HEY, PIANO BAR LADY!
BATS Theatre, The Random Stage, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
21/10/2020 - 21/10/2020
Production Details
Linn Lorkin went to New York on a three-week transit visa in 1977, fell into piano-bar work and stayed eight years.
“A love-letter to a life filled with adventure, funny and poignant, Lorkin’s captivating performance exuding the timelessness of a brilliant performer ” – The List UK
Interwoven with original songs (including her famous Family at the Beach) and unfolding like a Broadway musical, Hey, Piano Bar Lady! tells the fascinating tale of her adventures in the Big Apple as she progresses from down-town $20-a-night gigs to up-town’s swanky ivories with stops along the way for marriage, divorce and a baby.
Currently in revival for New Zealand audiences, it was one of ThreeWeeks Picks of the Festival at Edinburgh Fringe 2012 and won Best Cabaret at the world’s largest solo theatre festival, United Solo, in New York 2013.
[See review of 2011 TAPAC season]
BATS Theatre, The Random Stage
21 October 2020
8:30pm
Full Price $22
Group 6+ $20
Concession Price $18
BOOK TICKETS
Accessibility
The Random Stage is fully wheelchair accessible; please contact the BATS Box Office by 4.30pm on the show day if you have accessibility requirements so that the appropriate arrangements can be made. Read more about accessibility at BATS.
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TAHI Festival
This performance is presented as part of and in collaboration with TAHI: New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance. This five-day festival is dedicated to showcasing Aotearoa’s finest, most engaging solo performance. TAHI gathers soloists from around the nation, and beyond – from established to emerging practitioners – to present work, collaborate and make connections across the industry. Alongside premiering and showcasing solo performances, the Festival provides opportunities for practitioners to extend the life of their performance work, to upskill, and to network through an integrated programme of performance, workshops, and forums. TAHI also seeks to foster relationships among tertiary institutions, actor training courses, secondary schools, BATS Theatre, and industry professionals.
Theatre , Solo , Music ,
1 hr 30 min
A fabulous performer and chanteuse
Review by Maryanne Cathro 22nd Oct 2020
Can one be a fan girl at 55? Apparently! For me, Linn Lorkin is a singer’s singer, a musician’s musician and a true down-to-earth Diva. Tonight, the Random Stage has a nearly full house aged from 6 to 80, some fans like me and some who have never heard Lorkin perform before.
The stage contains only an upright piano with microphone and stool. As the house lights go down, a brilliant vision in red silk appears; her unruly locks bright red, red shoes, red lips. From that moment she has us all in the palm of her hand, like the glistening seashells of her iconic song, ‘Family at the Beach’.*
This show is a monologue interwoven with original songs and snippets of piano bar standards. In it, Lorkin tells us the story of her decision to go overseas to escape a Scottish drummer in 1977, and how she ends up in New York, working her way up from $20 a night gigs to a prestigious residency on Park Avenue. The lyrics tell part of the story, Lorkin tells us the rest, leaping up and down from the piano with an energy that belies her years.
Her unmistakable voice has mellowed with time but she is a fabulous performer and chanteuse, who sings not just with technique but with passion and colour – laying out a story for us. Stories sung of a new coat, a new love, a family holiday, a greedy landlord, being a house guest who always chooses the safety of the sofa over the offers of sharing a bed! And the eponymous song, ‘Hey, Piano Bar Lady!’ weaves it all together.
A particularly delightful story features a visit to pick up an impounded car with a Count, a pianist and an opera singer called Joe. It’s a story too bizarre and hilarious to be anything but true.
Director David Charteris has done a great job keeping this show tight, and bringing out the radiance and storytelling strengths of its star. It is simply but perfectly lit, and somehow this petite broad in red fills the huge black box of the Random Stage with personality, music and joie de vivre.
Wishing to maintain some sort of objectivity, afterwards I asked a random selection of audience members how they found the show. And every one, from 6 to 80, has loved the show, and her.
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*A certain reviewer MAY have sat in the front row and mouthed the entire song silently to herself in a state of musical bliss.
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
Comments
3531nz October 24th, 2020
Yes, Linn Lorkin's show was excellent. At the end of her song 'Landlord', I was expecting a brass band to come in as it does on the album and really felt its absence.
Two very small corrections. First, seated in the back row it was clear that there was not a seat vacant in the house. Secondly, with me were a four-year-old, a seven-year-old and ten-year-old twins.