Reviewed by David L. Schriber
Jan and Shannon DeAngelo delighted a cabaret audience Saturday (May 15) at Johnson City’s Firehouse Stage with a song and dance program of familiar songs about love, particularly married love. Both performers are well-known individually for their roles in musicals, and it’s hard to believe that this was their first cabaret performance together.
Married 21 years, they played well off each other, particularly in several fast-paced songs from the musical comedy “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” One recalled the butterflies about that first date; another amusingly proclaimed “We’re Married and We’re Gonna Have Sex”; still another shared the repartee of a well-married couple behind the wheel “On the Highway of Love.”
Jan sang favorites such as “That’s All,” “What Kind of Fool Am I” and “The Way You Look Tonight.” Shannon charmed the audience with “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” and “Makin’ Whoopie.” The sound mix unfortunately made Jan’s harmony dominate Shannon’s melody in some of their early duets.
Either could belt out a song without the microphone, as Shannon did with “Rockabye Your Baby,” dedicated to her late grandfather. Each was most effective, though, with songs sung softly, especially Shannon’s “You Belong to Me” and Jan’s “I Only Have Eyes for You.”
The couple glided comfortably across the Firehouse Stage, dancing to “You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me,” and concluded with a medley of Italian favorites. They returned to the stage to sing a lovely and well-balanced English/Italian duet of David Foster’s 1999 Golden Globe-winning “The Prayer” from “Quest for Camelot.”
Jan and Shannon DeAngelo performed together with warmth and grace as well as humor. I hope we hear more of these two together.