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Craig RubanoLondon Times by Clive Davis July 2, 2003 Pizza on the Park, SW1 There is a certain breed of Broadway fan who takes pride in knowing the titles of all the songs in the more obscure productions to ever reach the New York stage. He would have been in seventh heaven during Craig Rubano's Finishing the Act, a compendium of Act One finales which makes room for Rodgers and Hammerstein's Pipe Dream as well as Skyscraper, a Sammy Cahn/Jimmy Van Heusen collaboration devised for Julie Harris. Yes, it does sound trainspotterish. But to his credit, Rubano — a veteran of Les Misérables who has been scooping up cabaret awards in Manhattan — transforms what could have been a precious conceit into a thoroughly uplifting show. Accompanied by Ben Stock at the piano, he strikes the right balance between familiar and unfamiliar, erudition and entertainment. Rubano's fascination with finales apparently dates back to a childhood encounter with Shirley Jones in The Sound of Music. As he genially points out, finales are often "Me" songs, goose-pimple anthems designed to leave audiences in a state of fevered anticipation as they head for their warm white wine at the bar. Performing them en masse naturally creates the risk of repetition, but Rubano and his arrangers have lavished such care on the choices and the arrangements that the evening takes on its own distinctive momentum. His burnished tenor copes with all the shifts in tempo. A more forceful and theatrical singer than most of his peers on the cabaret circuit, he does not shy away from theatricality but always knows when to stop short of the melodramatic. "Before the Parade Passes By" can lead any singer into temptation, but Rubano cleverly combines the melody with "Take the Moment," borrowed from Rodgers and Sondheim's Do I Hear a Waltz? If "Who Can I Turn To?" has been done to death by all too many supper club crooners, Rubano injects fresh life into the Bricusse/Newley ballad by dipping into the score of Chicago and interweaving the bitter-sweet sentiments of "My Own Best Friend." While Burt Bachrach and Hal David's high jinks on "Turkey Lurkey Time" were not really worth salvaging, the humour was much sharper and more grown-up on "Sexually Free," a droll tidbit from Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart's swingers' show, I Love My Wife. The satire was more discreet, perhaps, on "Anything Goes," but Rubano's slow, sultry delivery on Cole Porter's classic hinted at ample mischief beyond the gilded door. | ||
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