Take time to smell the cabbage at 'Gershwin'
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What: Arizona Theatre Company presents "George Gershwin Alone," created and performed by Hershey Felder
When: various times, Tuesdays-Sundays through Oct. 2
Where: Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave.
Price: $31-$54, discounts for some performances, half-price student rush tickets for balcony seating an hour before curtain at all performances
Info: 622-2823, arizonatheatre.org
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Hearing the music of George Gershwin is only one reason to see "George Gershwin Alone," an intensely personal creation of actor-pianist-composer Hershey Felder. He has put together more than just another revue of Gershwin's career as a self-taught pianist who wants to be taken seriously as a classical composer.
Thanks to the Internet, we can quickly discover as much as we want to know about Gershwin's life. What Felder has done is directly engage the fullness of Gershwin's creativity to open Arizona Theatre Company's new season. He turns the stage into a magical place by adding human shape to the creative process. With impeccable timing, he uses gestures and voice to dramatize the emotional impact of a single note.
Jumping into the opening minutes of his two-hour-plus performance (delivered without an intermission), Felder is happily explaining the principal of music intervals. Soon, he is demonstrating the difference between major and minor scales while telling how his first hit, "Swanee," was written in two different keys - an extreme departure from the pop music tradition of the times.
Then with the instincts of a dedicated storyteller, he completes this brief music lesson with a hilarious impersonation of Al Jolson (who made the song a hit). Felder follows it with an equally enthusiastic impression of Ethel Merman doing a different Gershwin song (noting how she and Jolson sounded a lot alike).
Deftly, Felder shifts to some of the more tender moments in Gershwin's life and we are hooked. By the time the performer is detailing how Gershwin composed "Porgy and Bess" we trust him completely. Imagine being led by a tour guide through the intricate gears and springs of a gigantic clock. We see and understand the purpose of the massive Minute Hand and the tightly-wound power of the Mainspring. But then he points to a far corner of the watch works. Unnoticed until now is the tiny cog set on a delicate spindle that controls the whole thing.
Gershwin's greatest gift was his ear for melody. He was raised in a New York City neighborhood of immigrant Russian Jews, and grew up with a commitment to the sounds of the street. An attitude which would become "An American in Paris." He was drawn to the African-American jazz players, as well. Whether he stole their stuff and sold it as his own or introduced white America to black melodies is a matter of interpretation not discussed in this show.
Felder doesn't care about the politics of race, though he does reference the rich Jewish contribution to jazz. More important is the conviction that Gershwin's music sprang from his life. Getting at the actual essence of that life is the craft of this actor.
Never before has the Temple of Music and Art felt so much like a living room. It is just the right size for Felder's personality. He fills it with ease, drawing everyone around that sleek, black grand piano to hear his backstage tales.
By the time he's talking about Gershwin's domineering mom, Rose - who complained, "Why can't you get good reviews like Irving Berlin? There's a boy who makes his mother proud!" - you can hear the unhappiness in her voice, smell the cabbage cooking, touch the fuzzy fabric of the family couch.
That's the part you can't find on the Internet.
Grade: A
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