By Abbe Sparks…
Barbara Bleier & Austin Pendelton with Richard Maltby, Jr. and Gretchen Cryer are as fresh and hilariously funny as the best of ’em!
Cabaret impresarios Barbara Bleier and Austin Pendelton, along with their legendary musical theater friends Richard Maltby, Jr. and Gretchen Cryer continue to shine in Old Friends! Part Two at NYC’s iconic venue Pangea. These talented veteran actors graciously embrace their age with humor and tenderness, masterfully telling their plights through skit and song – the underscore of Cabaret!
The show follows their successful Spring run of Old Friends, adding a few new songs from their lengthy repertoire to the performance that include tunes from Bock and Harnick, Amanda McBroom and Michelle Brourman, and Paul Simon and Stephen Sondheim. Of course, these are not ‘new songs’ but tunes we haven’t heard the friends sing in quite some time. We are treated to a total of 18 magnificent show tunes by the foursome, accompanied by the piano and musical direction of Deniz Cordell.
There’s something magical that happens when the creators sing their own songs and perform bits from their own penned shows. Both Richard Maltby, Jr. and Gretchen Cryer delight patrons with “Lunch With Linda” from Maltby and Shire’s About Time and Bleier and Maltby deliver a comically charming number “There,” also penned by Maltby.
A few other highlights from the sequel to Old Friends:
Austin Pendelton, who created the role of the original Tailor, Motel Kamzoil on Broadway in Jerome Robbins production of Fiddler on the Roof sets up the song “Miracle of Miracles” by relaying how this tune came to be and then proceeds to fiercely belt it out. New this summer is the addition of “Do You Love Me,” also from the Broadway show. This Bock and Harnick tune is sung brilliantly and ever so tenderly by Bleier and Pendelton that you think the duo were in the original production together as Golda and Tevya.
In Cryer and Ford’s “It Ain’t Over,” you see Bleier and Cryer question each other on what they’ve got to offer for dating someone after 65 before going into the tune. “Wisdom is so sexy, wisdom is so hot,” they sing.
Another incredible solo has Bleier singing Sondehim’s “Flag Song” where she sets up the scene by laughingly stating that she just had to do one political song. (A Bleier inside joke to those familiar with her). This song was originally written for the production of Assassins, but later cut by Sondheim. It expresses a sense of disillusionment with government and politics and eventually suggests the possibility of hope via change.
In “There’s No Going Back” Cryer explains that she wrote the song for her daughter and proceeds to exquisitely break out in song, bringing tears to my eyes.
There’s a perfectly good explanation why fans of the beloved foursome just keep coming back for more. The talented group of eighty and ninety-something year olds have been showcasing their voices in song and story for many years now. Each time you see them perform, you witness and learn something new – present company included.
The genuine love these four have for each other and passion for their craft illuminates the stage, as does Pendelton’s smile. It is so infectious that you cannot help but smile along and enjoy. It is that love, that all-consuming warmth radiating throughout the intimate club that brings the audience deeper into their clique of admiration and comradery. They are forever young in spirit and show know signs of slowing down.
Old Friends! Part Two has one more performance at Pangea on Tuesday, July 22 at 7PM. Tickets are $20 online; $25 at the door with a food/drink minimum of 20. Visit Pangea.com.
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About the Four Friends
Pendelton, Maltby, Jr. and Cryer have known each other for more than six decades now; since their college days at Yale (an all-male school at the time). Cryer was the girlfriend of a Yale Divinity student and auditioned to play a female lead in a play with the two actors.
Bleier has known Pendelton for over three decades – first as professor (Pendelton) and student (Bleier) and later on as co-actors to eventually colleagues and collaborators in cabaret.
All together, the four have been performing and co-mingling for decades.
