DATE: Thursday, October 23, 1997            TAG: 9710230091

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Theater Review 

SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   64 lines

MANDY PATINKIN IS ALL ABOUT ARTISTRY

MANDY PATINKIN IS an amazing and unique talent.

As if any further proof were needed, there was his Chrysler Hall concert Tuesday - as full of drama and pathos as it was melody.

Perhaps, for example, we have heard ``If I Love You'' from ``Carousel'' a hundred times, but we've never been made to feel the heart-wrenching drama of a lyric like ``off you would go in the mist of day - never, never to know how I loved you.'' Patinkin doesn't just sing his songs. He lives them, and he invites you to live them with him.

Clad in baggy trousers, tennis shoes and T-shirt, he creates the illusion that we are in a rehearsal atmosphere. He sometimes starts a song again when he feels the tempo was off or when he forgets a lyric. Yet there is nothing makeshift or shabby about his approach.

Here is an artist striving for the very best he can give, the very essence of his material, and inviting us to go along for the adventure. This is what live theater is all about, but seldom is.

The Chrysler Hall performance was not quite in the same league with his Willett Hall appearance - and local debut - in 1991, which remains one of the legendary performances of local theater lore.

Perhaps it would be asking too much for that to happen again. This time, his switches from upbeat to pathos was sometimes too abrupt. He has mannerisms and trickery, but, yet again, the audacious showiness of it all keeps us guessing as to how far he will go.

And as before, the impressive thing about Patinkin is that he is not afraid to take risks. His tenor voice, which sometimes approaches falsetto, soars recklessly, almost to the point of scariness. He sometimes resembles a madman. More often, he suggests a heart-wrenching vulnerabilty.

He is as hip as anything on the charts, yet he chooses songs that require, indeed demand, close scrutiny. His concert proves that audiences are ready and willing to listen, not just to be hit by mindless sound. He has an ability to make us remember a song's meaning from our own past as well as discover new meaning.

For example, ``Something's Coming'' from ``West Side Story'' becomes a vivid memory of a callow youth who would play it over and over again while wondering if he'd ever have a career as a theater critic. If you're reading this, you know I got the job. It becomes a song of hope, no matter what your hope - or remembered hope. You supply your own memories, or new reactions, to each song. Patinkin opens the door.

Then there is the unpredictable: ``White Christmas'' sung in Yiddish, ironically on the very same day its all-time record as the biggest selling song of all time was finally topped by Elton John's Princess Diana anthem; or ``April in Fairbanks,'' a comic spoof about the frigid weather of Alaska, done to the tune of ``April in Paris.'' He does Danny Kaye's fast-patter song about ``The King's New Clothes'' from the film ``Hans Christian Andersen.''

He does ``You Are Beautiful'' from ``Flower Drum Song,'' and you can almost see the flower boat drifting across the water.

He brings a fury to the racial questions of ``You've Got To Be Taught'' from ``South Pacific.'' He brings a poignancy to ``Bring Him Home'' from ``Les Miserables.''

Most of all, he brings artistry.

Artistry to both the familiar and the new. ILLUSTRATION: THE LEARNING CHANNEL

Actor-singer Mandy Patinkin performed his musical act Tuesday at

Chrysler Hall in Norfolk.

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