By Bart Greenberg***An admiring crowd of fans filled the Laurie Beechman Theatre to express their excitement of seeing Tony Award-winning performer, Jak Malone. And he rewarded them by delivering a 13-song set of mostly theater music with both humor and authority. There were some bumps along the road, but it was certainly a satisfying evening. 
The performer possesses a strong voice and fine dramatic instincts in interpreting a lyric. Matthew Lowy supported him at the piano with fine unfussy musicianship.
Malone excelled at his ballads. “Another Winter in a Summer Town” (Scott Frankel, Michael Korie) captured the mixed emotions of the musical work. “Maybe This Time” (John Kander, Fred Ebb) tapped into his ability to express yearning with great compassion. “We Had a Good Thing Going” (Stephen Sondheim) caught all the regret and sadness in the song. And his final number, “It All Fades Away” (Jason Robert Brown) was a beautiful study in simplicity, complete with a golden a capella beginning. With these numbers, he expressed a talent for stillness.
Malone also, of course, tackled some more upbeat material. The highlight was his 
rapid-fire delivery of “Trouble” (Meredith Willson). Notably, it was the only number where he took the microphone off its stand and moved around the stage. The rest of the time, he remained attached to the mic stand center stage. This didn’t provide much theatricality to such numbers as “You’ve Got Possibilities” (Charles Strouse, Lee Adams) and “Be a Clown” (Cole Porter), the latter of which made clear his dependence on the lyrics on his iPad.
The other surprising choice of the evening was inserting a 10-minute intermission in the middle of the show. Such breaks usually provide for a major costume change, but Malone returned in the same neutral outfit he was wearing in the first half. Interruptions of this sort just mean the performer has to work all that much harder to regain the momentum, especially in evenings with no compelling storyline to move things forward. Malone’s collection of material was fine, as was his delivery, but a dose of theatricality would have definitely elevated everything.
