New York State of Mind: Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Callaway – streamed from 54 Below, New York.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Musically speaking, if there’s anything better in the world of cabaret than one Callaway, it’s surely two Callaways. So with Ann living in Arizona and Liz in NYC, they get together artistically only rarely and the chance to see their new show New York State of Mind at famed Manhattan nightspot 54 Below was not to be missed.
It is nine years since AHC and her little sister sang together in London, reprising the Sibling Revelry show they first delighted us with in the Divas at the Donmar series in 1998 which also featured Barbara Cook and Imelda Staunton.
Helpfully, the final night of their 54 Below residency was being streamed live for a mere $25, surely one of the few bargains left in a city where you pay more than that in tips when you’re actually there. And what an absolute joy it was to see those two all-time greats at the top of their game.
They couldn’t look more different, Ann, the older by three years, taller “but worth the climb” and dark, Liz daintier and blonde, or sound more different, singer-songwriter Ann jazzier, deeper and rangier, Broadway star Liz bell-like and crystal clear, every word beautifully in place. Their passions were very different too. Liz is a baseball obsessive, Ann’s bedroom wall had a poster of feminist political activist Angela Davis. But put them together and harmonies never sounded sweeter.
Originally from Chicago, they always could sing and they took the audience back to their impish childhood when they sat in the back of the car in long journeys annoying their Mantovani-minded parents by running through vintage pop hits like ‘Mercedes Benz’, ‘Sugar Sugar’, ‘Dance to the Music’ and ‘Joy to the World’. Their ‘Back Seat of the Car Medley’ recalled those early days but it wasn’t until Liz was 18 and Ann 21 that they decided to hit the Big Apple together to follow their dream.
Ann quickly got a job at Sharma’s piano bar, Liz found work as a singing waitress at Applause restaurant, doing two songs an hour. ‘Meadowlark’, Stephen Schwartz’s hit song from The Baker’s Wife, became her calling card and here she was, 45 years later, enchanting yet another audience with its beauty.
When Liz finished her shift she would often mosey down to Sharma’s where her sister was performing at two in the morning while some of AHC’s audience partook of “synchronised cocaine and me only 21. What an education!” One of Ann’s earliest compositions, ‘Remind Me’, written in 1982, became a regular late-night duet and AHC relieved musical director Alex Rybeck at the piano to re-create it affectionately with Liz.
They remembered fondly doing a Together At Last show at the old Russian Tea Room, lamenting the number of cabaret venues now gone, and the horrors of 9/11 were not forgotten. Adam Gwon’s intensely moving ‘I’ll Be Here’, about a young woman widowed in that atrocity finding love again later and getting the go-ahead from the dead man’s spirit to move on with her life and remarry, was Liz the storyteller at her finest.
Ann went on to say how 9/11 brought the city, then the country together like never before and prayed it was still possible for that spirit to return, launching into a passionate version of the Dylan classic ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, almost gospel style. What a ride she gave that one – she blew us all away.
Unexpected gems like Carly Simon’s ‘That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be’ and the fast-tempo, tongue-twisting ‘Cloudburst’ mixed perfectly with the show’s theme songs ‘I Happen to Like New York’ and ‘New York State of Mind’ as duets and the Ann Hampton Callaway version of ‘Old Friend’, the haunting Nancy Ford/Gretchen Cryer number that never fails to draw a hankie, has surely never been so wonderfully understood or better performed. Ryback’s piano was gorgeous too, along with Ritt Henn on bass and Ron Tierno on drums. Liz’s husband Dan Foster directed. An evening as much about sisterly love as New York.
I could go on and on but it would only make you jealous. Keep your eye out for more live streamings from 54 Below. It’s a brilliant way to see outstanding work. Saves a lot of hassle at airports too! Liz will be doing her own show at the Crazy Coqs in March but we must find a big enough venue to tempt the two of them over as cabaret doesn’t get better than this.
Jeremy Chapman
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