By Michael Barbieri****I traveled recently to Fort Lauderdale, Boston, Hawaii, London and even to Paris! But I did it all without leaving my seat at Pangea, where I enjoyed Diane Arnstein’s sweet travelogue of a show, I Wanna Wander.
A native of South Bend, Indiana, Diane Arnstein is something of a newcomer to cabaret. She has had careers in finance and in the cosmetic and beauty field, but throughout her life she’s had a great love of travel and performing! Her show combined those two loves and took the audience on a trip through her life, using true stories of her travels and songs from movies, the Great American Songbook and Broadway.
The show began with Arnstein wandering through the audience looking very chic in a black, faux fur-trimmed cape. Her opening number, “I Wanna Wander” (M. Gordon, J. Myrow), was a little ditty that cleverly allowed her to introduce the evening’s travel theme. As she welcomed us she pulled a cocktail shaker from her bag, and confiding that she always packs the essentials, poured herself a nice martini, from which she sipped throughout the show!
She explained that although she loves to wander, New York has been her home for quite some time, primarily because she loves the diversity of the city. This led into a wonderful rendition of “Tenement Symphony” (H. Borne, S. Kuller, R. Golden), wherein she used her strong alto and warm vocal tones to paint a lovely picture of a multicultural Lower East Side-type neighborhood: “The Cohens and the Kellys, the Campbells and Vermicellis all form a part of my Tenement Symphony.”
We then began to hear about Arnstein’s wanderings. A story about being booked into a club in Fort Lauderdale as the opening act for a stripper led to her delightful version of Rodgers & Hart’s “Zip,” from Pal Joey. Her yearly visits to Boston brought us “The Boston Beguine” (Sheldon Harnick), which displayed her gentle way with a comedic lyric. Her tale of a trip to Hawaii 
sparked a sultry “An Occasional Man” (R. Blane, H. Martin), in which she reminisced about “papayas, peaches, sandy beaches and…an occasional man!”
We heard songs inspired by her travels to Mexico and the American Southwest, including “I’ll Always Love You” (J. Livingston, R. Evans) and two funny selections from George and Ira Gershwin’s Girl Crazy—a comedic patter song called “Could You Use Me” and the short but infectious “Cactus Time in Arizona,” both of which she delivered simply and charmingly, without overplaying the comedy.
Arnstein recounted a business trip to Europe as a cosmetics buyer for Saks Fifth Avenue, where she had befriended a lovelorn woman who’d recently split with her man. This memory brought us a wistful medley of “The Man in the Raincoat” (W. Webster), along with Cy Coleman and Ira Gasman’s “He’s No Good” and “I’m Leaving You,” both from The Life. With the first piece, the singer’s emotional delivery demonstrated her skill at bringing the songs’s imagery to life, with the melancholy in her voice conveying a touch of heartbreak. And while her rendition of “He’s No Good” was wonderfully heartfelt, I would like to have seen her take the microphone out of the stand and perhaps move into the crook of the piano to give the song the look and feel of a real torch song.
I do feel there were a couple of minor missteps in the act. First and foremost, Arnstein’s timeline seemed a bit muddied to me—she was in New York, then in Mexico, then back in New York, then in San Francisco, then New York again, then somewhere else. I found it hard to follow where she was at times. A little judicious editing of her voyages might’ve cleaned this up; it might’ve been tidier if she had concentrated on her travels abroad and eliminated some of the return trips to NYC. Also, a pair of Cole Porter songs were used to frame a story of a trip to Paris and the advice she gave a young woman named Brigitte with a ne’er-do-well boyfriend. In this context, though she sang them well, I felt that “Get Out of Town” was a bit darker than it should’ve been and “Allez-Vous-En” struck me as sort of unnecessary.
I Wanna Wander was an appealing and captivating show. Arnstein has a warm, rich voice and an open, honest quality, not only when she sings, but in her patter as well. Also, her song choices were smart and unexpected; some might even call them obscure, but they were all quite enjoyable. I could even say that the show seemed a little too short; I would eagerly have listened to Arnstein sing two or three more songs. Kudos also to Musical Director, Michael McAssey for his spot-on accompaniment. Light and buoyant when necessary, yet sensitive and delicate for the ballads, his playing surely enhanced the journey.
When I spoke to Arnstein after her performance, she told me she had many more such stories and songs, so I look forward to seeing where Diane Arnstein decides to wander next. I’m sure it’ll be just as lovely a trip!
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