Santino Fontana is very talented. He can sing, he can act, he can even dance. But he needs help putting together a show. Cabaret shows at 54 Below can produce wonderful and intimate moments where you get to know the person behind the parts, and the other performers we've seen have put together amazing shows that are coherent and often have some theme or structure. While Fontana told a few amusing stories, he also seemed like he was phoning it in on the night we attended.
The "song out of a hat" idea only works if you have a broad variety of songs in there. We heard ballad after ballad at this show. Which honestly would have been fine (I love a good ballad) if Fontana hadn't made a stink every single time an audience member picked another ballad. He made me feel like we were missing out on all of his amazing upbeat headbangers. I think the truth is that he mostly sings ballads, which is fine... but don't make me feel like the show I saw was subpar because of the random selections of the audience. And please don't put a duet in the hat when you're all alone on stage – alternating between singing his own part and Kristen Bell's part from "Love is an Open Door" (Frozen) as Dorothy from Tootsie was... bad. The whole thing felt very lazy. We were also looking forward to seeing Rebecca Naomi Jones as the featured guest, but she only appeared for one song (performed without Fontana). 54 Below |
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