"Patinkin livens stage with songs, passion" Contra Costa Newspapers April 28, 1999 by P. Craig In Mandy Patinkin's show, there is no mega-video, JumboTron TV screen. There is no lawn seating or a promising, but nonthreatening, opening act. There are no Heartbeat of America or Fruit of the Loom corporate sponsorships. For that matter, there aren't any sets to speak of, just a sort of between-shows bare stage semi-darkness, with the ghost light burning at one side, a tall ladder near the back of the stage, all the ropes and rigging dangling from the fly gallery, a bunch of enormous wooden trunks scattered about the stage, and a single, undistinguished piano. Not a grand, an upright. But it's played in a righteously upright way by Paul Ford, who sits down to make music seconds before Patinkin meanders on stage toting a couple of boxes of flowers -- the only real set decorations for the performance. Of course, the bare-stage bit is about as preciously theatrical as you can get, but it works here, because the focus is completely on Patinkin and the moods that run from joyous to wistful, hilarious to tearful. Simply put, the guy entertains. He kills, without much more than a headset mike and a voice that could move a rock to tears -- or laughter. What you get for two hours here is a singer and a piano player, and that's plenty. Patinkin doesn't need truckloads of roadies and sweat-swabbing sycophants. Give him some tunes -- some Sondheim, some Irving Berlin, some Rodgers and Hammerstein -- great stuff from the great composers is really all he needs. While the material is tops, it's Patinkin's style that makes it all come together so well. While singing is what he says he likes to do best, it is really Patinkin's enormous acting ability that makes his performance so memorable. The lyrics are tremendously important to him. He is quickly able to make Trouble from The Music Man his own song and makes you yearn to see him as Harold Hill in a revival of the classic musical. Often, he uses the words as an interpretive launching pad that makes, say, Somewhere Over the Rainbow an anguished, but hopeful cry for a safe harbor in a time of turmoil. Obviously, recent events in Eastern Europe and Colorado have affected him profoundly. He even takes up a collection at the end of the show for two groups -- Physicians Without Borders and Pax -- that offer help and work for peace. But well beyond that, much of what he sings has a certain emotional urgency that evokes feelings of sadness and anger at the horrors of recent weeks. Sondheim's Not While I'm Around, from Sweeny Todd becomes a desperate father's prayer as he bravely sings, Not to worry, not to worry ... let me do it, put me to it. Show me something I can overcome. Not to worry chum, nothing's going to harm you, not while I'm around; nothing's going to harm you, no sir, not while I'm around. The words have a soothing bravado about them -- but the reality of recent days make the sentiment more of a wish than a fact. Don't, however, get the impression you are there to be Mandy-ized with a sermon -- the man has strong beliefs, yes; he will certainly move you emotionally. But the bottom line with Patinkin is entertainment. In many ways, he is a throwback to the entertainers of the past, who copped little attitude and knocked themselves out for applause. His performance, in fact, seemed to conjure up some of those who had danced across the old Orpheum stage years ago. In fact, Patinkin even does a bit of Al Jolson in his act, along with a Yiddish version of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, that gets the audience laughing, and a Yiddish Hokey Pokey that brings them to their feet to ... well, do the hokey pokey.

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