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Health & Fitness

Moonlight Over a Marcovicci Port Washington

Singer/Actress brings historic cabaret venues and their stars to life in first visit to Landmark.

For most, cabaret is sustained by a wistful reminiscence and occasional reruns of the 1972 Bob Fosse film of the same name.

Not so last Saturday night at Port Washington’s Landmark. When a svelte, curvy Andrea Marcovicci made a stylish entrance confidently holding a martini glass, hers was to be a stroll down the historic byways of cabaret’s past. It wasn’t her first song, but when she broke into “Oh! Look at Me Now” it should have been. That was a song popularized by Frank Sinatra and later by Bobby Darin, but never with so compelling a stage result.

Ms. Marcovicci called this show “Moonlight Cocktail,” and the audience was in for more than a sip or two of the era’s vintage wit.  Take “Come Dance with Me” with its unanswerable question, “For what is dance / But makin’ love set to music playin’?” Or the words to Portia Nelson’s “I Don’t Smoke,” a Bobby Short-influenced version of Cole Porter’s “I’m in Love Again,” or -- for true Francophiles -- Hildegarde’s signature “Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup.”

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The sometimes wry, sometimes old school romance of cabaret lyrics were a natural fit for Marcovicci’s style. A sample: “If gender is just a term in grammar / How can I ever find my way? / Since I’m a stranger here myself” from “I’m a Stranger Here Myself” by Ogden Nash and Kurt Weill. Or “So sermonize and preach to me / Make your sanctimonious little speech to me” from “You Fascinate Me So.”

Moonlight Cocktail was to be an evening of mixed drinks.

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More than any other tune that evening, it was Sarah Vaughan’s “Don’t Look at Me That Way” featuring the lip-pouting “strange expression of indiscretion,” which best showcased Marcovicci’s vocal abilities and the trio’s understated arrangements.

Ms. Marcovicci’s docent duties included visits to El Morocco on East 54th, Café Gala, the Blue Angel, Tony’s, the RSVP, Le Ruban Bleu, Bobby Short’s 35-year reign at Café Carlysle, the St. Regis Hotel, Bon Soir, Café Society and Mabel Mercer’s own Byline Club.  When she ran into Julie Wilson at the Algonquin, where Ms. Marcovicci was about to start a run, Wilson made certain that the new singer had been suitably warned that “The ol’ broad ain’t done singing yet.” 

So it might be said of cabaret itself.

Marcovicci was accompanied by Shelly Markham on piano. Marcovicco’s 2009 “Best Of” album As Time Goes By was bookended last year by Markham’s own album, Things I’ve Learned Along the Way. The two have been working together for eighteen years, with Markham handling arrangements. Their union at Landmark was as smooth as Marcovicci’s stage entrance.  

Jered Egan supplied standup bass, and both men sang when needed, though arranger Markham was usually called upon for harmony duty. Egan was content to remain in the background for most of the evening, except when the trio delivered an impish version of Kaye Ballard’s “Teeny Tiny,” which was saved from sheer silliness by ponderously deep bass growls from Egan.

Veteran TV watchers in the Landmark audience recalled Andrea Marcovicci as Cynthia Chase in Hill Street Blues where she had a recurring role, as Nicole in Oliver Stone’s “The Stuff,” or perhaps her New York appearance opposite Sam Waterston in Hamlet.  Far from looking clumsy with a microphone, Ms. Marcovicci is one of those rare talents whose performance is enriched by her acting instincts. Audience members in Landmark’s front rows were lucky recipients of bows, hand gestures and winks that only a professional actress could pull off.

In the course of the evening’s sparkle of moon dust, Marcovicci invoked memories of Billie Holiday, Julie Wilson, Kaye Ballard, Peggy Lee, Liberace influencer Hildegarde, and even a still-singing 94-year-old Helen Marcovicci (Mom), who had also been “a torch singer.”

 The evening was a tour of music, but more than that, of smoke-filled, glass-clinking climates where working musicians had made cabaret flourish. When Ms. Marcovicci reminded the audience that the NYC landmark Rainbow Room, first opened in 1934 but closed in 2008 during the recession, could reopen later in a 2014 – “with full dance floor,” a wave of murmurs in the audience expressed approval.

Landmark’s Director Sharon Maier-Kennelly brought out a birthday cake near the end of the show, and the singer’s delight was palpable, though she did not eat it on the spot. Andrea Marcovicci hopes to perform for another 28 years, and expects, as the lyrics to one of her songs explained, to “remain hapless in a strapless.”

Next up at the Landmark (@Landmarkonmain) are several performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, presented by the Long Island Ballet Theatre on November 30 and December 1. 

Reviewed by Mark Underwood | @Darkviolin

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