Danny Kaye

About a year ago, I blogged about a play I wanted to go to called Danny and Sylvia, the story about the early years of Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine. I waited too long and the play was gone, and I regretted not going. The play was back again this year and I made a point of it not to miss out on it this year. Today I went to see it with a friend from church. It was completely worth it.

First off, I was supposed to meet my friend at 4pm and she didn't have a cell phone with her, so when my train got delayed by half an hour, I couldn't contact her. I was on the train pulling out my hair, which was fine because everyone else around me was gritting their teeth and making faces too. Thankfully I had a book with me to help distract me. So one second I'd be snarling at the invisible conductor telling us it's all because of a stupid football game and the next minute trying to stifle laughing at Robin Ince's Bad Book Club. But more on that when I do my book review of it. Luckily, we were able to meet up and were not late for the show.

We had front row seats in a very intimate theatre, St. Luke's, so we were just a couple feet away from the actors. Except the point where we were inches from Brian Childers when he got off the stage and sat in the lap of the lady two seats to my right. It was part of a number where we as the audience were playing the role of the audience at a night club Danny was performing at. He is singing and flirting with this old lady (the average age of the audience was like 85) and he turns to her husband and pushes him aside and says "Get out of here." It was hilarious.

Basically the show is the history of how Danny and Sylvia met and their relationship as a couple and in business, with the emphasis on the business. It was really interesting because I watched this documentary (seebottom of post) the other day and it has this very glamorous depiction of Danny's life and his marriage. But the play shows how much they argued, how uncomfortable Danny was with Sylvia running his whole career, and how he wasn't even sure he was in love. When she decided they were going to get married, he ran away and hid in a hotel room for three days before calling and telling her he couldn't live without her. He was extremely hesitant about the whole thing though. He also did the London Palladium without her, which really made her mad and almost broke up the relationship, but he wanted to prove that he could do something on his own and that some of the credit for his success was his own. I am assuming the creators the play did their research. I don't know how much was fictionalized.

The play was a combination of songs written for the play--it wasn't just a guy pretending to be Danny Kaye and sing all his songs, it was an actual story--and classic Danny Kaye songs. For one song, he even encouraged the audience to sing along because people knew it, and they sang along. The play begins with The Maladjusted Jester, my favorite song! And then he quickly recaps the pellet with the poison. He does an impressive Tchaikovsky, Ballin' the Jack, and ends with an amazing rendition of Minnie the Moocher.

Brian Childers plays Danny Kaye. Overall, he was pretty good. His voice doesn't sound like Danny's to no fault of his own, but occassionally it sounds exactly right. And he definitely definitely nailed the accent. Oh and that classic Danny Kaye laugh! The hair was a really obvious wig which distracted me, but maybe it's because I was so close to the stage. There was some dancing, but he had to wear suitcoats the whole time and he was sweating enough as it was, so it's probably good they didn't have him do too much. His singing was great--not exactly like Danny Kaye, but close.

Kimberly Faye Greenberg plays Sylvia Fine. Aparently she was in the TV show Buffy, but we don't know as who. I don't know what Sylvia was like, but the acting and singing was good. And she definitely comes across as headstrong and brilliant.

Funny thing I learned:
Danny Kaye (Kaminsky) worked briefly for Sylvia's father and drilled holes in the wall with the dentist drill and her father always talked about that mess to people, so when they first met at an audition, she recognized his name.



Oh, and if you want to watch a Danny Kaye film, take your pick. They're all here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Huilifoj