'Can't Help Lovin' Premieres at San Leandro's California Conservatory Theatre

In an energetic one-man show that popped from start to finish, actor Carl Danielsen explored why he "Can’t Help Lovin''' the music of Jerome Kern.

Danielsen’s two hour song-and-dance extravaganza plays this weekend and next at the (CCT) in San Leandro and is a fundraiser for both CCT and Oakland’s Woodminster Theatre.

Danielsen, an actor and Oakland native who now makes his home in New York, told the opening night audience that, “I’ve been obsessed with Kern’s music for the last several years.”

Through the play, Danielsen expores his love of Kern’s music, and wonders why he’s ashamed of it. 

“I love him; okay I’ve said it,” he confesses in the first half of the show. “So why am I ashamed of it?”

In our modern world, is there no room for a diehard romantic?

Kern is famous for composing such numbers as “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” as well as “Old Man River” and “Make Believe” from his hit musical “Showboat,” which debuted in the 1920s. Kern collaborated with a field of lyricists that included Oscar Hammerstein and P.G. Woodhouse.

Mixing up his impressive array of talents on piano, tenor, ukulele, and as a tap dancer and mime, Danielsen performed more than two dozen of his favorite Kern numbers.

In between songs, he chatted with the audience and even stepped off stage mid-song to give his mom, who was sitting in the front row, a kiss.

Harriet Schlader, managing director of Woodminster Summer Musicals, where Danielsen started as an accompanist in 1977 at age 14, says that Danielsen’s performances “take your breath away.”

“We talk about someone being a ‘triple threat,’ but Carl is really a ‘quadruple threat,’” says Schlader. “He can act, sing, dance and he’s an accomplished pianist.”

So, wondered Danielsen, why am I so drawn to Kern’s music?

“His music grabs me and moves me and makes me want to dance,” says Danielsen.

He says Kern’s music — about love and romance, delivered with a good dose of whimsy — is old-fashioned, “but about something that never gets old.”

“Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man” from “Showboat” is, says Danielsen, “a beautiful expression of that. We can’t help who or what we love:”

“Fish got to swim, birds got to fly,

I got to love one man till I die.

Can’t help lovin’ dat man of mine.

Tell me he’s lazy, tell me he’s slow

Tell me I’m crazy, (maybe I know).

Can’t help lovin’ dat man of mine.”

When it debuted on the New York stage in 1927, “Showboat” was hailed by critics as revolutionary in the world of musical theater, not only for its songs, but for its explorations of racial prejudice and tragic love.

“'Showboat' was an epic … a politically charged musical,” says Danielsen. “Jerome Kern was on the cutting edge.”

The actor draws parallels to his own love of musical genres that range from “old-fashioned to ‘American Idol.’”

Danielsen wasn’t completely alone on the CCT stage on opening night. He was “accompanied” in two mime numbers by a beautiful blonde — who happened to be a mannequin. Danielsen demonstrated his acting chops in a funny skit about the demise of a romantic crush on a beautiful woman he sees on the New York subway.

In the second mime, he manages an incredibly romantic ballroom dance with the mannequin’s white evening stole.

Other props were few. Danielsen did some swift clothing changes, donning tie and tails for his ballroom dance, but kicking off his shoes and peeling down to a t-shirt for more breezy numbers.

Danielsen boasts a fine tenor voice, but his piano renditions of Kern’s music, that ranged from soft and romantic to rattling ragtime, were highlights. His show-stopping tap dance to the classic “Old Man River” closed the first half of the performance and left the audience ready for more.

Most people on opening night were familiar with the music of Jerome Kern, but Danielsen hopes to attract new fans to the composer.

“I feel like Kern has taken a back seat to other musical giants of his era,” says Danielsen. “I’m eager to share the gems people may not have heard in awhile or even introduce Mr. Kern to younger people for the first time.”

At the end of the opening night show, Danielsen graciously took comments and questions from the audience.

“You’re not afraid to be sincere,” commented one audience member.

“Where do you get your energy?” asked another in the audience.

“Lots of yoga and far too much clean living,” joked Danielsen.

Danielsen closed the show by humoring a request to play one of his own compositions on the piano. He chose a piece inspired by Thomas Hardy’s “Far from the Madding Crowd.”

A fitting way to end an evening that transported its listeners to another time and place.

“Can’t Help Lovin,’” created by Carl Danielsen and directed by Joel Schlader, plays at CCT April 29 through May 8, with performances Thursdays at 7 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased through Producers Associates at (510) 531-9579 or through CCT at (510) 632-8850. CCT is located at 999 East 14th Street, San Leandro (next door to City Hall). For more information, visit www.woodminster.com.