In the Mood for Love, 100 Years Later

K.T. Sullivan and Mark Nadler are primarily comic performers. Ms. Sullivan, one of the few effective classical-style vocalists doing the Great American Songbook, varies between sounding like an opera singer and a parody of one. Mr. Nadler, who plays piano and sings, brings to mind a phrase coined by Foghorn Leghorn: as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel of oatmeal. Surprisingly, though, the most effective moments in their tribute to Dorothy Fields on Wednesday night were the poignant ones.The American Musical is filled with “I want” songs, written for leading ladies with big ambitions, as well as songs expressing the desires of members of the common herd to be regarded as special or different. But “Baby Dream Your Dream” (from “Sweet Charity,” with music by Cy Coleman) is the lament of a true outsider, a dysfunctional character who longs just to be “normal.” Normally one of the most bombastic of entertainers, Mr. Nadler here showed a quiet and even tender side rarely seen by audiences.Ms. Sullivan performed with similar subtlety in three marvelous character songs with music by Arthur Schwartz from the shows “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” and “By the Beautiful Sea.” “Refinement” is normally delivered over-the-top with an outrageous outer-borough accent (a la Shirley Booth, who introduced it), but Ms. Sullivan essentially talked it through, playing it close to the vest and downplaying each salacious joke.“A Fine Romance” is Ms. Sullivan and Mr. Nadler’s third songwriter driven show in that many years, following celebrations of Irving Berlin and Jule Styne, and they’ve got the biography-songbook format down pat. Wednesday night, they sang “A Fine Romance” (music by Jerome Kern, Fields’s second great partner) to illustrate Fields’s first, apparently sexless marriage. Ms. Sullivan intoned the lyricist’s wittiest text in an emotionless monotone.The duo also made extensive use of medleys. Ms. Sullivan sang the Fields-Kern classic “Remind Me,” then moved into Fields and Jimmy McHugh’s torch song “I Must Have That Man.” As she did so, she changed from a commanding, almost snarling tone to being on the verge of a breakdown. The two performers also merged the great Fields-Kern numbers about not dancing, “Never Gonna Dance” and “I Won’t Dance” (though the latter should have been acknowledged as primarily Oscar Hammerstein’s text), as well as two songs about the power of love as a suggestion, the standard “Don’t Blame Me” and the obscure “Don’t Mention Love to Me.” In the lesser known-songs department, the team unearthed two fine, romantic tunes from Fields’s unrevived 1959 musical “Redhead.”Mr. Nadler’s most exciting medley was a combination of the standard “I’m in the Mood for Love” and the exotic bolero “Diga-Diga-Do,” from a Cotton Club revue. In 1928, the title “Diga-Diga-Do” referred to a native chant, but Mr. Nadler imbued it with all kinds of sexual connotations. He started slowly, throwing in a fermata and a Bob Hope-style make-out-man growl after the bridge. Then, quickly trading off between the two songs, he built to an enormous climax.A little less might have been a little more in this case – Mr. Nadler could have trimmed off a chorus or two from the end – but there’s no denying he leaves both songs diga-diga-done.Until September 24 (59 W. 44th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, 212-419-9331).

In the Mood for Love, 100 Years Later

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