[Dixielandjazz] Andrews Sisters tribute reviewed - Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2014

[Robert Ringwald]

'Andrews Sisters' Is All About the Cheery Songs
by Chris Jones
Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2014
Who were the most successful female vocalists in history? By most reasonable measures,
not any of the singers you can hear in "Motown the Musical," but, in fact, the Andrews
Sisters. Those three warbling siblings, the darlings of many a lonely GI, had stunning
careers that crossed three decades. They recorded together more than 600 songs, charting
more than a 100 of them. Before the Beatles, at least, they had no peer when it came
to selling records. "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me)," indeed.
Aside from LaVerne, Patty and Maxene Andrews' formidable gifts as performers and
their famous willingness to travel and entertain the troops, the Andrews Sisters
had a very distinctive style, which, if you'll pardon the gross simplification, usually
involved singing as loud and energetically as possible yet remaining in perfect,
exceedingly close harmony. Since we normally think of close harmony as a soft-and-silky
musical proposition, their brassy, triangulated work remains highly influential.
I'll bet you can hear "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" in your head as you read this. Artists
from Bette Midler on down owe them a great deal.
The members are now dead -- the last, Patty, died last year. But the tribute to their
talents at the uber-intimate Theo Ubique Theatre in Rogers Park certainly is a worthy
encapsulation of their populist art.
The show, a summer revue conceived by Fred Anzevino, does not get into much biography
(the sisters had a falling out after the death of their parents). Nor does it contextualize
the work or offer much sense of changing mores over the years. I found that a bit
of a shame -- there is, for sure, a full-blown musical in the lives of the Andrews
sisters -- but the aim here is a light summer revue. As the title says, it's "A Musical
Tribute to the Andrews Sisters."
And there's no question that the show's director, David Heimann, found three talented
young women capable of replicating the sisters' harmonic style: Sarah Larson, Jordan
Yentz and Casi Maggio. As costumed and bewigged by Bill Morey and Michael Buonincontro,
the women look like the glamorous sisters, and their singing is excellent throughout.
The musical direction is by Alex Newkirk, who also leads the three-piece band of
piano, drums and boogie-woogie boy.
Anzevino includes the other signature USO-style numbers, like "Oh How I Hate to Get
Up in the Morning" and so on, as well as ample examples of the sisters' standards
repertoire, as drawn from the likes of Irving Berlin, the Gershwins and Harold Arlen.
Between the numbers you get some serviceable Bob Hope-style comedy (plenty of groaners)
from William Lucas, who also sings a few numbers to give the women a break. Lucas
is a better singer than comedian.
There are too few chances for the sisters to chat or show vulnerability, and Act
2 could, I think, use a softer sequence that touches one's emotions more. But then,
"I'll Be Seeing You" notwithstanding, that's tricky with this particular group of
performers, always happiest when singing at the top of their lungs to a canteen full
of soldiers, cheering up everyone in their orbit. It still works.
-30


-Bob Ringwald K6YBV
www.ringwald.com
916/ 806-9551

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