Review: They don’t make them like Sophie anymore
By Colin Dabkowski
Updated: 06/02/07 10:19 AM
It’s been said about everything from corned beef sandwiches to rusty old Model T’s: They just don’t make ’em like they used to.
That platitude — implying nostalgia as much as relief — goes double for Sophie Tucker, the loud, brassy burlesque dancer and unapologetically sexual entertainer who rose to fame in the 1920s.
The musical revue “Sophie Tucker: Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” which debuted Friday night at the Irish Classical Theatre Company’s Andrews Theatre, is a good argument for restarting the production lines.
The team behind Buffalo’s production of the show, the same as that of its previous incarnation at MusicalFare Theatre three years ago, clearly knows when they have a hit on their hands. The show itself is pleasant, and the story line cleverly weaved, if somewhat unfocused. But more than anything it is a star vehicle, and ICT and MusicalFare have found their star in Kelli Bocock-Natale.
In the role of the boisterous, busty and downright inappropriate Tucker, Bocock-Natale shows us the full breadth and depth of her talent in the role, dare I say it, that she seems born to play. That could be read as a compliment or an insult, but given how at home she seems in the role, it’s meant as the former.
She’s tough, she’s loud, and she’s a little pushy, presumably like Tucker herself. While delivering the show’s vaudevillestyle torrent of songs, some classics and some obscurities, Bocock-Natale employs a wellstocked arsenal of facial expressions. To those she adds coy body language and nearly imperceptible ticks that almost always communicate a smug but charming sense of self-satisfaction.
The jokes are bawdy, the songs mostly gaudy, and that, of course, is the entire point. Bocock- Natale is particularly dynamic on songs like “Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love” and “There’ll Be Some Changes Made.”
Throughout the play, Tucker comes back to her fabled boyfriend Ernie for material, delivering typical but charming jokes about their conversations. Ernie is always getting himself into trouble by saying things like, “If you learned to be a good cook, we could fire the chef.” To which Tucker responds, ever so smugly, “If you learned to be a good lover, we could fire the chauffeur.”
Tucker’s cure for loneliness? “That’s why we have the Navy!” It was all great fun.
As Tucker’s accompanist, Teddy Shapiro, Philip Farugia was a welcome straight guy to Bocock-Natale’s zany antics.
Bocock-Natale’s huge voice closed the show with two of the most spellbinding and tear- wrenching performances of the evening: Jack Yellen’s “Yiddishe Momme” and her theme song “Some of These Days” by Shelton Brooks.
In the end, if there are no more Red Hot Mamas in the world, we can take satisfaction in the fact that at least there are those who can play them.
Theater Review
“ Sophie Tucker: Last of the Red Hot Mamas”
*** 1/2
Musical runs through June 24, presented by Irish Classical Theatre Company and MusicalFare Theatre in Andrews Theatre, 625 Main St.; 853-4282; www.irishclassicaltheatre.com.
cdabkowski@buffnews.com
