Tuesday, October 05, 2004
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Broadway Across America presents Patti LuPone
By
Allyson Jacob
Theatre audiences know her as Eva Peron and Norma Desmond. Television audiences are more familiar with her work as Libby Thatcher in Life Goes On. A lucky few might have caught her creating the role of Fantine in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Les Miserables—the first time an American actress appeared with the English company. Patti LuPone is coming to Cincinnati.
The Queen City is one of only six stops on LuPone’s Matters of the Heart tour. The acclaimed singer and actress will visit the Tristate Tuesday, Oct. 19-Sunday, Oct. 31 at the Aronoff Center for the Arts.
Although primarily known for a voice that fills halls large and small, LuPone considers herself an “actor who sings.” She trained at Juilliard, graduating in the first class of that program’s drama division. Following her formal education, LuPone was a part of John Houseman’s The Acting Company, where she met David Mamet. Her collaboration with Mamet continues to be an important part of her performance life.
“David and I met on a bus while The Acting Company was on tour,” LuPone explains. “John Houseman had commissioned him to write a play for the company. He never wrote the play but he did pick up 3 actors, Kevin Kline, Sam Tsoutsouvas and me, and asked us if we would like to do a play at Yale Cabaret with him. We did. At Yale he handed me The Woods and asked me if I wanted to originate Ruth. I did. I consider my relationship with David one of the most powerfully artistic things in my life. Whenever he calls I come running.”
Her relationship with Mamet almost caused her not to play Eva in Evita. She was scheduled to recreate Ruth in Mamet’s The Woods; auditions for Evita came up and LuPone decided to participate, “so I could establish a relationship with Hal Prince.” She wound up being cast and was “afraid it would damage my relationship with David Mamet. I also knew I had to do Evita. The rest is history,” she explains.
LuPone will visit pieces of her own history in Matters of the Heart. The concert is essentially a theatre piece that weaves thematically similar songs together into two acts. LuPone plans to sing a wide variety of tunes, including music from musical theatre greats Rodgers and Hammerstein, Ahrens and Flaherty, and Sondheim; as well as pop composers Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper and Brian Wilson.
“It’s a tour of the crimes, affairs and mysteries of the heart,” Nancy Parrott, public relations director for Broadway in Cincinnati.
Scott Wittman, longtime collaborator and friend of LuPone is the director and conceiver of Matters of the Heart. Highly decorated for his lyric work in Hairspray, Wittman also conceived and directed LuPone’s 1995 Broadway concert, Patti LuPone on Broadway, and her Carnegie Hall solo debut, Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda. Wittman and LuPone have also collaborated on LuPone’s newest offering, The Lady With the Torch—a collection of torch songs that will play in Naples, FL and then at Carnegie Hall in March, 2005.
Cincinnati should consider itself lucky that LuPone is stopping here. Her past reviews have been stellar; whether you like her voice or hate it, the woman knows how to perform a song. Maybe it’s because she’s an actress who sings. Or maybe it’s because the years of playing great leading ladies has smoothed over all her vocal edges, polishing them like a gem. LuPone has earned the title “Diva” and Cincinnati will love all the matters of her heart.
Allyson Jacob is a freelance writer and playwright living just outside of Cincinnati.
