Indianapolis Star review by Corbin Patrick
“Barbra Streisand Has Big Night Here”
We joined a crowd at Clowes Hall for the seventh time in six days last night, on this visit to hear the rising young Broadway star, Barbra Streisand, and her “purple grab."
That is the label placed by admirers on her style of pop singing. But any label that covers Miss Streisand's many facets would have to be as long and specific as the list of maladies for which a cure was promised on ye old-time patent medicine bottles.
She is wild and wonderful in off-beat comedy songs. She sings a ballad with a fine regard for its tender emotions and with feeling, a way of phrasing, that is distinctively her own — and we mean not like anyone else's.
When she came out last night to start her concert, we thought this girl is kookie. Her face was framed by her coiffure, in a now familiar pose. She wore a collarless blouse with a large V, a skirt that practically swept the floor — but with a slit clear up to here. And she came out swinging.
BUT PRETTY soon we decided that she was charming, too, and witty, and talented, and all sort of good things. Of course she will remind you of Fanny Brice, but she goes on from there. She can sing both serious and comic songs and, obviously, she can act.
lf she plays the part of Miss Brice in the musical, “Funny Girl,” on Broadway this season, as forecast, and they give her a halfway decent score and script, she will be a sensation. And we say this without even knowing whether she can burlesque Pavlova’s “Dying Swan” routine as Miss Brice did—she didn't seem to have her dancing shoes with her last night.
WHAT SHE DID have included some first rate “special material" songs in arrangements that gave her plenty of scope; an 18-piece band of local musicians on the stage back of her; and her musical director, Peter Daniels, who is very good at his business, too.
ln the while that we heard the performance, the girl from Brooklyn alternated jolting titles like “l Hate Music” (“but I like to sing”), “Down With Love" (“give it back to the birds and the bees and the Viennese”) with poetic and lovely renditions of songs like “As Rain Must Fall” [note: “Right As the Rain”] and “Who Will Buy This Beautiful Morning.”
It's good to see how far pop artists have risen in the world. Not so many years ago you might have heard Miss Streisand with a name band, two or three other acts, and the week's movie at the Circle or Lyric for 60 cents. Last night about 1,600 cognoscenti paid up to $6.50 for admission to Clowes Hall. Next time she will pack the house.
Unless we have overlooked something, Clowes Hall will not have another occasion until the Butler University Ballet performs Friday and Saturday.
