![]() Towards the end of the evening he turns even more political than is usual in cabaret. The intense drama of this song is to the gentlest of piano accompaniment. His return to songwriter Friedrich Hollander in “Liar, Liar” is sung in impeccable German, and in almost frightening deadly earnest. So the performer himself is dropping lies here and there. The evening is sprinkled with supposed quotes from Dorothy Parker, some of which I knew to be false. In it Nadler showers us with spot-on dialects-from the Bronx to Southern Fried. ![]() “A Little Tin Box” is a novelty song about how various crooks and cheaters offer fragile alibis about their crimes. In another song written for a woman he sings a deeply moving “Guess Who I Saw Today.” Nadler gives a soft and gentle song about a woman who needs to believe “The Lies of Handsome Men”. Of course Nadler includes Lane and Lerner's famous “How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You?” But also The Music Man's “Trouble”, which I guess really is about lying. He can give us a mighty torrent of accompaniment, and yet he is the subtlest of pianists-ever sensitive to musical nuance and showing such gorgeous use of the pause. Often throughout the evening at least one of Nadler's hands is on autopilot, deftly continuing the accompaniment while the rest of him is engaged in acting, gesturing, clowning-even tap-dancing. So we hear “When You Wish Upon a Star”, then songs about the Tooth Fairy, Peter Cottontail, Santa Claus, and the Boogeyman. He ventures into the lies we tell to children-even to Pinocchio, the archetype of child liars. In the romping “Blizzard of Lies” Nadler gives a sense of vaudeville, singing with a huge forced grin. It's a cousin to “Love for Sale”, bearing the same bitter irony. The singer, who is “in love with pain”, offers to sell her romantic illusions. This song is almost owned by Marlene Dietrich and Uta Lemper. He starts off with a beautifully nuanced rendering of a rather dark number by Friedrich Hollander: “Illusions”. And he's a supremely accomplished pianist. and devastatingly, achingly dead earnest. He is, at turns, theatrical, vaudevillian, clownish, melodramatic. His talent remains simply amazing! He wields a rich, forceful baritone as he leads us through the song-history of lying. perhaps an ambassador from Luxembourg-but one who wears a derby, bright white-and-black “spectator” shoes, and a tightish almost-tux that must have been bought on Christopher Street. When last I saw him I described him as “a young Abe Lincoln”. Nadler present his solo show “Razzle Dazzle: an evening of Lies, Lying and Liars”. Sullivan returned three years ago-to the Gaslight-with a different accompanist, but last weekend (November 15 and 16) Nadler and Sullivan were together again performing in two separate evenings at a new bistro called the Blue Strawberry on North Boyle, just up the street from the Gaslight Theatre. These are artists at the very top of their profession. I first met them nineteen years ago when they brought an evening of Gershwin to the Grandel. Sullivan and Mark Nadler are long-term stars of the New York cabaret world.
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