Review: The Sound of Meg Flather's RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN Music is Divine at Don't Tell Mama

On September 26th, 2021, Meg Flather debuted her musical cabaret Rodgers & Hammerstein 2021+ after having been delayed by a pandemic, a quarantine, and a show business shutdown. Broadway World Cabaret had a new correspondent, Ricky Pope, who had spent his life (his entire life) living and working as a musician, a student of musical theater, a composer, and an expert on what is and what makes great music and lyrics. Ricky Pope was the natural Broadway World Cabaret correspondent to cover the opening of the new Flather show and, besides, he asked to do it. So his editor (the person writing this story) scratched the date off of the calendar (read: deleted it from Google) and let Ricky Pope do his thing. What came from the outing was one smart review of one smart show... and this lover of all things cabaret, R&H, and Flather made a determination to see the program at the earliest possible convenience.

Months later, the earliest possible convenience presented itself on Sunday night, twenty-eight weeks after that first performance, and the several other performances that had followed.

Well, it sure was worth the wait.

It is rare that I will use column space to review a cabaret and concert program that has already been covered by another Broadway World Cabaret reporter; in fact, I can think of only one other time, and it was the Farah Alvin show B-Side, also initially reviewed by Ricky Pope. When something really special comes along, though, it is important to say that it is special, and that is why, on this day, I am compelled to report on the something special that I saw at Don't Tell Mama on Sunday when I caught (finally caught) the new Meg Flather show.

Rodgers & Hammerstein 2021+ is a cabaret. It is not a concert, it is not a set, it is a cabaret show, good and proper, and Meg Flather is a Kabarettist of the First Order. With this seventy-minute program, Ms. Flather accomplishes a short list of impressive feats: she revisits, re-examines, and reinvents the classic works by two legendary creatives, she marries the past with the present in ways elegant and relevant, and she proves, once more, that she is one of the finest performers of the art of cabaret working today. What could have been a seemingly innocuous tribute show becomes both a socio-political statement and a flare of hope, and what could have been a show-by-rote becomes a blazing example of what cabaret can be when an artist takes the time and effort to do their work. Interpreting eighteen Rodgers and Hammerstein songs in sixteen numbers impressively and intellectually arranged (one suspects by Ms. Flather in close collaboration with longtime Musical Director Tracy Stark), Flather keeps her feet on the ground at all times, never becoming lofty or ethereal, staying always honest and invested in both the story that Rodgers and Hammerstein created, and the one that Meg Flather is living. Each of the sixteen performances is a master class in storytelling, as Flather fully envelopes herself into the character in the story and the monologue being told. There is no coy concern about the race or gender of the originating character, no attempt to fit together things that would not, in a theatrical production, be possible; there is only Meg Flather using her considerable acting skills and clarion voice to tell the stories, allowing them to land where they may, inside of the hearts and heads of each individual member of the audience. Note the resounding ferocity (and success) with which Flather performs "A Puzzlement" and "Lonely Room" - two songs written for male characters (one of them written in broken English for an Asian character) that, in Flather's hands, become songs that would appear to have been written only yesterday and exclusively for her personal usage. Although these two performances rank as evening highlights for this writer, other members of the audience may likely find more resonant a deconstructed "My Favorite Things" or an assertive "Allegro," both of which impressed, equally. A segue from "People Will Say We're In Love" into "No Other Love" plays like tender wedding vows being exchanged from, first, one spouse and then, another, and Stark's marriage of ballads from The King & I and Carousel is rendered a conversation between married people who have been married people for more than a minute. From start to finish, there is no task that Meg Flather sets for herself that is not achieved to an enviable degree of quality (although this writer was saddened by an expurgation of material from "Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?").

During eloquently crafted and genuinely spoken thank-yous, Flather offers up effusive praise for her colleagues, Director Lennie Watts and Musical Director Tracy Stark, and since the threesome is one of the industry's regular artistic families, one must assume that the work sessions that led to the creation of this musical exploration were filled with artistic flights of fancy and a deep dive into the material. It should not, though, be taken for granted that Flather was driving this train. It is vastly important to have guidance from one's directors, and Stark and Watts certainly have the reputations to back up Meg's praise. However, the entire program has the Flather signature all over it, and one suspects that Lennie and Tracy would jump at an opportunity to point out that Meg Flather is the kind of artist who walks in the door on the first day of rehearsal with the entire show storyboarded in her brain. It is that kind of artistic vision and this sort of artistic partnership that delivers such a high quality of cabaret, and Misses Flather and Stark, and Mister Watts should consider that what they have created here is one of the true works of cabaret art currently playing New York City, and a show that any person who appreciates the art form of cabaret should see, post haste. It is, as Lady Thiang might say, Something Wonderful.

Meg Flather gets a five out of five microphones rating for performing her entire show without the use of a lyric sheet, tablet, or music stand.

Read the Ricky Pope review of Rodgers & Hammerstein 2021 HERE.

Meg Flather Rodgers & Hammerstein 2021+ plays Don't Tell Mama on April 17th at 6 pm. Information and tickets can be found HERE.

Meg Flather has a website HERE.

Photo of Meg Flather by Helane Blumfield.