A World Where All Is Not Sweetness and Light

By A.TOMMASINI
NY Times, September 11, 2001

Mandy Patinkin keeps slipping off to Hollywood to appear in films and television shows. But if lovers of musical theater had their way they would keep Mr. Patinkin on Broadway, where his astonishing gifts as a singer and actor have found ideal outlets.

The good news is that Mr. Patinkin came back to Broadway on Monday night for one of his inimitable solo concerts, this time at the Neil Simon Theater. The bad news, at least for New Yorkers, is that this one-time event was a kickoff for a five-month, 37-city concert tour. Judging by the response of the sold-out house, Mr. Patinkin could play New York alone for that long and keep packing the place.

Like the great Broadway songsters before him, Mr. Patinkin knows that clever, edgy and wistful words are the driving force of musical theater songs, and in every number on this manic, uninterrupted two-hour program, Mr. Patinkin was afire with a love of language. Yet there are unique qualities to Mr. Patinkin's artistry, especially his gloriously imperfect voice. Right in the middle of his range is what classical singers would call a gaping break. Below it he in sings with huffy chest tones. Above it he resorts to a kind of falsetto.

In the low-lying verse to the Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Bali Ha'i," Mr. Patinkin sang with basso profundo huskiness. Was he slightly mocking the sentiment? Yet, when the chorus came, his airy upper voice, almost like a countertenor's, lifted to the melodic peaks with disarming purity.

Ambiguity was to be expected, for another distinctive quality of Mr. Patinkin's artistry is his attitude. Anger and aggressiveness lurk below the surface of his singing. Take "Holiday for Strings," the standard by Sam Gallop and David Rose, one of several songs that Mr. Patinkin offered that can be heard on his new solo album, "Kidults" (Elektra/Asylum). Though you didn't quite trust the sweetness Mr. Patinkin brought to this sentimental song, it was hard to resist his mellifluous delivery.

On the other hand, in "Triplets," by Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz, which Mr. Patinkin performed with two hand puppets, the frenzied squabbling he enacted between the hostile siblings was genuinely frightening.

And you figured that he could not perform on the stage where "The Music Man" is currently in revival without taking a poke at this popular show, singing what may have been the most aggressive version of "Trouble" ever. This Professor Harold Hill had you convinced that a pool hall in River City would lead not just to young boys covering up their telltale breaths with Sen-Sen, but drive- by shootings.

That said, in song after song, like Sondheim's "Not While I'm Around," Mr. Patinkin softened the edges of his style and let us bask in the beautiful mix of words and melody. There was a poignantly slow account of the Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg classic "If I Only Had a Brain." And fun items too, like "The Hokey-Pokey" sung in Yiddish, in which Mr. Patinkin positively bullied the audience into standing up and shimmying their hips on cue. In a refreshingly simple touch, Mr. Patinkin was accompanied only by the pianist Paul Ford, whose stylish arrangement included a murmuring introduction to "Bali Ha'i" that evoked the water music of Ravel.

At the end, Mr. Patinkin may have pushed the boundaries too much. Propping up small Israeli and Palestinian flags on a table, he sang the Israeli National Anthem in Hebrew, then segued into a vehement account of "You've Got to Be Taught," the antiracism protest song by Rodgers and Hammerstein, then switched to Sondheim's admonition to be careful of the things you say because "Children Will Listen." It was a heavy- handed and squirm-inducing idea. Yet oddly riveting. Mr. Patinkin always is.