Theatre Reviews

I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett
Show is pleasant, but the title is misleading


By Mary Damiano

Kyle Taylor Parker, David Purdy and Matthew Conti croon their way through I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett at the Stage Door Theatre in Coral Springs

Quick: Name a Tony Bennett song.

Chances are (no, that’s Johnny Mathis) “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” just popped into your head or out of your mouth.

But now name another. That’s a bit harder.

It’s not for nothing that Mr. Bennett’s signature song is referenced in the long title of I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett, now playing through August 2 at the Stage Door Theatre in Coral Springs. In I Left My Heart, three handsome, formally dressed young men sing songs peppered with bio bits and anecdotes about Tony Bennett. And that’s about it.

Individually, Matthew Conti, Kyle Taylor Parker and David Purdy, do well with the material, for the most part, but they can’t seem to nail the harmonies. Conti is the best singer of the three, Parker handles the minimal choreography with pizzazz, while Purdy, though eager to please, is more workmanlike in his approach to a song. They should stick to solos, because their harmonies are a tough sell—“Embraceable You” is unrecognizable.

The best parts of I Left My Heart has to do with the quartet. First off, it’s great to hear live music at Stage Door, where they tend to use pre-recorded tracks. Second, musical director Phil Hinton, who also plays piano, and the rest of the quartet—Scott Hadsell on bass, Tom Hinton in drums and Tom Stancampiano on trumpet—infuse the show with energy and immediacy. Their playing is flawless, as is the sound design by Martin Mets.

Matthew Conti, Kyle Taylor Parker and David Purdy with the quartet

The thing about I Left My Heart is that except for a few songs that Bennett made hits, such as “Rags to Riches,” “I Want to Be Around,” “The Good Life” and, of course, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” most of the songs are pop standards that have been performed by a variety of artists, from Fred Astaire to Frank Sinatra. I Left My Heart is less a salute to the music of Tony Bennett than a nostalgic flip through the great American songbook.

Tony Bennett is an icon, deserving of a show that pays tribute to his talent and longevity. I Left My Heart is pleasant enough, it just doesn’t have all that much to do with Tony Bennett.

I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett runs through August 2 at the Stage Door Theatre in Coral Springs. For more information, visit www.stagedoortheatre.com.

Bent
Actor’s performance makes show worthwhile

By Mary Damiano

Larry Buzzeo and John McGothlin in Bent. Photo: Ken Harrison

How can you tell when an actor is really good? It’s when he makes everything around him more watchable, more interesting, when just his presence raises the level of everything else on stage, and almost makes you forget the nonsense that occurred before he made his entrance.

The good news is that such an actor exists and he is appearing in Rising Action Theatre’s production of Bent. The bad news is that he doesn’t appear until the play is almost half over.

When John McGlothlin first appears in Bent as Horst, it’s close to the end of the first act. As a gay concentration camp prisoner who’s being shipped back to Dachau after being used in a propaganda film, he conveys quiet dignity from the first moment. Sure, it helps that the scene is steeped in power and emotion, but practically everything paraded across the stage until McGlothlin’s appearance is dreck. And everything after that is moving, poignant, powerful. Coincidence? I think not.

Bent, written by Martin Sherman, begins in Berlin in 1934. Party boy Max (Larry Buzzeo) wakes up hung over from a night he doesn’t remember with a trick (Richard Weinstock) he’d like to forget. His boyfriend Rudy (Michael Perry) is a whiny dancer who doesn’t like Max’s extra-curricular activities. Soon, the Nazis come looking for the hapless trick, and Max and Rudy need to hightail it out of Berlin, lest they get arrested for being homosexual, a crime in Hitler’s nightmarish Germany.

That all leads up to that wonderful scene where we meet Horst. Everything in the production changes with that scene. The lighting gets better, the sound gets really spooky and even the Nazis are more believable. And it’s the last we see of actor Perry, who thankfully delivers his groans as the Nazis beat him to a bloody pulp much more believably than every other line he recited up to that point. Even Buzzeo, who is annoying throughout the first act, suddenly finds—well, maybe not his A game, but definately his B-minus game.

Larry Brooks as Greta in Bent. Photo: Ken Harrison

The second act finds Max and Horst in Dachau, on the mind-numbing work detail of moving stones, one by one, from one spot to another. At first Horst resents Max because Max has worked a deal to get a yellow star which marks him as a Jew, rather than a pink triangle like Horst, which marks him as a homosexual, the lowest of all the categories of prisoners. But through their hardship and close contact, they develop a romantic relationship.

The scenic design by Leah Brown, featuring fabric panels printed with photos of people who perished in the camps, is compelling and haunting, but it would have been more effective—and made more sense—had it been left for the second act in Dachau rather than the first act in Max and Rudy’s apartment and other locales. And it does not need to be explained in the program, but it is.

In addition to playing Max, Buzzeo also directs the production. Perhaps his performance would have fared better had his attention not been divided. Larry Brooks makes a great drag queen as Greta, owner of the club Max frequents in Berlin. The less said about the other actors the better.

Bent is a compelling play which still resonates today, but the reason to see it at Rising Action is McGothlin’s nuanced performance.

Bent runs through July 19 at Rising Action Theatre in Oakland Park. For more information, visit www.risingactiontheatre.com.

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