Anne Kerry Ford sings under a 'Bilbao Moon'

October 29, 6:34 PMSF Showbiz ExaminerRobert Sokol

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   Anne Kerry Ford  (Photo: Stuart Winecoff)

“The main misconception that arises as when I tell people that Kurt Weill is my métier,” says singer Anne Kerry Ford, “is that he is so dark. Yes, he wrote with all those songs like ‘Pirate Jenny’ and ‘Surabaya Johnny’ with [Bertholt] Brecht, but I’ve never experienced a composer who wrote in such a myriad of styles in all my life.” To prove her point, Kerry Ford is bringing Bilbao Moon, an evening of the German expatriate composer’s work, to the 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley this Friday.

The show, directed by Brian Lane Green and with John Boswell at the piano, will present what Kerry Ford sees as the many sides of Weill. “He wrote wacky things with Ira Gershwin like ‘Rhineland’ and ‘Tchaikovsky,” he wrote beautiful love songs like ‘My Ship’ and ‘It Never Was You,’ and he wrote very deep lyrical things like ‘Lonely House’ and ‘Lost in the Stars.’”

Fleeing the Nazi regime in 1933, Weill lived briefly in Paris and London before settling in New York and becoming a U.S. citizen. Over the course of his career he wrote operas, cantatas, and Broadway musicals including The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, The Threepenny Opera – which produced the popular hit ‘Mack, the Knife’ - and One Touch of Venus. He died from a heart attack in 1950, survived by his wife, actress Lotte Lenya, who became the premiere interpreter of his work over the next thirty years.

Kerry Ford has been deeply connected to the composer’s work since performing at Weill centennial concerts in Germany in 2000. “The thing that really surprises me, just swimming around in his songbook, is that he always sounded unique. He never sounded like he was imitating someone else. He did all of his own arrangements, so you can really get a sense of the man in his scores.” In 2006, Kerry Ford released weill, a CD that incorporates parts of the live 2000 concert and more intimate studio-recorded ballads.

Bilbao Moon is the next step in her journey. “His work has such emotional depth that I keep finding more nuances as I continue performing it. It is similar to the way actors talk about Shakespeare. They have a role that they love and feel that they could perform it for the rest of their lives because they are always finding new things to do with the part and new ways to interact with it emotionally.”

She describes this presentation as a hybrid between concert and theater. “It’s sometimes very abstract because it does not have a through line in plot form, but I’m hoping that the stories within the songs will carry people forward. It’s been a dream of mine to present Weill’s music in this way. I think the timing is just right. I’m glad it didn’t happen years ago when I first started [singing this material] because I think this presentation will be much richer for the previous years I’ve spent really exploring a songs. It’s really had time to gestate.

Before she was Ford, she was Anne Kerry on Broadway, in films and in television. “I think the reason that I quit acting formally - meaning having an agent and being seen for roles - was because I couldn’t control my artistic destiny. Going out for a sitcom as the wacky best friend wasn’t satisfying me as an artist. So with concert work or doing something like this I’m completely at the helm. Everything in the show expresses something in me.”

Bringing new audiences to the Weill canon has become something of a mission for Kerry Ford, particularly because the original shows are rarely revived. “In my opinion, the books are very weak, so they’re hardly done today. Nobody wants to see Lady in the Dark again. Ever. It’s a shame because with it go all those wonderful songs. They’re not going to be heard again unless somebody like me gets up and sings them. So I’m trying to do something original with them. Something that doesn’t involve singing in German or putting on heavy eye makeup and doing a Lotta Lenya impersonation. You don’t have to try to be edgy with this material. It’s already edgy. It work stands on its own.”