Mandy Patinkin Brings It Home

There are very few American masters at their craft that can compare to the honesty and integrity then Mandy Patinkin who performed to a sold out house at the Chicago Theatre on March 29th. The consummate professional, Patinkin actually cares about the product he delivers to his audience (as evidenced b y the first 10 minutes of his performance which I choose not to write about in his review). With his longtime accompanist Paul Ford along for the almost two hour concert, the audience was treated to a mix of Broadway standards, new works, old classics and of course Patinkin's signature Yiddish translations of household hits.

From his remarkable stage career starting with his Tony winning ground breaking performance opposite Patti LuPone in Evita in 1979 to his recent Showtime series Dead Like Me, to countless iconic movie roles, Mandy has been a fixture in our entertainment lives for three decades. Though multi faceted as an artist, it is his powerful and soaring vocal prowess that makes him thrive.

As the male vocalist liaison for Stephen Sondheim (Bernadette Peters being the female), whom Patinkin dubs the Shakespeare of our time, the concert provided many of the composer's material, including numbers from Sunday In The Park With George, Company, Merrily We Role Along, Into The Woods and Sweeney Todd. One of the best moments of the concert came with a song by Tyler Mac, an up and coming composer who took FDR's "fear itself" line and developed into an powerful aria on prejudice which Patkinkin and Ford paired with two other showstoppers which tackle the subject; ‘You've Got To Be Carefully Taught' from Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific and ‘Children Will Listen' from Sondheim's Into The Woods.

As a native Chicagoan, Mandy told stories of his youth and some of the theatres he used to attend. Growing up in a conservative Jewish household, Mandy's Yiddish take on ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame', ‘God Bless America' and ‘Maria' have a whole new impact.

The concert would not be as intimate as it is but not for Mr. Paul Ford on the ‘pie-anna'. As Sondheim's premier pianist for his Broadway shows, Ford knows exactly where Patinkin is going with a particular song, long before he even gets there. Their chemistry is idyllic and respectful and each artist honors the music that they are performing.

Next up for Mr. Patinkin: Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest beginning this Summer at New York's Classic Stage Company.

Mandy Patinkin In Concert was performed on March 29, 2008 at the Chicago Theatre. For more information on upcoming shows, please visit www.thechicagotheatre.com