Howard Samuels and Lucy Dixon celebrated the genius of Fran Landesman in Invade My Privacy at the Crazy Coqs, London
Lucy Dixon and Howard Samuels performed Invade My Privacy at the Crazy Coqs, London
There are some evenings at the theatre that forever stick in the mind. Invade My Privacy: A Musical Celebration of the Works of Fran Landesman, performed at London’s Riverside Studios in early 1993, was one.
Since then, there has been little opportunity to relive that experience, apart from an occasional listen to the original cast recording. However, that all changed this week at the Crazy Coqs.
Actor and singer Howard Samuels, who devised, compiled and performed in that exquisite production all those years ago (directed by Linda Marlowe who was also in the Crazy Coqs audience), reunited with one of his former co-stars Lucy Dixon to revisit Landesman’s wisdom, wit, lyrics and poems all over again.
Landesman – who passed away in July 2011 at the age of 83 – was a New York songwriter, poet and performer who earned herself the title ‘godmother of hip’. In 1949 she met her future husband Jay Landesman, then the publisher of Neurotica, a magazine that backed the work of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Durrell and John Clellon Holmes.
Having run a hip nightclub called the Crystal Palace in Jay’s hometown of St Louis, Missouri (Lenny Bruce, Barbra Streisand and Woody Allen played there), the bohemian couple moved to London in 1964 where they remained.
Just under 20 years later, Landesman saw a show about Oscar Wilde at the King’s Head Theatre in north London which Samuels had co-written. Her decision to leave him a cassette of her songs to listen to turned into the start of a friendship and creative relationship that inspired Invade My Privacy (originally workshopped for a two night showcase at the King’s Head).
This may all sound like a lot of exposition to include in a review, but Samuels’ deep affection and respect for Landesman, both personally and professionally, made this cabaret something very special.
A couple of tiny hiccups in the flow of the programme may have been a hint that the gig was the first time that Dixon and Samuels had performed the material in this format, but on the whole the mix of poetry and lyrics – plus a good few entertaining anecdotes – was brilliantly realised.
Landesman was such a wonderful wordsmith, able to shock one minute by speaking her mind (famously so in ‘If They Can’t Take a Joke’) and break your heart the next with the tender emotion of ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most’ and ‘Ballad of the Sad Young Men’ (both with music by Tommy Wolf).
In performing these last two numbers that became jazz standards, Samuels and Dixon demonstrated their capacity for deep, bittersweet emotion through music, but in contrast their great comic timing was also evident throughout the more lighthearted ‘It’s Nice Weather For Ducks’ and ’Paranoia’ (a fabulous parody of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!).
Why I have not heard more of Dixon in recent times is beyond me, as she was a revelation, whether tap dancing up a storm during ‘Feet Do Your Stuff’, making reading sexy in ‘Find Me in Bed’, or perhaps best of all, singing a truly incandescent version of ‘Before Love Went Out of Style’ (music by Dudley Moore).
Samuels (recently seen in A Catered Affair at Fulham’s London Theatre Workshop) hardly let the side down either, revealing his vocal dexterity in the ‘Doner Kebabs’ rap (music by Miles Landesman) and the fabulously frenetic ‘In a New York Minute (composed by British writer and musician Simon Wallace who regularly collaborated with the lyricist in the later part of her career).
Samuels also offered something of an exclusive, introducing the audience to the project he and Landesman were collaborating on, a musical version of black comedy Harold and Maude. Indeed the quite excellent pianist David Gordon (playing a variety of infectious arrangements during the evening) had even provided a melody to one of the songs written for this piece, the haunting ‘Physical Ruin’.
Perhaps the most memorable lyric for me was the heartbreaking ‘I Should Have Been Dancing’ (music by Jason McAuliffe): “I gave you a hard time /Fighting our wars /When I should have been dancing /I was settling scores/When I should have been making sense of my life /I was busy messing up yours.”
The above was an indication of how Landesman could so eloquently express the turmoil others were experiencing, tap into their emotions and insecurities and replay those universal feelings in her writing.
I am told that Invade My Privacy may be performed again at the St James Theatre in the not too distant future. This review comes with a strong recommendation that you catch that show, although a longer run at a suitable fringe space in the capital would be even more welcome.
Lisa Martland
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.