Tony Yazbeck has a splendid, controlled tenor, dances like a Nicholas brother- while showing emotion, shares empathetic stories, and, despite having suffered an acrimoniously splintered childhood, seems the kind of man every young woman longs to take home to her family. Up close and personal (off the Broadway stage), it’s impossible not to warm to the artist.
“Let There Be Love” (Lionel Rand/Ian Grant) opens a biographical show featuring high and low points in his life with song and a great deal of dance. (The stage is cleared for movement.) Yazbeck bookends the history with Jerome Korman’s undoubtedly bespoke “Gene Kelly,” in which he wishes to be someone else= one of the iconic dancers. “I was 4 years old watching Fred Astaire when I knew I would dance,” he tells us offering a film medley. From satiny ballad to cool rhythm, each selection reflects characterization.
At age 11, Yazbeck’s first professional job was playing a newsboy in the Tyne Daley production of Gypsy. His “real Mama Rose” drove 4 hours back and forth from Pennsylvania every day for 2 years (singing) to accomodate the opportunity. “Some songs from the show were too close to home,” he notes, prefacing a bittersweet “You’ll Never Get Away From Me.” (Jule Styne/ Stephen Sondheim) When the curtain fell, Yazbeck resumed “my boring life.”
Restless to fully enter the field, he left college early boarding a bus to New York with only $100. Lo and behold the friend of a friend with whom he’d be staying turned out to be an agent. She sent him to audition for Oklahoma in which he was also cast. “Young people, this does not ever happen,” Yazbeck notes. He’s now been in the business 30 years.
A lilting, gracefully choreographed “All I Need is The Girl” follows (from a later role as Tulsa in Gypsy.) Unlike most best-of cabaret autobiographies, there’s just one additional pick from a musical in which he featured. Instead, Yazbeck illuminates life changes with the subject of lyrics. ‘Refreshing.
“Your parents never tell you what to do when you’ve achieved your dream-young. I was lost…” Hopelessly romantic, he fell hard and got his heart broken. A palpably besotted “Old Devil Moon” (Burton Lane/E.Y. Harburg) -too heavy on piano, and the performer’s rueful rendition of “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” (George and Ira Gershwin) tell the story. Yazbeck threw himself back into work with a vengeance. He has an admitted habit of dancing it off.
This evening’s highlight, a completely unexpected version of Billy Joel’s “The Entertainer,” finds the artist embodying and exorcising pain in song and emphatic tap dance. Both are superb. I’ll never hear this again without the vision. Both Yazbeck and the audience need to catch their breath.
An anecdote about meeting his wife-to-be is tender and surprised. It was all in the eyes. They wed just after a successful opening of the Broadway revival of On the Town- he starred as Gabey. “Lucky to Be Me” is heartfelt. (Leonard Bernstein/Betty Comden/Adolph Green) Dance floats in eazeee.
Having a son brings up memories of his much absent father. Resolutions are made. “Both Sides Now” (Joni Mitchell) emerges vulnerable; its last a capella verse light as a floating milkweed pod. The reprise of “Gene Kelly” finds Yazbeck telling his son to be himself.
I admit to not understanding the inclusion of a dramatic, well performed “This Is Not Over Yet” in tribute to mentor Hal Prince, which doesn’t fit the narrative. (Jason Robert Brown) We close with “Almost Like Being in Love” (Frederick Lowe/Alan Jay Lerner) also outside sequence. The song is nonetheless charming but for an odd drum (Jerome Korman), tap conversation that breaks lyricism.
All in all an entertaining and impressive show.
Fans should know that Yazbeck will play Cary Grant in Lincoln Center Theater’s upcoming new musical Flying Over Sunset.
Photos Courtesy of 54Below
Tony Yazbeck: Both Feet Off the Ground
MD/Piano- Jerome Korman
January 22, 2020
Feinstein’s 54Below
