Review: In ‘Addicted to the Spotlight,’ Mark Nadler Is All Hot-Wired Energy

Mark Nadler’s new cabaret show, “Addicted to the Spotlight” at 54 Below, is a ferocious but good-natured retort to those critics (including this one) who complain that once he is on the stage, it is almost impossible to drag him off. He is a proud throwback to those voracious song-and-dance men from the vaudeville era whom you might have thought had gone the way of the dodo. But here he is. In their maniacal quest to shoot the moon, his closest equivalents are probably Liza Minnelli and Mandy Patinkin, who both also have sawdust in their blood.

But Mr. Nadler, who plays the piano, sings, tap dances and tells show business tales, has them beat in terms of limitless hot-wired energy. To his ardent coterie, this fire-breathing entertainer wants nothing less than to knock your socks off and break your heart at the same time. Those who feel assaulted view his stage deportment as a display of rampant egomania and an insatiable desperation for applause.

“Addicted to the Spotlight” is far and away Mr. Nadler’s most personal show. The two key figures with whom he identified at last Wednesday’s opening-night performance were Al Jolson and Danny Kaye, and he sang songs associated with both. Both these forerunners were intensely competitive, he said. Jolson once followed Enrico Caruso onstage at an all-star event and immediately announced, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

Mr. Nadler also takes to heart the adage “The show must go on.” In a four-decade career, he boasts, he has missed two shows. Even when his beloved mother died, he didn’t cancel.

The program wasn’t all sock-it-to-’em showstoppers like “Swanee” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Mr. Nadler, who was accompanied on guitar and banjo by Nick Russo and on bass by Tom Hubbard, has a wistful, softer side that surfaced with his renditions of the Rodgers and Hart ballad “You Are Too Beautiful” and Frank Loesser’s “Anywhere I Wander,” sung in memory of his mother.

I’ve said it before, but the appellation applies more than ever; Mr. Nadler, with his talent and boundless drive, has earned my vote for the title of Mr. Show Business.

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