In “Finding My Voice,” at Café Carlyle, Kathleen Turner tells stories and sings standards.
Voice Lessons
Kathleen Turner comes to the Carlyle.
You pick up the phone knowing it’s
Kathleen Turner, yet the voice still
comes as a shock: gravelly and dry and
as deep as a sinkhole, it could be mis-
taken for Harvey Fierstein’s. She’s
calling from London—fifteen minutes
early, so she can “scurry of and do
some shopping”—where she’s per-
forming a stage memoir called, cheek-
ily enough, “Finding My Voice.” A
slimmed-down version comes to the
Café Carlyle May 22-June 2, featuring
anecdotes from her stage and screen
career punctuated by standards.
“I’ve never really sung profession-
ally and never really considered it,
because I don’t like musicals per se,”
she says, “and because there are very
few if any musical leads that are
bass-baritone.” But here’s how it hap-
pened: five years ago, Arena Stage, in
Washington, D.C., asked her to star
in “Mother Courage and Her Chil-
dren,” in which her character had six
songs. “And I loved doing it. I loved
doing the damned numbers!” So she
and the two guys who helped her with
the damned numbers—Andy Gale
and Mark Janas—developed a solo act,
which she premièred last September,
at Philadelphia Theatre Company.
The cabaret impresario Michael Fein-
stein asked her to bring it to San Fran-
cisco, and then some London produc-
ers called. Turner says, “They asked
the question ‘Could you be more po-
litical?’ I said, ‘Ohhh, yes.’ ”
Since her film début, in the 1981
erotic thriller “Body Heat,” Turner has
played vamps, serial moms, God, and
Jessica Rabbit. But she has never
played herself until now. “It is odd not
having a character to channel yourself
through,” she says. (Theatregoers will
remember her indelible Martha in
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?,”
on Broadway in 2005, in which Turner
and the character seemed to channel
each other.) Gale and Janas helped her
comb through the Great American
Songbook, looking for numbers that
would illuminate her recollections.
When she recalls falling in love with
the theatre as a girl, she sings “It’s
Only a Paper Moon” (“It’s only a can-
vas sky / Hanging over a muslin tree”);
recounting life on the road, she sings
a ditty called “Sweet Kentucky Ham”
(“You figure what the hell / you can eat
in your motel”). “ ‘Let’s Fall in Love’
is right at the top of the show,” she
says. “It’s, like, Oh, come on, let’s just
do this. I’m going to charm the hell
out of you, and you’re going to like it.”
—Michael SchulmanTHE THEATRE
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OPENINGS AND PREVIEWSThe Beast in the Jungle
John Kander and David Thompson wrote this
dance-theatre piece, directed and choreographed
by Susan Stroman and inspired by Henry James’s
1903 novella, about a man convinced he has a ter-
rible destiny. (Vineyard, 108 E. 15th St. 212-353-- Opens May 23.)
The Boys in the Band
Joe Mantello directs a iftieth-anniversary re-
vival of the seminal gay drama by Mart Crow-
ley, starring Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt
Bomer, and Andrew Rannells. (Booth, 222 W. 45th
St. 212-239-6200. In previews.)
Conflict
The Mint presents Miles Malleson’s play from
1925, about a young woman in London who sleeps
with a Conservative Party candidate for Parlia-
ment. (Beckett, 410 W. 42nd St. 212-239-6200. Pre-
views begin May 25.)
Dan Cody’s Yacht
In Anthony Giardina’s play, directed by Doug
Hughes for Manhattan Theatre Club, a Boston
schoolteacher gets an unexpected inancial pro-
posal from a student’s father. (City Center Stage I,
at 131 W. 55th St. 212-581-1212. In previews.)
Fairview
Sarah Benson directs a new play by Jackie Sib-
blies Drury (“We Are Proud to Present.. .”), a
deconstruction of a naturalistic family drama.
(SoHo Rep, 46 Walker St. 866-811-4111. Previews
begin May 29.)
The Great Leap
In Lauren Yee’s play, based on an incident from
her father’s life, a young man in San Francisco’s
Chinatown talks his way onto a college basketball
team bound for Beijing in 1989. (Atlantic Stage 2,
at 330 W. 16th St. 866-811-4111. In previews.)
Peace for Mary Frances
The New Group presents Lily Thorne’s play, di-
rected by Lila Neugebauer and featuring Lois
Smith as a nonagenarian born to Armenian refu-
gees who is ready to die at home. (Pershing Square
Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212-279-4200.
Opens May 23.)
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NOW PLAYING
Bump
The most interesting character in Chiara Atik’s
play about the joys and jitters of impending
motherhood turns out to be a man. After his
pregnant daughter, Claudia (Ana Nogueira),
tells him about the horrors of diicult births—
she spends too much time on the Internet—Luis
(Gilbert Cruz) starts tinkering in his garage.
And, presto, the endearing car mechanic comes
up with an obstetrics gizmo that could change
the lives of women. (The invention is inspired
by the real-life Odón device.) The entire show
could have focussed on Claudia and Luis’s afec-
tionate relationship, yet Atik also takes us to an
online forum for pregnant women and a Colo-
nial house where a midwife helps a irst-timer.
Directed by Claudia Weill (of the 1978 cult femi-
nist movie “Girlfriends”), “Bump” is a feel-good
show whose main ambition appears to be draw-
ing “awww”s from the audience. (Ensemble Studio
Theatre, 545 W. 52nd St. ensemblestudiotheatre.org.) ILLUSTRATION BY ELLEN SURREY