By Ron Fassler . . .
A storyteller who also happens to possess fine-tuned gifts as a singer (with showmanship to spare), Jeff Harnar has been delighting audiences around the world for a long time now. A New York City cabaret mainstay, he performed a new show at the Laurie Beechman Theatre that captures the magic already evident on his recently released CD “I Know Things Now;” a musical suite put together with a joyous intelligence by Harnar and Jon Weber, his brilliant arranger and musical director (backed by the estimable contributions of Steve Doyle on bass and Ray Marchica on drums). On stage, under the direction of Sondra Lee, the near impossible is achieved: fresh takes to the songs of Stephen Sondheim, while also revealing deeply personal elements of Harnar’s decades-long journey as a working professional. That he managed to do so by relying solely on the lyrics with no patter whatsoever, made this a truly remarkable one-man event. At the top, he speaks but one line that serves for the entire evening: “The words and music are Stephen Sondheim’s, but the story… is mine.”
Dressed as dapper as Fred Astaire (I want the name of his tailor), Harnar is such a pro that he could probably conduct a Master Class on just how to get on and off a stool. He embodies the quality most essential to a singer in that he is blessed with an actor’s deftness. The fifteen songs and medleys that make up the show are extremely well-crafted and constructed in an order that makes for an honest and absorbing narrative. He swings from extreme highs (“Getting Married Today”) to subdued lows (“Loving You/Losing My Mind”) to comedic surprise (“Can That Boy Foxtrot”). One medley, which included snippets of Merrily We Roll Along’s “Opening Doors” to Dick Tracy’s “Live Alone & Like It” to Company’s “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” was as superbly fashioned as any one-act play.
And he doesn’t play it safe, either. While channeling Jimmy Durante (and even a bit of Bing Crosby) during a mash-up of “Buddy’s Blues” and “Sorry, Grateful,” I almost thought I’d lose it when he sang “Good things get better, bad get worse—wait! I think I meant that in revoise” (the Schnozzola’s pronunciation). Sad that some of these references may be lost on younger listeners, but that wasn’t a problem at the Beechman last night.
From the liner notes for “I Know Things Now,” by the esteemed music critic Stephen Holden, what Harnar is bringing to the table, now at the ripe old age of sixty-two, is something special: “There are still echoes of boyish exuberance in Harnar’s voice… [his] licentious interpretation of the title track, Little Red Riding Hood’s song from Into the Woods, is reimagined here as a young gay man’s gay initiation. Attached to “More,” from Dick Tracy, the title song now hints at sexual addiction and predation. Harnar ventures into the world begging for adventure while terrified of intimacy.”
As Sondheim once wrote in a lyric: “But everything you learn there will help when you return there.”
Also, of note off the liner notes, is that the newly minted and jazzy orchestrations were blessed by the great man himself. In Harnar’s words: “After hearing Jon [Weber] at the piano and his approach to reharmonizing the music, Mr. Sondheim said, ‘I loved the changes. I wished there were more.’”
And how I wish there was more of “I Know Things Now.” If this fills you with a desire to see it, sign up for Harnar’s mailing list at http://jeffharnar.com/calendar/ and when his calendar becomes public, you’ll be the first to know.
Jeff Harnar’s “I Know Things Now” was performed June 15, 22, and 29 at the Laurie Beechman Theatre at the West Bank Café, 407 W 42nd Street, NYC.
