REVIEW: ‘No Place to Go’ sings about losing your job

Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra give voice to the uncertainties of unemployment

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

A witty musical reverie about losing your job, “No Place to Go” blends a sardonic monologue with a tasty assortment of jazzy songs about the new semi-depression by writer-composer-performer Ethan Lipton.

Opening on Wednesday, the 90-minute show is performed cabaret-style at Joe’s Pub by Lipton and a smart three-man instrumental ensemble that smoothly backs him up on vocals.

Sporting blue threads and a laidback manner, Lipton agreeably comes across as a cool, middle-aged cat who registers as both sophisticated and curiously ingenuous in his outlook.

The story that Lipton tells will be all too familiar to a lot of people: The business where he happily works as an “information refiner” has decided to move operations to a distant, cheaper location – in this case, Mars.

Should he make the move, although no incentives are offered? Should he decline to go?

Facing unemployment, Lipton wishfully admits to be “standing on nothing but the slenderest strand of magical thinking” where somehow below him floats “the puffy, white billowing cushion that catches us in this country if we fall.” Ultimately Lipton opts to part ways with his company.

While making that decision and pondering his next move, Lipton musically treats the breakup as the end of a romance in a melancholy “An Only Man.” A whimsical lament presents his “Three-Tear Plan” for the future: “First I’m gonna cry, then I’m gonna weep, then I’m gonna lie down on my bed and bawl until I fall asleep.” Another song speculates about moving in with his “Aging Middle-Class Parents.” Lipton also considers the big picture about unemployment in a rollicking Woody Guthrie-style tribute to the “WPA.”

These dozen enjoyable songs composed by Lipton with his band members Eben Levy (guitar), Ian M. Riggs (bass) and Vito Dieterle (saxophone) embrace different styles including jazz, techno and country. The orchestra handsomely underscores the salty-voiced Lipton -- who sounds a bit like Tom Waits and resembles a downtown Sonny Bono -- as he ruefully talks through his everyman kind of dilemma.

Director Leigh Silverman and lighting designer Ben Stanton provide nice nuances in mood for the show, which is the first in the New York Voices series commissioned by Joe’s Pub. Lipton’s smoky vocals and funny, thoughtful insights on middle-class joblessness make “No Place to Go” someplace smart to visit.

“No Place to Go” continues through April 8 at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., New York. Call (212) 967-7555 or visit www.publictheater.org.