A familiar rich strum and gliding soprano fills Café Carlyle as Judy Collins opens, guitar in hand, with “Chelsea Morning” (Joni Mitchell). Most of us are instantaneously transported back. This is an interesting show, part Sondheim, part Collins with a bit of personal history about both and some distinctly agonized political reference.
First introduced to Sondheim’s work by a friend who sent her A Little Night Music, Collins telephoned Hal Prince to inquire about “Send In the Clowns.” That 300 people had recorded it in no way daunted the performer. “I’m going to sing you the songs I missed in 1973,” she tells us.
“No One Is Alone” (Into the Woods) arrives with immensely sympathetic phrasing… Someone’s on your side, she sings deeply immersed. Johanna’s plaintive “Green Finch” (Sweeney Todd) follows. Eyebrows rise with greenfinch and close on blackbird. It’s as if her heartbeat dictates.
Having been told about Collins’ less than supportive, unstable mother and alcoholic father (she never actually says the latter aloud), we’re told Stephen Sondheim moved in with the Oscar Hammersteins (he was best friends with Oscar’s son) to get away from his own difficult domestic situation. One new piece of information is that Sondheim wrote for 36 episodes of the television show Topper (?!) before returning to New York to create lyrics for West Side Story.
Collins now performs her own, stirringly a capella “Maria” relating it to the heroine in West Side Story. An anthem for Dreamers, the topical song should be more widely heard. Though it barely has melody, it’s potent and poetic…When I was twenty, I crossed the burning border/I came to find the good life/And brought my daughter here… We came here for democracy and hope/Now all we have is hope…My daughter is a Dreamer… Woody Guthrie would’ve been proud of this one.
“There Won’t Be Trumpets” (Anyone Can Whistle) is a clarion call for someone to step up and rescue this country. That show’s “Anyone Can Whistle” is tender and careful, hope against hope. Follies’ “I’m Still Here” (despite the state of things?!) is the single number tonight during which the artist seems to be merely singing. It lacks investment.
Alluding to her friendship with librettist George Furth (Company, Merrily We Roll Along), the artist offers a wistful “Not A Day Goes By” (Merrily), a rendition of “Sunday” rife with melancholy yearning and, despite undiminished strength of vocal, emotionally hushed, and a lyrical, rather than the usually staccato “Finishing the Hat” (both Sunday in the Park with George.) …How you watch the rest of the world/From a window…she sings, rising to the balls of her feet as if looking out.
The performer is particularly candid tonight. There’s no attempt to put a shine on the past. Family reflections are dark, nor does she spare herself. “I’m lucky to have a sleeping pattern that allows me to be able to wake up when I was drunk…sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll…I didn’t do drugs. It would have interfered with my drinking…” (Read her books to discover a phoenix from the ashes.) We learn she was introduced to Joni Mitchell in 1967 when Al Cooper telephoned her at 3 a.m. and put Mitchell on the phone to sing “Both Sides Now.” Interpretation is simply beautiful.
A highlight of the show, though it seems unconnected to anything else, is Collins’ own “Colorado,” sung with ardor from the piano, conjuring visions. She’s equally passionate about a long (non sexual) relationship with Leonard Cohen, whose work she brought to public awareness. “He was also the smartest person I ever knew. He died the morning of the election.” “Suzanne” is unbearably sad. Collins’ voice sears like a lost wind. Russell Walden’s consistently sensitive piano moves on even as she pauses, feels, and regains herself.
We close, of course, with “Send in The Clowns.” “We all know where the clowns really are now, no doubt about that,” she adds changing the meaning of the song entirely.
This is Judy Collins as we knew her though with new reason – liberal, angry, sad, literate. The show jumps around more than usual, but state of mind comes through. Her voice, sometimes rough edged is still gloriously idiosyncratic.
Photos by David Andrako
Judy Collins: A Love Letter to Stephen Sondheim
Russell Walden- Musical Director/Piano
Café Carlyle
Madison Avenue at 76th Street
Through April 7, 2018
