Come On and Hear: The Songs of Irving Berlin

Peter Haas | November 1, 2014

Come On and Hear:
The Songs of Irving Berlin

25th Annual New York Cabaret Convention

Rose Theater, NYC, October 23, 2014

By Peter Haas for Cabaret Scenes
Photos by Maryann Lopinto

John Treacy Egan, Karen Mason,
Klea Blackhurst, Kristoffer Lowe

No single songwriter better represents the Great American Songbook — in longevity, popularity and sheer output — than Irving Berlin. So it was appropriate that the Mabel Mercer Foundation’s New York Cabaret Convention wound up its 2014 four-day marathon of music with a program devoted to Berlin’s work. A special treat was the presence of the Berlin family, with his daughter speaking from the audience.

Stacy Sullivan / Spider Saloff

Hosted in warm, cheery style by Klea Blackhurst, who opened with a zesty “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” the program zipped through highlights of Berlin’s theater, movie and popular-song career. Numbers included Karen Oberlin’s sweet “They Say It’s Wonderful” and Sidney Myer, dressed in black silk pajamas, performing a deadpan “I’m a Bad, Bad Man” (both songs from Annie Get Your Gun).

Sidney Myer / Tammy McCann

Young Rebekah Lowin, in her Cabaret Convention debut, singing the 1924 oldie, “What’ll I Do” and Celia Berk, another newcomer, with “My Yiddishe Nightingale.” There was veteran Spider Saloff with “Say It Isn’t So” and Peggy Eason in moving renditions of “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)” and “God Bless America.”

Anita Gillette / Celia Berk

Karen Mason with a peppy “Steppin’ Out with My Baby,” then, in a change of pace, the gentle “I Got Lost in His Arms”; Kristoffer Lowe, the 2014 MetroStar Talent Challenge winner, with “Moonshine Lullaby”; Stacy Sullivan, singing “Always,” “Remember” and a bouncy “Cheek to Cheek”; and veteran Anita Gillette (who was the only one on the bill who knew Berlin) with “Blue Skies.”

Peggy Eason / Rebekah Lowin

Berlin was skilled at creating two seemingly separate songs for his characters, then combining the numbers in counterpoint duets. Two examples highlighted the closing moments of the show: “An Old-Fashioned Wedding,” added for the 1966 revival of Annie Get Your Gun, sung by Blackhurst and Lowe, and “You’re Just in Love” with its own sister song, “I Wonder Why,” performed by Mason and John Treacy Egan. Then, in an imaginative arrangement, the four singers performed a duet of the duets, to huge applause. To close the show (what else for this audience?): “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”