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‘George Gershwin Alone’ is more cabaret act than play
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Reviewed by: FRAN HELLER Contributing Writer
He was only 38 when he died in 1936 of an inoperable brain tumor.
But George Gershwin left a legacy that changed American music forever.
“George Gershwin Alone,” created and performed by Hershey Felder, is the story of the famed composer’s life as told through his music. It’s at The Cleveland Play House through Feb. 3.
The one-man show is part concert and part Borscht Belt shtick, during which Felder plays piano, sings and performs like a standup comic. A better pianist than vocalist, the handsome Felder’s chiseled good looks bear an uncanny resemblance to the real Gershwin. Felder exudes the self-assurance n equal parts ability and chutzpah n of a performer who knows how to work a crowd.
Presented as a chronology through narrative and song, Felder’s bland script is mostly about Gershwin as a composer, yielding precious little about the man behind the music. The solo entertainment, directed by Joel Zwick, has the aura of a well-oiled cabaret act.
An imposing Steinway piano dominates center stage, where Felder, as Gershwin, holds court. A rectangular mirror, suspended from above in Yael Pardess’s nostalgic setting, allows the audience to see Felder’s fingers ripple the keys, starting with “Swanee.”
Gershwin’s life began in New York City, where, on a hot summer day, according to Felder (here Michael T. Gilliam’s lighting turns the backdrop into a blistering red), he meets his classmate, the budding violinist Maxie Rosensweig, who taught Gershwin everything he knew about music.
Gershwin quit school at 15 and went to work at Tin Pan Alley. In a few short years, his “Swanee” would be heard at a Harlem nightclub by Al Jolson, whose hit recording of the song catapulted George and his older brother Ira, who wrote the lyrics, into fame and fortune.
George and Ira were virtually inseparable; Felder describes Ira as the soft and sensitive one and George as the brash, loud one. The brothers wrote over 1,000 songs together; the show illuminates their most famous ones, including such immortal tunes as “I Got Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch over Me,” “Embraceable You,” “’S Wonderful,” “Lady Be Good” and “The Man I Love.” Felder is not a singer, covering his lack of range with a thin falsetto and back-up recordings.
Felder describes how Gershwin’s father Morris, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, never stopped looking for streets lined in gold. The family moved 23 times in 10 months while Morris, a cutter of women’s shoes, changed as many jobs. Felder’s impersonation of the composer’s overbearing Jewish mother and mild-mannered father accentuates stereotype.
George Gershwin’s crowning achievement was his folk opera “Porgy and Bess.” Trounced by the critics as a questionable blend of opera, operetta, jazz, and pure Broadway, Gershwin never lived to see that his landmark quintessential American work became the most important American opera in the world.
One of the few and most moving insights into Gershwin’s life is Felder’s stinging impersonation of the notoriously anti-Semitic Henry Ford, who called jazz “a Jewish creation” and described Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” as “degenerate music.”
A flashy rendition of “Rhapsody in Blue” concludes the 90-minute performance, followed by a 20-minute audience singalong like a page out of “American Idol.” It’s entirely tacky.
Gershwin was a complicated and contradictory man, a portrait we don’t get to see in Felder’s interpretation. According to biographical sources, he was egotistical and arrogant, borne out of insecurity, anxiety and depression, and was treated for years by a psychiatrist.
“George Gershwin Alone” reveals less about Gershwin’s personality than of the actor portraying him.
Following the run of “George Gershwin Alone,” Hershey Felder appears as “Monsieur Chopin” Feb. 7-10. 216-795-7000 or www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
He was only 38 when he died in 1936 of an inoperable brain tumor.
But George Gershwin left a legacy that changed American music forever.
“George Gershwin Alone,” created and performed by Hershey Felder, is the story of the famed composer’s life as told through his music. It’s at The Cleveland Play House through Feb. 3.
The one-man show is part concert and part Borscht Belt shtick, during which Felder plays piano, sings and performs like a standup comic. A better pianist than vocalist, the handsome Felder’s chiseled good looks bear an uncanny resemblance to the real Gershwin. Felder exudes the self-assurance n equal parts ability and chutzpah n of a performer who knows how to work a crowd.
Presented as a chronology through narrative and song, Felder’s bland script is mostly about Gershwin as a composer, yielding precious little about the man behind the music. The solo entertainment, directed by Joel Zwick, has the aura of a well-oiled cabaret act.
An imposing Steinway piano dominates center stage, where Felder, as Gershwin, holds court. A rectangular mirror, suspended from above in Yael Pardess’s nostalgic setting, allows the audience to see Felder’s fingers ripple the keys, starting with “Swanee.”
Gershwin’s life began in New York City, where, on a hot summer day, according to Felder (here Michael T. Gilliam’s lighting turns the backdrop into a blistering red), he meets his classmate, the budding violinist Maxie Rosensweig, who taught Gershwin everything he knew about music.
Gershwin quit school at 15 and went to work at Tin Pan Alley. In a few short years, his “Swanee” would be heard at a Harlem nightclub by Al Jolson, whose hit recording of the song catapulted George and his older brother Ira, who wrote the lyrics, into fame and fortune.
George and Ira were virtually inseparable; Felder describes Ira as the soft and sensitive one and George as the brash, loud one. The brothers wrote over 1,000 songs together; the show illuminates their most famous ones, including such immortal tunes as “I Got Rhythm,” “Someone to Watch over Me,” “Embraceable You,” “’S Wonderful,” “Lady Be Good” and “The Man I Love.” Felder is not a singer, covering his lack of range with a thin falsetto and back-up recordings.
Felder describes how Gershwin’s father Morris, a Russian-Jewish immigrant, never stopped looking for streets lined in gold. The family moved 23 times in 10 months while Morris, a cutter of women’s shoes, changed as many jobs. Felder’s impersonation of the composer’s overbearing Jewish mother and mild-mannered father accentuates stereotype.
George Gershwin’s crowning achievement was his folk opera “Porgy and Bess.” Trounced by the critics as a questionable blend of opera, operetta, jazz, and pure Broadway, Gershwin never lived to see that his landmark quintessential American work became the most important American opera in the world.
One of the few and most moving insights into Gershwin’s life is Felder’s stinging impersonation of the notoriously anti-Semitic Henry Ford, who called jazz “a Jewish creation” and described Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” as “degenerate music.”
A flashy rendition of “Rhapsody in Blue” concludes the 90-minute performance, followed by a 20-minute audience singalong like a page out of “American Idol.” It’s entirely tacky.
Gershwin was a complicated and contradictory man, a portrait we don’t get to see in Felder’s interpretation. According to biographical sources, he was egotistical and arrogant, borne out of insecurity, anxiety and depression, and was treated for years by a psychiatrist.
“George Gershwin Alone” reveals less about Gershwin’s personality than of the actor portraying him.
Following the run of “George Gershwin Alone,” Hershey Felder appears as “Monsieur Chopin” Feb. 7-10. 216-795-7000 or www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
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