Interview with Lisa Viggiano
by Charles Wixson

Lisa Viggiano was on her way to rehearse a new musical review when she took some time on a recent sunny San Francisco Spring morning to talk with me about her life, her shows, her definition of cabaret and her dreams and goals. Upon meeting Viggiano, one's immediate impression is of a very bright, positive, self-assured young woman who knows clearly where she is headed and is enjoying each step toward achieving her goals. Dressed in tasteful, simple black she would have looked as appropriate in a fashionable restaurant as she did in the quiet neighborhood coffee house where we met.

In addition to running to rehearsals as a singer and performer, Viggiano drives numerous hours each week throughout the Bay Area to meet with clients in her speech therapist "day job." Although most people would hate being behind the wheel that much, she takes advantage of the time by learning music. This "hands off" approach to music preparation is echoed by the way she is currently preparing, via telephone rehearsals, with her New York-based music director, Christopher Marlowe, for her show at THE PLUSH ROOM at the York Hotel (940 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA - 415-885-2800 - http://www.plushroom.com/) on March 26th. The show, "One Private Moment," with a few alterations, is based on her popular 2000 show at New York's DON'T TELL MAMA and her CD, "Lisa Viggiano Live From Don't Tell Mama." She and Mr. Marlowe are also collaborating on an entirely new show that they plan to have ready for performance at Don't Tell Mama this coming summer.

Any performer would be fortunate to work with Christopher Marlowe, but Viggiano is particularly delighted because she says when they first met they understood each other immediately in that communicative way that is so important, but rare, between musicians; a level of unspoken understanding that usually comes, if at all, only after years of working together. Mr. Marlowe's name was, for years, linked to that of the late Nancy LaMott who before her tragic death was one of the brightest stars in the cabaret firmament. More recently, in addition to Ms. Viggiano he has worked with Bernadette Peters and a number of other performers.

The rehearsal Viggiano was off to after our conversation, however, was for "Oh, Progeny," a new four person musical review written by local songwriter Diane Sampson, book by Sampson and Ronnie Klein, scheduled for its premier at the SHELTON THEATER (533 Sutter Street, San Francisco -- 415-433-7875) in May 2001.

It is understandable that Viggiano is comfortable with music and performing. Her family always made music an essential, natural part of life, and as a child she was surrounded by it. In her New Jersey home, nearly in the shadow of the Manhattan skyline, she recalls grandparents who sang constantly and uncles who played instruments in area bands. She began performing in neighborhood theater as a child, and those roles led to requests that she perform for PTA and church functions. She chuckles when she relates the amusement she felt years later when she realized that notes her father gave her on little slips of paper and which she dutifully recited between songs during those early performances was patter, the links that connect the musical pieces of cabaret performer.

Viggiano began studying singing at age 12, and later added piano, guitar and flute with varying degrees of success. During college, she changed her major from music to English because the music program demanded so much time that it interfered with her professional work in dinner theater, charity events and concerts. Speech therapy, which she later studied at New York University, gives her the ability to augment her performer's income and yet grants her the flexibility needed to continue singing professionally, her preferred career choice.

Her degrees in English and speech therapy help explain why Lisa is "obsessed with words," as she puts it. That delighted obsession is evident in her selection of songs, which tend to be those that tell a story or make an important comment, particularly in contemporary language. She has an uncanny ability, however, to bring something fresh and new to standards that have been sung and recorded hundreds of times over the years by putting aside references to past eras and creating a contemporary sound that makes them sound as if they have just been penned for her to sing. This is because Viggiano will not sing a song unless it sits deep within her and resonates throughout her being; she says she regularly rejects songs she loves, and would love to perform, but which don¯t feel right for her. She understands that if those particular songs do not mean enough to her no amount of acting will allow her to convince listeners of their honesty.

Partly because of her love of how contemporary words are used in lyrics, Viggiano is dedicated to current songwriters like David Friedman, Stephen Schwartz, David Zippel, Andy Dinerman and Christopher Marlowe -- she has collaborated on a song or two herself. She generously, and correctly, believes that many of these songs will someday be standards, and she knows that they will only achieve that status if they are being performed, recorded and heard regularly. She also feels that listeners tend to come to a particular standard with their own history and expectations, and she likes to keep her audiences in the present rather than linked to something from the past.

As a performer Lisa Viggiano places herself squarely in the middle of the cabaret genre, and she considers cabaret to be an art form comparable to painting in that it permits the artist to create his or her own multi-layered landscape in such a way that it permits each listener to feel that it is a landscape known intimately to him or her. She holds herself to a very high standard by demanding that each landscape she paints with words and music is personally significant and "an experience for each listener;" she commented that "Authenticity for a singer is the same as for an audience, and if a song is not authentic to the singer it certainly won¯t be for the audience."

Periodically, because of her desire to keep her performances in the moment and meaningful, she innocently creates controversy. For her "One Private Moment" show and CD she chose a tightly and cleverly written song about lost love, not the usual sad shroud rending song about love gone astray, but instead an almost light hearted country western tinged song about the realization that her sweetheart from childhood is "queer." Viggiano has been struck by the strong reaction the song, which deftly deals with gay stereotyping and makes a painfully timely statement about HIV, has elicited. Some listeners have commented that it is an important song and applaud her for performing it, but others have told her it is insulting or that it makes them uncomfortable and it should not be presented in a cabaret setting (it is uncertain when those particular self-appointed arbiters of good taste decided cabaret should no longer reflect its in-your-face origins, but apparently some would like it to be a sugar coated reflection of life as they would like it to be). Viggiano says that although she did not suspect the song would offend anyone when she chose to include it, to an extent she is pleased with the reaction, "because it means that the song makes people think. In life, we laugh one minute, cry the next and this song reflects those two aspects so quickly and succinctly." As with most of us, Lisa has felt the pain of losing to AIDS someone very close to her, and she is dismayed at the resurgence of HIV infection in the gay community and feels it is important to remind people that it remains very much with us.

To create a show, Viggiano says she and Marlowe start with "fifty or so of our favorite songs and then start weeding out and attempting to mesh them to form a cohesive whole." They don¯t begin with a theme or a storyline; the songs begin to meld into a story without a story and, after weeks of adjusting, arranging and repositioning, a comfortable juxtaposition of humor and pathos, tempo variations and energy levels eventually begins to appear. In this way, Lisa Viggiano's belief that a cabaret show is like a masterful landscape painting is borne out by the careful arrangement and overlaying of songs on her musical canvas, with the result being that some sections are obvious and clear while others are somewhat obscured and complicated as if by pentimento.

Although Viggiano's March 26th show at the Plush Room includes an already carefully constructed collection of brush strokes, her next work is well on its way to completion; if she continues to display her talent as carefully, authentically and meaningfully as she has in this show we will have many more years of her artwork to enjoy.

Charles Wixson

Copyright © 2001 Charles Wixson

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