The anguished and the reticent

Patinkin cries out; McDonald just sings

By C. Jones
Chicago Tribune
October 26, 2001

Toward the end of Mandy Patinkin's New York concert at the Neil Simon Theatre last month, the pianist Paul Ford played the Israeli national anthem very quietly on the piano.

Patinkin took out children's flags -- one Israeli and one Palestinian -- and stuck them in a little stand. He began to quietly sing the Israeli anthem in Hebrew only for Ford to interrupt him with a loud, harsh chord. The lights turned to blood red and the flags were knocked over. And then Patinkin sang "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught," the moving song about racism from "South Pacific," followed by Steven Sondheim's haunting "Children Will Listen," from the musical "Into the Woods."

This concert took place on the evening of Sept. 10.

These days, it has become de rigueur for concert performers to include numbers that reflect our current concerns. But instead of adding material to reflect the new world order, Patinkin -- whose concert show "Kidults" will be at the Cadillac Palace Theatre all next week -- has, in no small measure, been obliged to take things away.

"I realized on Sept. 11 that we wouldn't need the red lights and loud, distorted chords to simulate explosions," Patinkin said in a recent chat. "One no longer needs images of any kind to remind us of our struggle for peace. Those images are in our minds anyway."

Patinkin's version of "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" used to be characterized by anger and abrasiveness. Not any more. "Those words," he said last week, "now need nothing more than to be whispered as if to a child."

An emotional, impulsive performer, Patinkin has long prided himself on engaging with his audiences in the kind of direct, highly informal fashion that his detractors find cloying but his fans love and expect. Asking him to do anything other than reflect the gestalt of the moment would be as hopeless as asking him to stay away from any sensitive issues.

This fellow traffics in sensitive issues. "People want to be gathered together right now," Patinkin says. "Almost every day you fall apart."

He talks effusively about the new meanings of the lyrics in the songs from the shows he loves. There's the part in "Sunday in the Park" where someone sings "I See Towers/I See Trees," and where they speak also of longing "For the Old View." There's a whole new feeling, he says, behind "Nothing's Gonna Harm You." And when he emotes that "All the world is a hopeless jumble" in the song "Over the Rainbow," he reckons that people are realizing for the first time that there's a lot more on that torch song than the chorus.

"This is an extraordinary time," Patinkin goes on. "People need to be together right now."

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Fans of Audra McDonald, whose most recent local appearances were at the Ravinia Festival, look for a rather different experience than the one Patinkin's fan expect. McDonald, who is best known for her work in "Ragtime" and "Carousel," has been out of the public eye for the last year or so -- she has taken time off to be with her newborn daughter, Zoe Madelaine. But she's stopping at Symphony Center on Saturday night only.

McDonald, like Patinkin, possesses a gorgeous voice and great emotional resonance as a performer, but she is a far more introverted performer than he is. And in conversation, she tends to say that she prefers to let her songs speak for themselves...