Review: CHRISTOPHER SIEBER Relaxed, Raucous and Real At 54 Below

Patrons of 54 Below were given a special treat last week when beloved Broadway star Christopher Sieber played Broadway’s Living Room with a rare nightclub appearance.  The Tony Award nominee has done the nightclub thing before (to some success, too) but it happens with such infrequency that when it is announced that Christopher Sieber will be appearing in one of the city’s hotspots, it is considered an event.  His last appearance at 54 Below was in February of 2014, after making his Birdland debut a few months earlier in September of 2013.  And ten years is too long to go without a Christopher Sieber show, which is why there was a full house at 54 Below on September 11th.  Also, there was a full house because Christopher Sieber is really very good at this (take it from someone who saw those shows, ten years ago).  If he wanted, Christopher Sieber could be playing the cabaret and concert circuit all the time… but he is also one of Broadway’s most frequently engaged actors, so his long breaks from the nightclub stage are heartily forgiven.

For his earlier one-man shows, Mr. Sieber did, in fact, craft scripts centered around his life, his youth, and that Broadway career that has landed him in the hearts of many.  For this most recent cabaret outing, though, he chose something a little less structured.  In fact, he explained to his audience, he didn’t prepare anything at all.  Well, that is not quite entirely accurate - he must have prepared something because every table had a plastic toyshop tambourine on it, and random tables had little sealed greeting cards on them, a handwritten message printed across the front, insisting that they not be opened until prompted.  That took some preparation, so, clearly, Chris Sieber had some idea, some vision for what his night of musical cabaret would be, a sort of framework upon which to hang the more impromptu vibe for which he was striving.

And it worked.  Sieber’s idea, his vision, his framework, his vibe all worked for this rather clever and authentic cabaret show.

The concept for the evening was a simple one: a patron of the club who had a greeting card would open up the card and call out the letter written down on the inside.  Musical Director Paul Staroba would have sheet music labeled with that same letter and he would begin to play the song that Christopher would sing, and Chris would follow along.  But wait, you are asking, isn’t that what Patti LuPone did last December?  Isn’t that what Santino Fontana did the night before Chris’s show at 54 Below?  Yes.  Ms. LuPone and Mr. Fontana allowed their audiences to choose, from some twenty or thirty selections, what the actor would sing in their acts, and both stars had shows that went over extremely well.  But Christopher Sieber’s act, while it sounds the same, had an additional element, one that really sweetened the deal for the audience.  On the flip side of each greeting card was a clue.  The patron with the stationery would, first, call out the letter so that Paul could cue up his sheet music, and then the guest would read the clue to Christopher, and that clue was the flicking of Sieber’s ON switch, and off he went, recounting the story designed to accompany the composition.  It was an incredibly effective way to include the audience and to allow Chris to use all the ingredients in his performer’s arsenal.  You see, Christopher Sieber is a wonderful storyteller.  These weren’t random off-the-cuff musings he was spouting, up on the stage.  Neither were they scripted monologues that had to be memorized and rehearsed.  These were all stories from his life and his career that he has obviously told before, maybe at a party or a wedding, possibly during an interview, or just while entertaining friends at home.  But in any of those circumstances, the stories probably read like snatches of entertainment because Sieber is an orator, he is a comedian, he is an entertainer.  Christopher Sieber is a storyteller. 

There were stories about childhood bullies, about being a Fanilow, and aboutthe role he was offered that told him he was, now, “old.”  There were reminiscences about the opening night blizzard of The Prom, a surprise casting switch from Chicago to La Cage, and, of course, his friend and Company co-star, Patti LuPone.  Each and every one of these stories was hilarious or touching (sometimes both at the same time), and all of them told with the expert timing of a professional storyteller, and all of them accompanied by a musical performance that reminded the people in the seats out front of exactly why Christopher Sieber is a star and an actor in demand.

There is a quality to the storytelling required in a nightclub setting, a quality that doesn’t always make it into the room, and that’s ok, audiences can get by without it… but it’s better if it does make it into the room.  There are those artists who can sing a song and make it pretty, and show their training, and make a person feel something.  And there are artists who can sing a song, out of context, and you understand what they are saying, what they are feeling, what the character is experiencing, what you would be feeling if you were in their shoes.  That’s Christopher Seiber.  And it doesn’t have to be epic, song by song, performance by performance.  Let’s tell the truth - there isn’t a lot of depth to be mined from singing Barry Manilow’s radio hit “Daybreak” - it’s kind of all about happiness.  And there aren’t a lot of demands being placed on a singer or an audience when the song “Tomorrow” is being performed - it’s all about sunshine and optimism and parking and barking.  And it’s a good thing that these bright, cheerful numbers were programmed into Sieber’s playlist because the compositions that bridged them were deeply felt emotional journeys from Matilda (“Quiet”) and La Cage Aux Folles (“Song On The Sand”) and Company (“Sorry-Grateful”) in which Christopher Sieber became like a book of poetry, where you turn the page and you have a few stanzas telling you this specific story that you live until it’s time to turn the page and see what new, different story awaits you on the other side.  It’s an enchanting quality that serves every nightclub act well, when it’s in the room, and one that Christopher Sieber just carries with him, like breathing or walking or just standing and smiling.  It made his show last week really memorable.

The other thing that made Christopher’s show so exceptional was his availability.  Chris is a tall man and the stage at 54 Below stands some three or four feet off the ground.  He stood about a mile above the audience’s heads, telling these theatrical stories with flair and panache, like a tower that we shouldn’t have been able to reach - but, no.  Christopher Sieber is accessible.  He needs his audience, he loves his people, he wants to reach out and touch them and feel the connection.  For no other reason than that human connection could Christopher Sieber have made the vitally personal choice to share the story of his battle with alcohol, and how friends Jennifer Simard, Jennifer Diamond, Frank Conway, and Bobby McGuire helped him, two years ago, to step into the light, and how his sobriety is the greatest thing that ever happened to him.  And with those four people in the house, and an entire audience in the palm of his hand, Christopher Sieber et al raised their tambourines into the air for a rousing rendition of “Those Were The Days (My Friend)” that left everyone smiling, happy, and maybe even a little bit misty-eyed.  It was an appropriate way to (almost) end the evening.  It could not possibly have been the show closer because any Christopher Sieber cabaret act would, naturally, have to close with “Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life” from Spamalot, one of Sieber’s biggest Broadway successes.  It bears saying that two highlights from the evening were “(Ya Got) Trouble” and an amazing song by Sam Davis called “Love And Real Estate” that this writer wishes everyone would know, but the fact of the matter is that Christopher Sieber, himself, was the highlight.  Just having him up on a stage, getting to spend some time hearing his stories and learning who he is, away from the big characters and the wacky musical comedy antics, was reason enough to leave the house and go out on a weeknight in New York City.  He is the highlight, he is the treat, he is The Man, and it would be nice to see him in this setting again, hopefully sooner than another ten years.  

Find great shows to see on the 54 Below website HERE.

Christopher Sieber has an Instagram page HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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