The University of West Georgia celebrated its 25th season of the Townsend Center for the Performing Arts and LiveArt on Friday night with the performance of “Mandy Patinkin: Dress Casual.”
Most TV devotees will recognize Patinkin as the FBI profiler Jason Gideon on the popular show, “Criminal Minds,” during its initial years or as the CIA Chief on the current award winning Showtime series “Homeland.” What transpired Friday night was more like a scholarly presentation of music from Broadway musicals and Patinkin’s favorite songwriters.
Patinkin’s concert paid tribute to one of his favorite composers, Stephen Sondheim, and he successfully weaved Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” Broadway music with renditions of other compositions.
In a recent interview, Patinkin recalled his first meeting with Sondheim (Patinkin was nominated for his role in the show) after the show in his dressing room. Unbeknownst to both of them, each artist was nervous about the meeting and what occurred began a lifelong relationship between the songwriter and actor.
Being a spectator during Patinkin’s one man show requires the audience to really focus because of his unique ability to highlight verses from one song and, within moments, singing another verse or two from a different Broadway show or songwriter. For example, Patinkin sang a haunting version of Tom Waits tune, “A House Where Nobody Lives” with the song “These Precious Things.” On his renowned version of “Over The Rainbow,” he added so me verses from Irving Berlin’s “Puttin On The Ritz.”
At times, because of his rapid change in lyrics, one has a difficult time to notice he was actually singing another tune as his version of Queen’s famous composition “Mama Just Killed A Man” from the classic album Bohemian Rhapsody. Patinkin has a strong Vibrato which allows him to rapidly change pitch in the middle of a stanza thereby resulting in his ability to change octaves quickly and to hold a note for a length of time.
Because of his hectic schedule of movies, TV, theater, concerts and so forth, an interview with Patinkin, at times, proves a challenge. But, above all, he is altruistic and concerned about humanity. One of the reasons for his retirement from “Criminal Minds,” was his concern about the violence exhibited in the TV series.
In addition, he is very involved in Jewish activities and, at times, has given profits from his shows to five different charitable organizations. He once was in the middle of a TV interview and one of the interviewers abruptly took his microphone off and left the stage. Patinkin wondered what the problem was only to discover that the man’s wife was giving birth to their first child and had to hurry to the hospital. Patinkin repeatedly said “Oh My God” and did not want to talk about himself anymore. He wanted to learn that the birth was successful and without any problems.
Patinkin graduated from Juilliard School of Music where he majored in drama as well. There is a reason why the New York Post stated that Mandy Patinkin is “The greatest entertainer on Broadway today-period.” His theater accomplishments prove that he is one of the most talented artists to grace the Broadway stage and the UWG concert verified his achievements during an illustrious career.