A Good Tribute to Great Music

My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra. Laguna Playhouse. 7/7/09.

My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra features a quartet of good singers singing the best songs recorded by Frank Sinatra, so it's an evening of excellent music delivered in pleasant, if not brilliant or revolutionary, manner. It's a good show and the performers do an admirable job singing all of Frank's hits. Go to this show if you want a nice concert of Sinatra music. The cast members have great voices, particularly John Fredo as Man #1 who displays the spirit and vocal quality of Sinatra, and though his dancing wasn't particularly Sinatra-esque, it was fun to watch. I also enjoyed the work of Casey Erin Clark, even though she's terribly miscast as Woman #1 who should by all rights be older considering the songs she sings.

Beyond the songs and the singing, which are good, this production isn't anything to write home about. When confronted with the understated cool of Sinatra, the conventions of the musical revue seem far too staid and artificial. The old familiar format of two guys and two girls in formalwear singing in mixed couples makes a lot of sense for the songs of Sondheim or Noel Coward, both of which I have seen to good effect, but it doesn't make sense for Sinatra, whose voice and personality are as important as the songs themselves. The four people all dressed up and hanging out singing feels particularly inappropriate as performances of or about Sinatra. Though the performers are consummate singers, they're not necessarily the ideal actors for paying tribute to Sinatra's persona. Karen M. Jeffreys as Woman #2 in particular overperformed, with dramatic arm gesturing, facial mugging and hip wiggling that detracted from rather than enhanced the songs. Between sets of dubiously grouped songs, the patter of Frank Sinatra quotes and anecdotes addressed directly at the audience were a little awkward and at the end of the show they got maudlin in trying to pay tribute to Sinatra and his legacy. The emphasis on tribute was heavy-handed to the point that it detracted from the strong sense of life that the music itself conveyed.

Overall, the show was a nice concert of Sinatra music, but it had little of the spirit of Sinatra to it. The sense of Sinatra as the Chairman, his homosocial Rat Pack cool, even his way with the ladies was missing from this particular production. If you're looking for a better sense of the man and the myth of Sinatra, this isn't the show for you, but if you just want to enjoy the music, these kids put on a pretty good concert.