Pompano Players’ Side by Side by Sondheim with (from left) Gaby Tortoledo, Ron DeStefano, Kristin DeGroot and Quinn Doyle with Elijah Gee on the piano
By Bill Hirschman
Too many cabaret-style revues of stand-alone mellifluous musical theater numbers – such as Richard Rodgers’ Greatest Hits and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Top 20 – are missing one thing – acting.
But with great gratitude, acting through a song is precisely the supreme virtue in Pompano Players’ Side by Side by Sondheim. Savor a superbly delivered gift not just for musical theater fans, but for Sondheads who set their “accepting” level higher than most.
If you love the music and lyrics of the genius, you will be thrilled by these full-throated yet textured voices who have mastered the master’s challenging work. They stay loyal to the intent but provide slightly individualized phrasing that makes the familiar seem fresh.
These actors communicate that there is an actual story, a backstory and an understory to every chanson. These are not simply stand and deliver arias showing off vocal chops for the sake of exhibition. The cast infuse their deliveries with emotions that the characters would be feeling. There is joy, anger and Sondheim’s greatest challenge: ambivalence.
Granted, this club-style compendium through May 17 is absent the establishing narrative of the musicals themselves, although a narrator prefaces each section with a little background that Sondheads can murmur along with.
But this focus enables a celebratory exploration of Stephen Sondheim’s wizardry integration of emotion and intellect, wryness and regret, cynical humor and sardonic comment – sometimes all in the same song.
So, honor songsters Gaby Tortoledo, Kristin DeGroot and Ron DeStefano, and young emcee Quinn Doyle under the direction of Joseph Zettelmeier, music direction of pianist Elijah Gee and choreography by Briley Crisapi who as a whole inhabit the three-dimensional people singing to us. Everyone, especially Doyle, exudes an infectious enthusiasm.
Because the show was created in 1976 in the West End and on Broadway in 1977, the shows here do not include Sweeney Todd, Passion, Assassins or Sunday in the Park With George. Indeed, as Floridians with long memories recall, one local production that secretly added more recent numbers was shut down when the performers’ complaints reached the licenser.
But no complaints here. We can glory in Gypsy, A Little Night Music, Company, Anyone Can Whistle, Follies, West Side Story and numbers lesser known by casual fans.
Under the acting is the phrasing, taking beats and pauses that do not violate Sondheim’s strictures, but indeed emphasize them. These can be a milli-second hesitation or an extra emphasis.
For instance, the trio sings ”It’s not so hard to be married / It’s much the simplest of crimes / It’s not so hard to be married….” And Tortoledo channels the acerbic Company character Joanne who snipes “I’ve done it three or four times.” But Tortoledo slips in a barely noticeable breach between the words “three or” and “four times” that hammers her acidic sarcasm.
Similarly, faced with the unenviable task of making the audience forget the dozen legendary renditions of “Send in the Clowns,” DeGroot sings “Isn’t it rich” subtly dividing the word “rich” into two crisp syllables with a harder “ch” that underscores the rue inside the song.
This and scores of other examples may sound minor, but for those of us who know every original rhythm from cast albums and live performances, their commitment creates a freshness and a depth to what can be a too-familiar standard.
Their technical ability is enviable regardless of the many different genres, Sondheim would be pleased at the crystalline clarity of their enunciation of his lyrical lines which can interact, intersect, even cover each other in dueling duets and trios.
Moments will stick with you. The women soar the final stratospheric notes of “I Have A Love” from West Side Story.
DeGroot conquers the machine gun tongue twisting lyrics of “Getting Married Today” and projects the sexual sophisticate brothel owner in “I Never Do Anything Twice.”
Tortoledo stops your breathing as she caresses the torch “Losing My Mind” and elicits giggling as the “bump it with a trumpet” stripper in “You Gotta Have a Gimmick” and adopts a different accent for “Barcelona” than for the experienced survivor for “Broadway Baby.”
DeStefano wraps his full polished baritone around two songs usually sung by female characters: “I Remember” from the TV film Evening Primrose, and nails a razor-sharp buzzsaw rendition of “Could I Leave You” from Follies.
The list could go much longer. But the highlight of the evening is the three Cockney sailors pursuing who they mistake for a Japanese geisha in an ineffably beautiful rendition of “Pretty Lady” from Pacific Overtures.
Gee’s keyboard skills impressively embrace Sondheim’s wide, wide array of tempos and styles including the unusual keys and interacting melody lines – all with verve and spirit.
Zettelmeier and Crifasi keep the four in motion across the fuller stage, with arms aloft and legs high-kicking, the women bending over backward on the piano.
For what it’s worth, the sound level at Sunday’s matinee likely was audible in Miami, but no one could complain they couldn’t understand the complex lyrics, even when one brainless patron thoughtlessly hummed along to “Send in the Clowns.”
Some people don’t like the structure of these types of evenings, but if you are a Sondheim fan, or just have memories of great musical theater, make the time.
Side By Side By Sondheim through May 17 from Pompano Players, performing in the second floor auditorium of the Pompano Beach Cultural Center, 50 W. Atlantic Blvd. Shows 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets $55 (in the stands) $65 (in tables near the stage). Go to https://pompanobeachculturalcenter.csstix.com/events.php
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