Review: Johanna Allen Pays Tribute To The Man Behind The Music, Harold Arlen, In THE SONGS THAT GOT AWAY

Saturday 10th September, 8pm, Glen St Theatre, Belrose

Johanna Allen brings her one woman tribute to Harold Arlen, THE SONGS THAT GOT AWAY, back to Sydney to treat Northern Beaches audiences to a night of history and fabulous music. Allen draws on the women that gave Arlen's music a voice to tell the story of one of American music's lesser known legends.

Previously presented at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2014 and Hayes Theatre, this staging at Glen St Theatre sees the work bought into a space that better matches the format of a two act, one woman documentary style musical. Allen has created a wonderfully researched documentary of Arlen's career, picking up from his days at the Cotton Club in Harlem New York at a time when, according to the show, people still knew him as Hyman Arluck. Adopting a Southern Bell accent, Allen, in 1950's tea length dress narrates the story which for the most part focuses on the women like Ethel Waters and Peggy Lee who made Arlen's songs like Lydia and Stormy Weather famous, even if no one remembered the composer.

Given his most famous work, tied to his days in Los Angeles working at Metro Goldwyn Mayer, was composing songs for THE WIZARD OF OZ, Allen has slipped in many repeated references to the Wizard's iconic phrase, but this time given a tone of sadness as people did "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain", to the point that Arlen heard his song in a New York cab and the driver could not place the composer. Along with different physical representations, she adopts different speech tones and patterns to represent the different characters that fill the story, from Arlen's Russian born wife Anya, to shy, awkward young Judy Garland, and Arlen himself, a Jewish New Yorker.

Allen has a powerful voice and gives bold renditions of Arlen's jazz songs that held an undertone of the Blues. She varies the delivery, with some presented as she moves around the stage or positions herself on the stools or chair that grace the stage, employing the body mic, and others presented using the retro upright microphone that remains at centre stage. She is wonderfully supported by a three piece band that add to the Jazz feel without overpowering.

There is however a focus on a perfect execution of the songs which lacks the emotional connection that could have been infused into the work. The incredibly slick delivery of the songs and the narration doesn't really allow the audience to feel a connection to Allen's real adoration of Arlen, nor empathy towards some of the tragic stories that unfold. Anya's jealousy and eventual institutionalisation and Ethel Water's seven years of not being able to work in Hollywood could have drawn at the heartstrings but were instead presented as factual observations. Similarly, she touches on the challenge of getting Somewhere Over The Rainbow accepted by studio executives and building a relationship with the young Judy but misses the opportunity to showcase the difference age and the challenges Garland faced later in life can make to the interpretation of the song.

Whilst this season of THE SONGS THAT GOT AWAY has ended, if it does return, it is a lovely night out for fans of Arlen's music, jazz lovers and fans of music history