{"id":12326,"date":"2014-06-18T06:23:49","date_gmt":"2014-06-18T13:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=12326"},"modified":"2014-06-18T06:35:34","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T13:35:34","slug":"12326","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/12326\/","title":{"rendered":"Passion, sadness, wit pervade staged bio of conductor Leonard Bernstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:3.5]<\/span><\/p>\n

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Hershey Felder becomes conductor-composer Leonard
Bernstein at the Berkeley Rep. Photo by Michael Lamont.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Leonard Bernstein as Leonard Bernstein.<\/p>\n

\n
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\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
One-man show, \u201cHershey Felder as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro,\u201d is on stage at the Berkeley Rep. Photo by Michael Lamont.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n

Genius.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s defined as a person with exceptional creativity, originality or intellectual ability, especially in the arts or sciences.<\/p>\n

Triple-threat American conductor-composer-pianist Leonard Bernstein certainly met that standard.<\/p>\n

Over and over.<\/p>\n

But Hershey Felder, a Canadian triple-threat himself (pianist, actor, director), depicts Bernstein in a new one-man show at the Berkeley Rep as a self-branded failure because he couldn\u2019t compose music that might equal Beethoven\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Bernstein was in his own mind merely someone who\u2019d be remembered for trivial melodies from Broadway\u2019s \u201cWest Side Story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Felder approximates him, but doesn\u2019t impersonate his finishing school speech patterns.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s good, because many in the audience \u2014 I, for one \u2014 recall boyish Lenny images from TV\u2019s \u201cOmnibus\u201d and his Young People\u2019s Concerts.<\/p>\n

Felder instead fills the stage throughout his inelegantly titled mini-bio, \u201cHershey Felder as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro,\u201d with larger-than-life passion.<\/p>\n

Plus equal doses of sadness and wit.<\/p>\n

He smoothly ping-pongs between triumph and tragedy while honing the essences of multiple characters \u2014 including Bernstein\u2019s ultra-Jewish parents and his Chilean actress wife (Felicia Cohn Montealegre, whom the bisexual Harvard grad deserted for a man, though he returned to comfort her when she was dying).<\/p>\n

He shines while posing as American composer Aaron Copland, Bernstein friend and benefactor, and a string of European conductors who influenced him.<\/p>\n

Felder also injects ooh-aah nuggets, like this recounting of a mentor\u2019s instructions: \u201cIt was like watching God sculpt the Garden of Eden.\u201d<\/p>\n

The play\u2019s a tour de force, for sure, likely to wring some wetness from your tear ducts \u2014 as it did from mine.<\/p>\n

I saw Bernstein only once, with New York\u2019s philharmonic, and Felder\u2019s no Bernstein.<\/p>\n

But he is a virtuoso pianist and a moving entertainer.<\/p>\n

Poignantly lovely is his rendition of Bernstein\u2019s \u201cSomewhere,\u201d which contrasts vividly with slivers of \u201cEmperor Concerto\u201d and other percussive Beethoven works.<\/p>\n

Felder also mines brilliance from Copland\u2019s \u201cPiano Variations\u201d and Bernstein compositions ranging from his derivative \u201cPiano Sonata\u201d to the raucous \u201cI Hate Music\u201d to the ethnically inspired \u201cSymphony No. 1: Jeremiah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stunning is a projected image of an operatic excerpt from Wagner\u2019s \u201cLiebestod\u201d synchronized with Felder\u2019s playing of the piece.<\/p>\n

Accented by Bernstein\u2019s words defending his acceptance of the German\u2019s anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

But the show isn\u2019t seamless.<\/p>\n

The 100-minute, mostly chronological musical drama occasionally becomes a preachy master class not unlike one of Bernstein\u2019s own teaching moments.<\/p>\n

Too detailed. Too intricate. Definitely too pedantic.<\/p>\n

It also has holes.<\/p>\n

It gives short shrift, for instance, to Bernstein\u2019s longtime leftist political activism (though it does capsulize the \u201cradical chic\u201d flap about his civil liberties fundraiser for Black Panther Party members).<\/p>\n

Absent completely are Bernstein\u2019s cigarettes (almost as omnipresent as his baton in real life), which led to his demise in 1990 at age 72.<\/p>\n

After having battled emphysema for two decades.<\/p>\n

No reference, either, to Bernstein founding the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, with Michael Tilson Thomas \u2014 a training school for musicians modeled on Tanglewood and still going strong (it\u2019ll hold a 25th anniversary celebration from mid-July to mid-August).<\/p>\n

But Felder, who previously tackled Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven in solo shows, exquisitely captures Bernstein\u2019s arrogance.<\/p>\n

And his insecurities.<\/p>\n

And his scornful dismissal of George Gershwin\u2019s \u201cRhapsody in Blue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judicious editing might help Felder jump-start the show, though.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s advantageous he doesn\u2019t shy from the conductor\u2019s gay meanderings or his lifelong immersion in Jewishness, but the over-emphasis on the latter heritage at the get-go is problematic \u2014 especially the massive infusion of Yiddish and Hebrew.<\/p>\n

That said, it should also be noted that director Joel Zwick, helmsman of \u201cMy Big Fat Greek Wedding\u201d who\u2019s collaborated on Felder\u2019s earlier shows, skillfully guides the single-act play toward the standing ovation it warrants.<\/p>\n

In rendering Bernstein, Felder, who\u2019s married to an ex-Canadian prime minister 21 years his senior, Kim Campbell, isn\u2019t as entertaining as he\u2019d been in \u201cGeorge Gershwin Alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nor is his performance as riveting as the one by Mona Golabek in \u201cThe Pianist of Willesden Lane\u201d that he directed.<\/p>\n

But his hard work researching, writing and acting pays big dividends on Berkeley Rep\u2019s Thrust Stage.<\/p>\n

Thomas Edison defined genius as \u201cone percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I use that yardstick, Felder\u2019s evidently a genius.<\/p>\n

\u201cHershey Felder as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro\u201d plays at the Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley, through June 22. \u00a0Tickets: $14.50 to $87, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:3.5] Genius. It\u2019s defined as a person with exceptional creativity, originality or intellectual ability, especially in the arts or sciences. Triple-threat American conductor-composer-pianist Leonard Bernstein certainly met that standard….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"