Something Old.
Something New

Reviewed by Victor Gluck

Presented by Elie Landau, Yeeshas
Gross, Donny Epstein in association
with Ergo Entertatnment at the Mazer
Theatre, 197E. Broadway, NYC, Oct
3O-Dec. 8.

The energy that Israeli star Dudu Fisher radiates on the stage of the Mazer Theatre could light a small city. His range is remarkable Singing “Bring Him Home” from “Les Miserables” makes him a tenor, but when he sings “Some Enchanted Evening,” he reaches down to bass-baritone. And when he sings the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice song written for Elvis Presley. “It’s Easy for You,’ he becomes a countertenor.
In his new show. “Something Old, Something New,” conceived by
Richard Jay-Alexander (who a]so directed) and Fisher himself, Fisher takes us on a tour of his career, from his beginnings as a cantor in israel to becoming the first Israeli “Jean Valjean” in Tel Aviv’s “Les Mis,” which took him to the Broadway and West End productions. He also teils bittersweet anecdotes about being away from home during his international tours.
Backed by Jason DeBord on piano and Michael Blanco on bass, and surrounded by Michael Brown’s setting, which is hotel room, dressing room, and cabaret, Fisher sings an incredible array of both Jewish and Broadway songs in a mere 90 minuses. lie opens with a new “Kaddish” written for him by Yossi Green as the first Jewish performer to sing at the Budapest Opera I-louse since World War II.
To remain up to date, he sings “Throw Away Your Television"’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers In an incredible piece of material, Sholom Secunda’s “The Cantor’s Audition,” translated by Bruce Adler, he plays all the new applicants for a synagogue in various styles. Revealing his knowledge of Broadway even though he grew up in Isriel, he sinus a 20-minute medley of songs by Broadway’s Jewish composers (z.e. Berlin, Gershwin, Rodgers, Bernstein, Sondheim, elc) He closes with a song from a new musical of ~The Ten Commandments” where he would play—who else—Moses.

"BACK STAGE" - November 22, 2002