Simon Jenner May 23rd 2024
In some ways Jerry Herman (1931-2019) was a pioneer; and for his generation a particularly courageous one. His perennial hit La Cage Aux Folles defiantly dates from 1984 at the start of the AIDS pandemic. Its torch-song “I Am What I Am” opens and closes Jerry’s Girls opening at the Menier Chocolate Factory till June 29th, directed by Hannah Chissick.
Here though it’s sung by three exceptional actor-singers on stage throughout: Cassidy Janson, Jessica Martin, and Julie Yammanee. So it’s a filtered homage: the bite of the original storyline is lost.
This is inevitable, given the concept by Herman himself, Larry Alford and Wayne Cilento, premiered in 1985 and proving valedictory. After it, Herman produced no new shows. Here, 32 Herman songs are taken from nine of those shows and arranged in an extensive medley. There seems no no attempt at thematic coherence, but given the upbeat sensibility of Herman’s music it hardly matters. You enjoy the lyric moment, the fleeting truth given by the performers.
What we can enjoy is concentrated Herman, and though his melodies are uneven they’re all attractive, and at their best indelibly memorable. They’re listed by show but not running order and the concept allows the singers to give a light touch to the through-line of three actors preparing for a show, in the smoky Menier interior, aided by Philip Gladwell’s atmospheric lighting.
Paul Farnsworth’s set consists of three mobile make-up cabinets in lights with a hollow for mirrors; costume rails, three doors the singers disappear through, and very few props.
It allows the singers to brush delicious touches along the thin connecting material tracing the concept together. Set backstage in a Broadway theatre, Janson clamping a cigarette in the corner of her mouth like Reynaldo Hahn, the light conceit of preparing to go on and off is neatly encapsulated by live band music echoed in the same pre-recorded music piped through afterwards, in Mike Walker’s double-take of a sound design.
With the aid of Matt’s Cole’s tight choreography for the Menier’s small stage, Farnsworth’s props, and many costumes, the trio push a few light jokes. At one point Julie Yammanee is bundled into a laundry basket. In another, Jessica Martin is made the willing butt of the other two as they romp their way collectively through “Hello Dolly”.
It’s what the singers – and band – find in those songs that makes the evening so engaging. Collectively, alone or occasionally duetting we’re drawn into the aura of a haunting number. Their voices blend beautifully, vibrato is kept to dramatic points, and their vocal sheen proves hypnotic.
Janson with her soaring lyric soprano grasps the soul of such romantic numbers as “Time Heals Everything” (Mack & Mabel, 1974) with its final kick of ”but you”; “Kiss Her Now” (from Dear World, 1969) and “Mame” from the eponymous 1966 hit. Janson sustained a foot injury, but her deportment – and sheer determination – ensures it’s barely visible.
Martin’s dramatic and deeper soprano owns a particular pathos in such standards from Mame as “If He Walked Into My Life” and “That’s How Young I Feel”; and “Just Leave Everything To Me” from Hello Dolly, Herman’s Tony-sweeping hit of 1964 whose title song even knocked off three Beatles Number Ones in the U. S.
Yammanee’s coloratura range is also stratospheric and she often leads the other two in such numbers as “Tap Your Troubles Away” from Mack & Mabel involving three typewriters and some percussive wit from the band.
There’s some curios too. Jerry’s Girls itself added two new numbers. The trio “Take It All Off” a striptease number hardly wears well as concept, even for 1985. The closing, again eponymous “Jerry’s Girls” though, which touchingly enumerates all the great singers – including, wittily for 1985, Danny La Rue – really does draw an elegant finale to a major career of over 20 years; and a 50-year stint on and off Broadway.
The singers are sovereign and in this intimate space make an unforgettable impression. But this all-women band is stunning too, musical director and orchestrator Sarah Travis leads on piano (alternating with Wendy Gadian). Around the piano there’s a memorable sonic nimbus: Walker’s sound design again. Travis plays haunting chromatic melodies working against the major-key elements of Herman’s vocal lines. It’s striking and intimate, the piano’s ping moving to sharper, more desolate territory.
Becky Waite’s trumpet is woozily brazen in some numbers and blazing elsewhere. Though what always cuts though in this intimate acoustic (they’re all located stage-right) is Hsaio Ling Huang’s plangent cello, Amy Baldwin’s bass, and Hannah Morgan on a selection of reeds. She rises to klezmer cadenzas on the original material on clarinet, and some oboe moments thrubbing through with Baldwin’s bass elsewhere.
Calie Hough’s drums are used for far more than Broadway pizzazz, with drum-taps wittily mimicking those typewriter keyboards and elsewhere where tap-dancing’s to the fore. Travis’s beautiful orchestration deserves plaudits, along with her playing.
This is Herman’s own ideal introduction to his shows, allowing us to place his best melodies, recognising his limitations. Stephen Sondheim was a year older. Herman’s more conventional, didn’t write an endless number of great standards.
But he wrote enough of these, and in La Cage Aux Folles he broke new thematic ground. With four numbers from that show profiled here, he must have felt he’d done enough, in one final show proving both radical and courageous. Perhaps he quit while he was ahead, but what a way to sign off. Highly recommended for anyone who loves Broadway musicals.