Review: Anita Gillette & Penny Fuller Leave Birdland Audience Sated With SIN TWISTERS: THE NEXT FRONTIER

The Sin Twisters are back and Birdland was packed to the rafters on Monday night in celebration. When the Sin Twisters are on stage, the room should be packed, every time, because The Sin Twisters are amazing.

To be clear, for those not in the know, The Sin Twisters isn't a group or anything like that. It's actually the name of a musical cabaret show starring theatrical legends Penny Fuller and Anita Gillette (that is in alphabetical order of last name). These two best pals who have known each other for most of their adult lives have had careers that have intersected and intertwined and, throughout all the years of friendship, they have been baffled by the number of times people mistook one for the other, for they bear no resemblance, whatsoever, and rarely played the same roles (rarely). So, a few years ago, Anita Gillette and Penny Fuller (that is in alphabetical order of first name) called up master cabaret craftsman, director Barry Kleinbort, and impeccable Maestro Paul Greenwood, and they created SIN TWISTERS. And it was a hit. So there followed a series of sequels and updated versions of the show, and this week the updated version was SIN TWISTERS: THE NEXT FRONTIER. (Sin Twisters is a spoonerism, as detailed in the show during the discussion of Penny and Anita being mistaken for each other, rather like Twin Sisters - get it?) Whether or not Anita and Penny look alike or act alike and do anything alike doesn't matter because they are, indeed, sisters. They are sisters in that they are women, they are women in show business, they are women who have survived show business, they are women who have seen a lot, and they are women who absolutely adore one another. Repeatedly throughout their performance on Monday night, the two friends would run across the stage to hug each other after a number, or Penny would blow a kiss to Anita to say, "Well done!" and just look at these photos below of Anita watching Penny perform "One More Spring" and Penny watching Anita tell a story. Find a friend in your life who looks at you like Penny Fuller and Anita Gillette look at each other. This is sisterhood. Its Sin Twisterhood.

For this newest version of Sin Twisters, Anita and Penny have taken some of their favorite moments from Sin Twisters past and added in some new songs, some new dialogue, and sprinkled it all with that Fuller/Gillette magic that has made all of the previous iterations of this show so important. And it is important. To the naked eye, this might appear to be two friends of the Thespianic persuasion having some fun with a sister act, but to those with a healthy respect for the history of Broadway, this is a chance to see two of the greatest actresses in the industry excel at the art of storytelling. There are miles of storytelling in THE NEXT FRONTIER, whether it is the jokes that Mr. Kleinbort has helped his dual Tony nominees to build into their script, the reminiscences of fabled careers and legendary colleagues, or the most exquisite musical acting you will find on a nightclub stage EVER. Late in the show there were back-to-back performances of "I'll Never Go There Anymore" (by Anita) and Kleinbort's own "One More Spring" (by Penny) that rendered the audience absolutely silent until the moment came to burst into applause. There are actors who get up on a nightclub stage and sing, and there are actors who get up on a nightclub stage having done some homework, having explored the monologue in the lyrics, having examined the emotional flow of the melodic line, having found the place where a real-life human would live in the composition, and those actors make a play, maybe two acts, maybe three acts, out of those few minutes of performance. That is the quality of storytelling Penny and Anita provided, not only during these two numbers but for the entire show, but especially for these two numbers. It was a master class in a matter of minutes.

There's no Sin Twisters without laughs. And although the one-two punch of the aforementioned numbers was an emotional one, Monday night at Birdland was a night filled with laughter. Anita Gillette is quite a ham, and don't think she doesn't know it. She loves a good gag, adores innuendo, and never misses a chance to bump, which might be why she loves Gladys Bumps so much as to put forth a terrific Pal Joey medley, with Paul Greenwood joining in from the piano. Appropriately, Penny had her own Pal Joey wish, one that led to one of the most wonderful versions of "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" you've ever seen or could hope to see - now here's a Vera Simpson worth dreaming about. The connective tissue between the musical numbers, though, was all jovial, all laughter, all optimism, even when the story being told outlined some of the pitfalls to the actor's life, as demonstrated by Penny's Mack and Mabel audition story and Anita's Bounce workshop story. That's the actor's life. And at the end of the day Anita and Penny have a lot of good memories and good musical material to go with them, like an emotional "Time Heals Everything" to go with the Mack and Mabel story, or a divine "Isn't He Something?" to accompany the Bounce story (or Road Show, the play had so many names). You can't live the life of an actor without having a sense of humor, and Penny and Anita certainly have that because not only were they laughing all night, so were Paul, bassist Tom Hubbard, Barry, watching from the bar, and every other person in the club. Sin Twisters and THE Sin Twisters is an extremely funny evening in a club.

Particularly rewarding moments in this night of splendor happened when Anita and Penny tapped into deep places inspired by strong forces in their careers. Early in the show, Anita performed a lovely, touching "Once Upon a Time" from her Broadway appearance in All American (it wasn't her song in the play but it's her song now), and near the end of the show Penny Fuller brought the house down with "Infinite Joys" by William Finn, her composer for A New Brain. And, of course, there is the now-famous Cabaret Medley, which has to be seen to be believed. The standby for the original Broadway Sally Bowles (that was Penny) and the first Broadway replacement for Sally Bowles (that would be Anita) performing (with some help from Paul Greenwood) seven songs from Cabaret in eleven minutes? That, alone, is worth the price of admission. It was a fine finish to a wonderful night of entertainment. From beginning to end, Sin Twisters: The Next Frontier is a joy to behold, whether laughing along with Anita and Penny, marveling at the artistry of Fuller and Gillette, soaking up the memories of theater icons, or reveling in the sisterhood of two best friends. Sin Twisters the play and Sin Twisters the women are always welcome, in any club, on any stage, and any way we can get them. Sin Twisters is why cabaret lives and thrives.

Find great shows to see on the Birdland website HERE.

Anita Gillette has a website HERE and Penny Fuller has an Instagram page HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher; Visit the Stephen Mosher website HERE.