Irving Berlin’s “I Love a Piano”

Posted by Gail M. Burns - May 2011

I entered the Mac-Haydn a little on the grumpy side. I am not a fan of “revue-sicals” and I couldn’t imagine Irving Berlin’s I Love a Piano being anything but. But at the conclusion, as many in the audience rose to their feet cheering the talented cast, who were clearly pleased with the work they had just done, I was happy as a clam. This is indeed a revue of songs by the inimitable Irving Berlin, but creators Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley have crafted the piece with a singular flow and have avoided one of the major pitfalls of the genre – too much exposition painfully forced into dialogue.

You really don’t need to know that Irving Berlin (1888-1989) was born Israel Isidore Baline in Russia, emigrated with his family to New York City in 1893, dropped out of school at age eight to become a newsboy and discovered that he could sell more papers if he added a little song to his sales pitch in order to enjoy this show. Chatty critics like me can tell you all of that, and there are plenty of good biographies of Berlin out there too. You just need to know a good song, well sung, when you hear it.

They are all good songs, well sung, with some pretty nifty dancing in there too, thanks to sisters Karla and Kelly L. Shook who have directed and choreographed the show here at the Mac-Haydn after being involved with it professionally for many years. They also both appear on stage, along with Mac-Haydn favorites John Saunders and Andrea Dotto, and newcomers Tim Quartier and Carl Hulden. The combination of the Shooks personal experience with this show and with this theatre, and with Saunders and Dotto, have allowed them to tailor this production to fit the cast and venue like a Kate Middleton’s wedding gown. Perfection!

According to a Mac-Haydn press release: “Both Karla and Kelly had the pleasure of touring Japan this past winter with the show, and are remounting much of the original production created by Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley.

Karla toured the US with the show from 2007-2008*, and was asked to join the Japanese tour in 2010. Knowing the show still needed a swing (an understudy for all three female roles) Kelly auditioned and got the job. Together, the sisters visited Sapporo, Nagoya, Sendai, Nara, Amagasaki, Obihiro, Fuji City, Kyoto, and Tokyo. It was the trip of a lifetime, bringing such an iconic piece of American art to Japan, and sharing the experience together.”

This show is ALL about the music and the performers. There is virtually no spoken dialogue at all, and while the performers do take on many different roles, most of them are not distinct “characters” with names and back-stories. The “plot” is as simple and as broad as the 20th century American experience that Berlin’s song’s describe so well. Starting in 1910 with his first hit, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, and traveling through to the late 1950’s, Berlin’s music and Jimm Halliday’s splendid costumes clearly inform the audience of the time period and mood.

The Shooks have chosen their colleagues wisely and the sextet display a fine range of talents. Karla is the belter and comedienne. Kelly, a tall redhead, and Dotto, a petite brunette, take the female dance leads, partnering nicely with Quartier and Hulden. Saunders takes the male comic bits and lends his healthy baritone to the ensemble. Quartier, a tenor, and Hulden, a baritone, are both handsome men, fine dancers, and strong singers. I look forward to seeing Hulden, who looks like he’s got some good comedy chops, tackle a variety of roles over the course of the season. Alas, it looks like Quartier is just here for this show.

Roderick and Berkeley and Shook and Shook keep things moving right along. Berkeley did the musical arrangements, which segue Berlin’s songs seamlessly together. Musical Director Joshua D. Smith, and his assistant Matthew Rose handle the keyboard duties. Thanks to their efforts and Luke Krauss’ sound design you could swear the onstage piano is really being played. Percussionist Jared Kalman rounds out the pit band. I was very pleased not to hear a hint of that hurdy-gurdy sound the Mac-Haydn musical team has employed in the past.

Irving Berlin wrote a PILE of music, all of it very American and none of it less than good. “I Love a Piano” is packed full of almost everyone’s favorites – A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody, Blue Skies, Steppin’ Out with My Baby, Puttin’ on the Ritz, Cheek to Cheek, Always, What’ll I Do?… And that’s just Act I!!

That act ends with a World War II medley including two of Berlin’s most iconic numbers. White Christmas, is poignantly sung by a deployed soldier (Hulden) and his sweetheart (Dotto) on opposite sides of the ocean, until Karla strides on dressed as Kate Smith and belts out God Bless America as Johnny comes marching home.

The heart of Act II is an audition for the title role of Annie Get Your Gun at a summer stock theatre in the late 1950’s. Saunders plays the long-suffering producer, Quartier the self-absorbed lothario playing Frank Butler, and Hulden the endlessly patient stage manager, all trying to maintain their sanity while Dotto, Shook, and Shook duke it out for their attention and the starring role. (The in-joke here is that Karla played Annie Oakley at the Mac-Haydn exactly a year ago.) In this segment the actors actually do play distinct characters, and the blend of comedy and music is delightful.

The seventh character in this show (Or perhaps that should be the eighth as surely Irving Berlin himself deserves the number one slot!) is a non-functioning upright piano. It is tricky to get something as big as a piano up on to the Mac-Haydn stage – although this one, which has had it guts stripped out, is undoubtedly considerably lighter than a real one “fully loaded” – and any set pieces cause sight-line problems for someone in the audience, but Shook and Shook have done a good job of keeping its time center stage to a minimum and I personally did not notice any times I cursed it for getting the way of my thorough enjoyment of the show.

And I can’t conclude this review without remarking that there are two outstanding renditions of songs entitled Suppertime on stage in Columbia County right now – Karla Shook does a stellar job with Berlin’s Suppertime, which describes the anguish of a woman whose husband is gone forever, and Mark “Monk” Schane-Lydon slithers off the roof of Snoopy’s doghouse to sashay through Clark Gesner’s ode to canine gustatory delight in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown at the Ghent Playhouse. What a treat! Two weekends of fabulous family musical theatre! I encourage you to see both but there must be a whole generation (or two) out there who NEED to be exposed to Irving Berlin’s music. Can you even get Irving Berlin songs on iTunes??The Mac-Haydn is fully air-conditioned so it will be a great place to go to beat the heat on your Memorial Day Stay-cation.

Irving Berlin’s “I Love a Piano” runs May 26-29 and June 1-5 at the Mac-Haydn Theatre, 1925 NY Rt. 203 in Chatham, NY. The show runs two hours and fifteen minutes with one intermission and is suitable for the whole family. Matinee and evening performances, times and ticket prices vary: visit www.machaydntheatre.org or call 518-392-9292 for more information. Fully

* Click HERE read my colleague Peter Bergman’s review of that touring company’s stop at The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, MA in October of 2007.

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