The show on Daniel Nardicio’s Icon Series at the Ice Palace on August 4 was billed as “Alan Cumming with Special Guest Liza Minnelli,” but all week the buzz in Cherry Grove was, “Liza’s coming!” Cumming had already sung five numbers, assisted by Music Director Lance Horne, at the Arts Project of Cherry Grove’s Yamaha, and these were proceeded by a performance by Chicago burlesque troupe the Stage Door Johnnies—Ray Gunn; Bazuka Joe, stripping down to successively smaller towels to “Steam Heat,” from “Pajama Game;” and Jeff Adore, stripping out of an elaborate cape to “Nessun Dorma,” from “Turandot.” But pandemonium did not ensue until Liza Minnelli’s set, with Cumming, so let’s start there.
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photo by Walter Bukowski
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| Liza Minnelli and Alan Cumming |
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First came a duet, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” sung as “Liza, It’s Cold Outside”—ironic, in view of the steamy weather. Minnelli paid tribute to her gay and cross-dressing fans by singing Charles Aznavour’s “What Makes a Man a Man” —she was on and she was rewarded ovations during the instrumental interludes and at the end.
The musical that Cumming and Minnelli famously have in common is Kander and Ebb’s “Cabaret”—he won the Tony and other awards for his Emcee in a Broadway revival and she, of course, won the Best Actress Oscar for her Sally Bowles in the 1972 film—and several numbers were included here, to the sheer delight of the audience. He had had sung her number, a sexy “Mein Herr,” earlier and, when they joined voices for “Money Makes the World Go ’Round,” it was just the start of the elation.
The audience calmed down long enough to listen to Scottish-born Cumming proudly embrace his adopted nation—and condemn homophobia—in “(I’m) American,” written by Horne, and to sing a love song (“Tell me why … These are the content of my head”).
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photo byKoitz
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| Liza Minelli arrives to Cherry Grove, Fire Island, with Daniel Nardicio (left)
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Back to “Cabaret,” Minnelli sang “Maybe This Time”—and if we hadn’t already known that we were in the presence of an icon, we certainly knew it now—with some kibitzing from Cumming, who harmonized with her at the end, and they sang “Come to the Cabaret” as an encore, complete with Minnelli’s long-held note at the end of the line “When I go” and their emphatically interpolated “not” to transform the next line into “I’m not going like Elsie!”
Now these are songs that we may hear, or may sing, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but this was Liza Minnelli herself singing them here in Cherry Grove with Alan Cumming and that made history!
Cumming had begun the show with an au courant medley of a heartbreaking “Someone Like You,” Adele’s song, and contrastingly upbeat renditions of Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory” and Katy Perry’s “Firework.” In a wry, sort-of-love song, he urged, “Don’t go to the plastic surgeon anymore.” He paired “another gay icon,” Dolly Parton’s “Here You Come Again” with “My Interpretation,” by Mika, with whom the press implied Cumming had an affair—much to the chagrin of his devoted spouse Grant, for whom he wrote, in compensation, a love song—“You’re next to me (so I must have made it home last night)”—with Horne.
At the end of the show, Nardicio gave merited kudos to George McGarvey and Robin Murray, for creating the elegant set, and to Sal Piro and the staff of the Ice Palace.
Coming up next on the Icon Series are Sandra Bernhardt and Lea Delaria, on August 18, and Margaret Cho, with Narcissister, on August 19. Both shows are at 10:30 p.m. Visit www.dworld.us for tickets.
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| photo by Koitz |
Liza Minnelli at the Ice Palace
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