Rosemary Clooney has long been a favorite of Cincinnatians. The legendary singer from Maysville, Ky., began her career here on WLW radio, singing with her sister Betty. Her life went sadly off the tracks in the late 1960s, but she resurrected herself as a performer, having a kind of “flip side.” That’s pretty much the story told in Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical, on the Cincinnati Playhouse’s Shelterhouse stage.
Clooney had a nervous breakdown in 1968, a product of an addiction to pills, stress and the loss of her friend Bobby Kennedy — she was just a few feet away when he was assassinated. In Tenderly, we find her in a rehab facility, self-admitted but not happy about it. She talks through her life’s moments with a shrink who drives her back to explore the sources of her insecurity. That’s how her story unfolds. It feels a tad clunky and forced, jumping from one extreme moment to the next, but it works because so many of her songs capture emotions around the events of her life.
Tenderly succeeds because of some excellent casting. Susan Haefner bears an uncanny resemblance, physically and vocally, to Clooney. An accomplished actress, she convincingly portrays the singer who had a tender heart but a tough exterior, the product of a neglected childhood as the oldest child of a distant mother and an absent father, fending for herself and her sister Betty and always striving to please others. Haefner captures Clooney’s vocal style for upbeat numbers like “Come On-A My House” and “Botch-A-Me (Ba-Ba-Baciami Piccina)” as well as wistful numbers including “Love, You Didn’t Do Right By Me,” “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” and “Count Your Blessings.”
Michael Marotta as The Doctor complements Haefner’s performance. But he’s much more than a character who counsels her. He slips in and out of snapshots of people in Clooney’s life — her mother, sister Betty, Frank Sinatra, Merv Griffin and her several husbands. He sings and dances, too, and when he and Haefner perform “White Christmas” as Bing Crosby and Clooney, it’s a sweet, wonderful moment. Rosie, as everyone called her, was never a stranger for long. She’ll make a lot more friends during her stay at the Playhouse throughout the holidays.
TENDERLY: THE ROSEMARY CLOONEY MUSICAL, presented by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, has been extended through Jan. 11.
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2014.