

Barbara Bleier AND Austin Pendleton SING STEVE AND OSCAR will play Don't Tell Mama on April 3rd at 7 pm. For information and tickets visit the Don't Tell Mama website HERE.

Barbara Bleier has a website HERE.

Barbara and Austin get a five out of five microphones rating for performing their entire show without the use of a lyric sheet, tablet, or music stand.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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