“I won’t dance, don’t ask me,” Tony Danza sings in his new act at Feinstein’s, during which he dances again and again and again — and sings, and jokes, and flirts with patrons and solos on ukulele. No card tricks, this time anyway; but the ingratiating former TV star seems to throw in a kitchen-sink’s worth of moderate skills to try to keep the customers entertained. At some point, though, Danza becomes the talented kid who effortlessly entertains the packed living room for 35 minutes, but obliviously continues.
Likable, Danza has a charming way with a joke, a good sense of humor and can make his way through a song. Danza aims to please, certainly, and apparently has drawing power (he has played this room at least six times before). Yet despite the standard publicity photo on display in the lobby, he is an unidentifiable middle-aged fellow with thick eyebrows and a silver-gray crew cut. Less Tony Banta from “Taxi,” he’s more one of those comedians from “the neighborhood” (be it Brooklyn, the Bronx or Jersey) who used to serve as opening acts for Buddy Hackett or Don Rickles. Customers with no memories of the Danza of TV-land might find themselves a little less than overwhelmed.
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Act is built, somewhat flimsily, around songs about dancing. Halfway through, Danza runs out of steam, switching from his uke solo to a recounting of his life as Max Bialystock. The star tells how he went into the Broadway production of “The Producers,” and was fired, and how he then went into the Las Vegas company and was fired there, too. “Betrayed” is the musical punchline, the show’s 11 o’clock number that turns out to be an extremely bad idea. (The sound system cut out during this number at the opening performance, but one wonders if it would be any better with audibility.)
Music director Lenny Lacroix apparently helped format the act, and presumably shares credit for some of the bad choices. On the plus side, the five-piece band — all of whom participate in some doo-wop — includes some especially strong sax playing from Susan Terry.
