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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Music: Karen Akers

Karen Akers is playing at Pizza on the Park this week. Ms Akers is probably not so well known in London, but she was in the original Broadway cast of Nine and Grand Hotel. She also had a small role in the film Heartburn. These things I know, but she has also spent a lot of time in the last thirty years just recording and performing songs in her own way. This way is mostly a dark alluring alto voice which would make you do anything for her... Her ability to sing a song and hold your gaze might also have something to do with it...

Sitting in the front row it could be a little unnerving at times... particularly when you have Johnnyfox serenading her back on your right, and a crazy looking Dutch man at the table on your left looking at her with a wide-eyed fascination that couldn't be healthy (well I think that's what his wife sitting next to him and clutching him was thinking)... At one stage he looked as if he was about to get on stage and help her with her microphone stand when it became a bit stuck... When she tells the audience "I was grabbing it at the wrong end" that was not a comment that our table could let hang there without some schoolboy tittering...

Tonight she was singing was the music of Cole Porter. Her interpretation of the songs make them feel as if they are new. It was amazing to watch her turn a song like "Don't Fence Me In" into something that could almost be a torch song... Songs like "I Love Paris" gave her a chance to sing in French as well.

An evening to meditate over Cole Porter was not what I was expecting but I was sure glad to have been there to see it. Her show runs through to Sunday and worth catching.

This is probably the last time I will be at Pizza on the Park... Soon its funky artwork and low ceiling room will be a thing of the past... So it was only appropriate that a final semi-coherrent audio-boo captured those lasting impressions... Some of which are not quite accurate... She isn't old for instance, she is only sixty-five...

Listen!

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