Jillian Laurain carried herself with the grace of an accomplished, confident performer, and carried us to fabulous heights with her voice’s passionate depth of emotion and tone. When she delivered a splendid and misty-eyed “I’ll Be Seeing You,” she had my heart in her hands. Having gotten her start in opera, Laurain had a somewhat operatic style and flair to her performance. This was “her way” of doing things and it worked out really well. Each song rang deeper and truer than the last, as she weaved her way through some of her Broadway favorites, including a simply terrific version of Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice’s “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.” She also showed that she could be a little sultry and a little funny adding a song from a show in which she performed, Man of La Mancha‘s “Aldonza,” which has the line, “Cross my palm with a coin/and I’ll willingly show you the rest!”
Joining her on stage was the terrific trio of Ian Herman (musical director and pianist), Tom Hubbard (double bass), and David Silliman (percussion). They were fabulous accompanists, and Herman showcased his skill by playing a stellar piano composition that couldn’t help but remind me of Tchaikovsky. Laurain capped off the classy evening, adding a pair of fur-trimmed gloves to her already stunning outfit, for another Lloyd Weber classic, “With One Look” (lyrics: Don Black/Christopher Hampton/Amy Powers). With one look, indeed, she broke my heart. Look for her upcoming show at Don’t Tell Mama on Saturday, December 16.”

Broadway Her Way, Cabaret Scenes, Chris Struck

“Jillian Laurain bills herself as a concert artist, but she’s so very much more. She is a consummate performer in the style of which it can be said, “they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.” Laurain is a diva in the purest sense of the word – a singer of magnitude and presence, with an appreciation of style and glamour not much seen these days. In fact, she began in opera, and her classical training underpins much of her musical theater and pop style. Laurain’s operatic beginnings were most evident in three numbers, “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man (Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II) from Showboat, and from Porgy and Bess (George and Ira Gershwin), “Summertime” and “I Loves You Porgy” – all powerfully sung. Laurainpossesses beautiful technique and control, coupled with a well-honed capacity for story-telling. She has deftly handled heavy-duty roles in dramatic plays, such as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. Very affecting were intense renditions of “I’ll Be Seeing You” from Right This Way (Sammy Fain/Irving Kahal), a song very personal to her, and “At the Ballet” (Marvin Hamlisch/Edward Kleban) from A Chorus Line. It turns out the diva was on a track to be a ballerina before physical issues forced a switch to singing.

Laurain had introduced her set as music from Broadway shows she wished she could have been in – but in point of fact, the singer has had a very rewarding career in regional musical theater in shows such as Gypsy, Sound of Music, West Side Story and South Pacific. On her wish list, however, were big diva numbers befitting her capacity to possess the stage.Laurain is, if nothing, grandly and majestically theatrical. When she sings “Aldonza” (Mitch Leigh/Joe Darion) from Man of La Mancha and “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” (Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice) from Evita, it is a happening that expands the song into much more than mere words and music. She is firmly in character, giving the effort a powerful mini dramatic arc of its own. Likewise, with the sardonic “I Don’t Remember Christmas” (David Shire/Richard Maltby, Jr.) from Starting Here, Starting Now, Laurain wrings layers of meaning out of every nook and cranny of the song, hitting a range of emotion from start to finish, and ending with a finality that makes an unmistakable statement. Laurain dispatches ballads effortlessly, such as a slow-tempo “Time Heals Everything” (Jerry Herman) from Mack and Mabel, and handles jazz surprisingly well. “Hit Me With a Hot Note” (Duke Ellington/Don George), which appeared in Sophisticated Ladies, is a swinging tune that could easily have fallen flat. Not so with Laurain; her interpretation was in the groove with just enough swing to bolster the Broadway-style arrangement.

At her insistence, and to the great good fortune of her audience, Ian Herman, Laurain’s classically-trained music director and pianist, played a composition of his own – a lush and beautiful work reminiscent of the best of the Romantic period of Schumann and his peers. Overall, Herman’s arrangements and playing meshed perfectly with the grandeur of Laurain’s style. Tom Hubbard on upright bass, using plenty of bowing technique throughout, stood out especially on “I’ll Be Seeing You” as well as delivering a beautifully phrased solo on “Hit Me With a Hot Note.” Providing percussion was the talented and attuned, David Silliman. Together, these players were more than their individual parts, producing a big sound that belied their status as a trio.”

Broadway Her Way, Cabaret Scenes, Marilyn Lester

 

It’s hard to find the right superlative for Jillian Laurain, a class act whose talent runs as deep and wide as a mighty river. Here is a woman who trained and worked as an opera singer early in her career and then moved on to roles on the musical theatre stage as well as taking on two of the biggest acting assignments in the American repertoire, Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Ñamed Desire and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Her singing is almost without peer and her acting has great power. And yet somehow, in the intimacy of a cabaret room, she is completely accessible, able to have a neighborly rapport with her audience. Laurain is the kind of woman you want to have a couple of drinks with after the show, no matter what your persuasion. She has a little sass and plenty of sex appeal, but she could also be your best friend.

In her latest show, she ambitiously takes on about one hundred years of Broadway (more accurately, from the 1920s to the 1990s), which allows her to display a tremendous range of musical styles, emotions, and characters. After opening with the apt “Broadway Baby” (Stephen Sondheim) from 1971’s Follies, the show is presented in mostly chronological order. Early on, “Fascinating Rhythm” (George & Ira Gershwin), done with a varied tempo, displays Laurain’s showbiz flair—she can strike a theatrical, divaesque pose, but it’s never too much and there is never a wasted gesture. She begins “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II) a cappella, languidly, as a woman comfortable with her situation, but when she comes back a second time to the words, “He can come home as late as can be,” she expresses full-bodied passion, an unstoppable force that her man won’t be able to escape when he walks through the door.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone invest so much in the story of “Johnny One Note” (Rodgers & Hart), a song that many singers toss off for an easy laugh. Laurain is at her very best when called to show the deepest extremes of emotion, so her reading of “So in Love” (Cole Porter) is also fully realized. Also, the simple declarative nature of “Somewhere” (Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim) allows her to “just sing” and in so doing, she makes it as moving as it was meant to be.

Laurain shifts gears a bit in the more modern pieces. As glorious as those operatic tones are, with Kander & Ebb’s “All That Jazz”, she shrugs off that vibrato as easily as she might have shrugged a boa off her shoulders, and she reaches into her commanding chest voice. It is slow and sultry, building to a showstopper. “At the Ballet” (Marvin Hamlisch, Edward Kleban) is an acting tour de force—by the time she gets to the last line, “I was pretty, I was happy…at the ballet,” it is almost as if she were looking in a mirror and no longer believed it. Devastating.

Musical director Barry Levitt is masterful with this material, as is Marco
Panascia on bass and drummer Ed Ornowski, who has a few memorable solo turns. To execute such a range of great material from the 20th Century is no easy task, and the trio is marvelous.

Jillian Laurain is the kind of performer that the waves of young actors and actresses new to our city should be coming to see, to learn from a master. I have no idea why she hasn’t been discovered by Broadway producers yet, but this show demonstrates that she’s still very much in the game.

Kevin Scott Hall, Bistro Awards Review