Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – The old and the new guard at 54 Below: UTE LEMPER sings Kurt Weill, ANNA ZAVELSON & HENRY PATTERSON epitomize youthful optimism

• By drediman
• May 29, 2025
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Over the past week or so, I’ve augmented my regularly scheduled performing arts programming to take in some wonderful cabaret entertainment at 54 Below. Read on for my thoughts on these nightcaps in “Broadway’s living room” with both the old and the new guard.

UTE LEMPER SINGS KURT WEILL
54 Below

This week at 54 Below, legendary German cabaret star Ute Lemper is treating her fans to her incomparable renditions of the defiant songs of Kurt Weill (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). Over the years, Lemper has pretty much become the foremost interpreter of the Weill songbook, who this year is celebrating his 125th birthday. Well-researched and gorgeously delivered, the statuesque German beauty captivated the audience with an in-depth overview of Weill’s tumultuous, eventful life alongside her distinctive singing, most of which centered around the composer’s collaboration with Bertolt Brecht (primarily from The Threepenny Opera). Lemper is unique in her ability to get into the guts of songs. Although at times the resulting sound is not pretty in the conventional sense, her guttural, emotionally naked approach creates a pungent atmosphere that few can replicate, which she established right off the bat with “The Bilbao Song” from The Seven Deadly Sins and “Army Song” from The Threepenny Opera. Once Lemper had the audience where she wanted them, she launched into a trenchant take on perhaps the composer’s most famous tune, “Mortitat von Mackie Messer” (also known as “Mack the Knife”). The heart of the show was her devastating, slow-burning account of “Surabaya Johnny” from Happy End, which led into a slicing “Pirate Jenny” (again from Threepenny). Other highlights included startling versions of “Youkali”, as well as a pair of standards from the Weill and Ogden Nash collaboration One Touch of Venus (“Stranger Here Myself” and “Speak Low”). Throughout, Lemper was accompanied instinctively on keys by music director Vana Gierig.

HENRY PATTERSON & ANNA ZAVELSON — BROADWAY: THE NIGHT IS YOUNG
54 Below

Then we have the new guard, as was represented last week by an evening with Henry Patterson and Anna Zavelson (RECOMMENDED) (Zavelson made an exquisite impression in her turn as Clara in the Encores! revival of Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza a few years ago). Fittingly entitled Broadway: The Night Is Young, the one-night-only late show was mostly comprised of Broadway show tunes, albeit in largely non-traditional arrangements (jazz was the prominent mode). Although Patterson and Zavelson are relatively young — both are only in their early twenties — they displayed an impressive knowledge of the Broadway songbook, especially in their spectacularly dense, Moulin Rouge-style love duet mash-up (a whopping twenty songs culled from a wide gamut of musicals). The most radically reconceived songs were a swinging “All I Ask of You” from Phantom and a beguilingly funky “The Beauty Is” from Piazza (it shouldn’t have worked, but it did), as well as an amusing gender-bent “Popular” from Wicked. More straightforward was Patterson’s foray into Sondheim material (e.g., a moving medley of “Loving You” from Passion and “Losing My Mind” from Follies). Also welcome was the duo’s mini-tribute to the late Charles Strouse in the form of their performances of a trio of songs from Annie — “N.Y.C.”, “Maybe”, “I Don’t Need Anything But You”. Throughout, they were the epitome of youthful optimism and exuded easygoing, natural chemistry. Patterson in particular has a charmingly self-possessed demeanor that suggests that he will be a fixture on cabaret stages for years to come. Zavelson, on the other hand, sings like an absolute dream, her pure upper register reminding me of a young Kelli O’Hara. Brilliantly stepping in at the last minute to fulfill music director duties on keys was the great Tedd Firth (although you’d hardly pick up on it if the circumstance wasn’t mentioned).