Interview: Rian Keating Celebrates the Music of Jacques Brel at Don't Tell Mama
The June 4th show, AND HAVE WE ALL THE TIME?, centers on the songs of Jacques Brel and reflections on life, love, and the human condition
Two-time MAC Award winner and cabaret performer Rian Keating will return to Don't Tell Mama on June 4th with And Have We All the Time?, a program centered on the songs of Jacques Brel and reflections on life, love, and the human condition.
The performance will feature selections from Brel’s repertoire, presented through Keating’s interpretive approach to storytelling in song. Keating is a masterful storyteller. BroadwayWorld's Ricky Pope said, "His stories are profound and cover the entire panoply of human experience. If Flannery O’Connor sang, that would be Rian Keating. He is one of the best storytellers around and sitting down to listen to an hour of his tales is always the best way to spend an afternoon." (Read Pope's full review of Keating's 2024 show Womansongs here.)
We spoke with Rian about the show, and the influence Jacques Brel's music has had over the years.
What are you most looking forward to about your upcoming Jacques Brel show?
I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to sing these songs about life, love and the human experience from a late middle aged perspective as well as introducing the songs to a new audience of listeners who might not be know Jacques Brel’s music. He was in fashion in the late '60s and has receded a bit in popularity. But I am also excited because my musical director, Darryl Curry, has created some fabulous arrangements that really capture Brel’s spirit.
For anyone who’s not familiar with Jacques Brel, how would you describe his musical style?
The Belgian songwriter was a master of the chanson, the French song which is lyric-driven and can stand separately as poetry. His songs are highly emotional and explore love, life and death and are known for their social commentary.
How did you initially discover these songs?
I knew of Brel from a couple of songs – "Marieke" and "Sons Of" – from a couple of my father’s old Judy Collins records (talk about the '60s!) but I only became familiar which the others when I was renovating an old railroad apartment on Tenth Avenue in the early '80s. I needed some music to listen to while I plastered and painted and I discovered the Original Cast recording of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris and I was absolutely gobsmacked by the kaleidoscope of human emotions the songs projected.
What drew you to them?
Two things immediately drew me to Brel. Many of his songs reflected my emotional life at that time in a visceral way: I had been cruelly betrayed during a transitory time and his songs helped me understand that these feelings were not specific to me alone; they were universal. Get over it! And his other songs reflected the world in Hell’s Kitchen in the early 1980s as I was observing it: the old people I would see looking out of their first floor tenement windows are beautifully captured in “Old Folks”; the excitement and thrill of the pre-Disneyfied 42nd Street with its ever-present danger and temptation are exactly how I would envision the sailors in “Amsterdam.” These songs transcend time and place, they reflect and celebrate the human experience with all its beauty and all its foibles.
What has the process of putting this show together been like?
Choosing the songs and coming up with a sequence is always a challenge for any cabaret artist, but this fell into place naturally: the songs reflect the stages of life we go through from callow love to old age. While I have done this show before in other iterations without patter, this time I am excited about linking the sections of the show together with personal anecdotes and observations. Most people know me as a storyteller and I thought it would ameliorate some of the darkness of the material to lighten it up with some bon mots about the sailors in Hell’s Kitchen during Fleet Week.
What else have you been working on lately?
I have two things in the hopper: I am debuting a new show, When You Go Down to the Sea in the fall and I am in the middle of writing a memoir about coming of age as an “accidental immigrant” in Ireland at the height of the Troubles.
About Rian Keating
Rian Keating is the recipient of the 2025 Singnasium Trailblazer Award and received the 2023 MAC Award for Male Vocalist and 2022 MAC Award for Special Production for his musical memoir, Time Stamps. Recently retired from thirty years as an English teacher for the NYC Department of Education, his early public access interviews with such luminaries as Gwen Verdon, Kathy Bates, Cleavon Little, Bebe Neuwirth, Shirley Knight and Charlie Sheen, among others, can now be seen on YouTube.
Photo credit: Stephen Mosher
Follow Rian on Instagram here.
Tickets to the June 4 show are available on Don’t Tell Mama’s website here. The cover charge is $10, with a $20 drink minimum.
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