CRY FOR US ALL

Steeve Arlen, making his Broadway debut, is the new musical leading man the stage has been searching for since Alfred Drake temporarily retired from the field...Emory Lewis

Steeve Arlen plays Stanton with husky masculinity, he can belt a song into the rafters, and does...Samuel Hirsch.

Under Albert Marre's direction the performances are close to perfection. Steeve Arlen is stalwart, handsome and always credible as Matt, and he sings with ardor and ease...Kevin Kelly, GLOBE Staff.

Steeve Arlen, dynamic Welshman, making his Broadway debut in great style. He should create a stir with the ladies...New York (UPI)

I like the Irish flamboyance of Steeve Arlen as the faint-hearted-husband….Clive Barnes NY TIMES.

MAN OF LA MANCHA

Steeve Arlen is a fine dignified figure...gripping simplicity...It is a role demanding of both voice and character and Arlen projects both.  Who in the audience could not go with him in spirit up the staircase to face his Inquisitor?...Doug Smith, COURIER EXPRESS, New York, May 5th, 1972.

The leading man, Welsh-born Steeve Arlen, portrays Don Quixote with a real insight into the character of this gentle madman who "quests" for dragons, and imprisoned damsels, and wrongs to right. Mr. Arlen's performance is the most outstanding of the play, even considering the fact that he does have the leading role...

Vicky Krishock, May 12, 1972.

PETER PAN

Steeve Arlen a splendid Capt. Hook, craven at heart and in ecstasy over his own naughtiness.  He also plays the bossy Mr. Darling... John Dwyer, December 8, 1972.

Steeve Arlen is a wonderfully campy Captain Hook.  He struts and bellows and quiverrrrrs with alternate rages and fears to great effect.  He does have a fine voice, but he is careful not to let fine singing spoil the effect he wants to create...Bill Branche, NIAGARA GAZETTE, December 8, 1872

Arlen is the star of last year's production of "Man of La Mancha" and winner of WSCB radio's curtain call award for his performance...as the notorious Captain Hook he is diabolically lovable. His performance is a real treat...Rich Pfeiffer WSCB 600 AM Radio, December 10 1972

MY FAIR LADY

Mr. Arlen is superb in the starring role - a perfect foil with the brittle wittiness of the learned professor to the sublime ignorance of Eliza the street girl and a perfect match with his charming sophistication to Miss Doolittle the lady...Pat Robinson, THE JOURNAL MESSENGER, April 2, 1976

I DO!, I DO!

...with such superb performers as Sally Ann Howes and Steeve Arlen only two are needed.  In Steeve Arlen she has a fine counterpart.  The tall, handsome actor sings compellingly, dances with distinction and convincingly carries off a role which swings from tenderness to a fine conceit. I Do!, I Do! received a well deserved standing ovation... TRAVERSE CITY RECORD-EAGLE. Michigan, August 18. 1976.

..."magnificent as Michael"...Arlen takes the laurels for outstanding performance...SHREVEPORT JOURNAL, January 2, 1974

...makes you burst forth with applause...outstanding performance with his turned-up -nose and turned-down-cane strut in "It's a Well Known Fact..." Wayne Greenshaw, ALABAMA JOURNAL, November 29, 1973.

...magnificent as Michael. He sings with a strong and powerful voice and his acting flows effortlessly from one scene to the next. With equal aplomb, he is convincing both as a nervous father-to-be and as a strutting, middle-aged husband, full of himself because he believes he is more attractive to women with each passing year...Louis Berney, THE MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER, November 29. 1973

KISS ME KATE

Arlen, playing the role of Fred Graham-Petruchio, has the potential to be American musical theatre's leading male actor. He is a dashing, handsome figure on stage and has a big booming voice and a wonderful flair for acting. His singing of "Where Is The Life That Late I Led", "So In Love" and "We Open In Venice", were superb. As an actor, he had the dash, sense of humor and style, and insight into the role.

CAN, CAN

Arlen, an international star, is a big rugged Welshman with a royal rich voice....carries off the role of Judge Aristide Forestier with panache

SHOWBOAT

Steeve Arlen, the discovery of the season, is a dashing, strong, big voiced Gaylord...George Anderson, August 8. 1972.

SOUTH PACIFIC

A first-rate performance by a first-rate performer, Steeve Arlen, hero of a string of shows here last season, again won friends and influenced people in the Heinz Hall audience. He was every inch the stalwart French planter, a man of principle and deep convictions. And what a convincing French accent. His presence was welcome, too, because he seemed to be the only performer who took any kind of an heroic approach to the music.  He sang with power and polish...THE PITTSBURGH PRESS, July 17, 1974

FUNNY GIRL

Arlen who won the Joseph Jefferson Award for his portrayal of Robert Browning in "Robert and Elizabeth" does an excellent and appealing job as Nick Arnstein, I overheard many people who wished he had more to do...Glenna Syse, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, February 11, 1980

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

...it was my sixth viewing, but, Steeve Arlen was worth it! If you've seen Gene Barry et al, don't miss Arlen, the Palace is packing 'em in again now that they've brought Arlen in, I really believed Arlen's Georges loved Za Za and his son, what a difference this makes to the story...Cindy Adam's, NY.

THE SONGS OF WAR

Arlen quickly pulls the audience into the joy and pain of the family conflicts reliving the feelings and memories at ages 16, 26, 36, 55 and 60, beautifully sung and acted. Robert Sessions, DRAMA-LOGUE July 27. 1989

Arlen grabs the drama by the horns overcoming the awkwardness of impersonating a 10-year-old to become an over confident and well meaning 17- year-old, all to his advantage, in one scene, Arlen wordlessly conveys all the sorrow he feels---a powerful and poetic moment...brilliant...Meex, VARIETY August 10, 1989

JUST DESERTS

Steeve Arlen, as the kidnapped critic, was splendidly terrified, groveling, arrogant and, in the end, amazingly clever about manipulating the neediness and despair of his captor...Euginia Gingold,  FLORIDA STAGE AND SCREEN.

...played expertly by Steeve Arlen as the captive critic...walked a tight line  bringing that egotistical, pompous, pretentious character to full life without sinking into parody. He never crossed that line and is to be commended for that...Charles Blazek, TROPICAL TIMES, May 1 1991

...a gem of a play that is brilliantly performed by Stadlen and Arlen....every move is convincing...it is theater at it's best...Jennie Berman, WEEKLY SCENE, Fla.

Arlen is marvelous, superb acting skills...magnificent performance...Buddy Clarke, ENTERTAINMENT NEWS AND VIEWS, WKAT, Fla.

...turns a potentially wearisome role into a grand performance with a sharp display of humor and intelligence...George Capewell, WTMI Miami Fla.

Arlen is completely believable as a man so full of himself that he literally would give his mother a bad review...Christine Dolen, MIAMI HERALD, April 19, 1991

THE CARDINAL DETOXES

Arlen's mellifluous brogue and grandiloquent gestures reminded me of priests from my altar boy days....brilliant!  Martin Hernandez, LA WEEKLY January, 1994.

Steeve Arlen gives a heady performance as the reckless bull confined to an ecclesiastical china shop. Arlen is a towering figure of a man, with a magnificent booming voice, a lusty appetite for everything secular and a wicked mocking intellect, an Irish brogue adds to his authenticity. A masterful performance..Bruce Feld, DRAMA-LOGUE January 1994.

Arlen brilliantly uses a lilting, charming Irish brogue to counterpoint  Thomas Disch's scandalous dialogue; at the same time, his twisted, cruel mouth shows us that the archbishop is a vicious, vile animal ...Allen Levy, LOS ANGELES READER,January 1994

VIII

November 13, 1998, Friday
MOVIES, PERFORMING ARTS/WEEKEND DESK
THEATER REVIEW; A Monarch Who Married Frequently, but Not Well
By ANITA GATES, New York Times

Very few actors could pull off a one-man show about Henry VIII, much less a one-man musical. Richard Burton, probably, with his ''Camelot'' voice, but not many others. Steeve Arlen, however, does in ''Eight! Henry VIII, That Is!,'' and he does it on the tiny, bare stage of the TriBeCa Playhouse.

Mr. Arlen  is a large man with a powerful, kingly stance and a kingly Welsh voice. Dressed in a purple robe, he proceeds in 90 minutes or so to review Henry's life, which means primarily his six marriages, with 15 musical numbers in a motley assortment of styles.

Mr. Arlen, who starred in ''La Cage aux Folles'' on Broadway in the mid-1980's, has a grand voice, but you could cut every song  and have a powerful one-man drama. Mr. Arlen is touching, witty and thoroughly convincing in the role of Henry, a chronically unhappy monarch who nonetheless never suffered from a shortage of self-esteem.

When he mourns the death of Thomas More, his regret seems genuine. (''I lost a dear friend. But I was a king. It had to be done.'') Too bad he had to behead someone he liked. The notorious Henry seems truly alive onstage; very possibly insane, but believably so.

Mr. Arlen wrote the play as well, with a winning combination of the lyrical (''I was drunk with the promise of Anne,'' referring to his second wife, Anne Boleyn); the knowingly humorous (''For those of us keeping score, that is two down and four to go,'' after he describes Anne's beheading), and the deliberately contemporary (''I thought my dad was going to have a fit'').

In the scene in which Henry arrives at Parliament, drunk, Mr. Arlen goes into the aisles and interacts with the audience. Where lesser men would falter, he holds character with royal sureness.

But why he chooses to make his entrance as Henry VIII shouting about his chamber pot, and then turns his back to the audience and simulates urination, is a mystery. Maybe the idea is to humanize Henry from the beginning.  Anita Gates, NEW YORK TIMES, November 13, 1998

A one-man musical about Henry VIII?  It sounds like a dubious prospect, but actor-writer-composer Steeve Arlen turns it into a remarkable achievement.  He traces the king's life from age 9 to his breakdown after beheading his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, but its emotional core is his love for young, ill-fated Jane Seymour.   Writer Arlen respects historical fact, and his Henry is a riveting, mercurial figure, sympathetic in his losses and aspirations, but terrifying in his ruthlessness, rage and madness.  As actor, Arlen moves with effortless authority from casual intimacy to larger-than-life bravura, and he sings with style and conviction.  With collaborator Donald Carl Eugster, he provides tender love songs and stirring anthems; one aria, "Mouldwarp," becomes a full-fledged, operatic mad scene.  Musically,there are deliberate anachronisms: bluesy, finger-snapping rhythms for a ditty about corruption in the Roman Church, and beer-garden oompah-pahs for Teutonic Anne of Cleves.  At its best, the score is powerful, and the lyrics are often eloquent.  Jeff Cohen directs with finesse, while Bob Summers' colorful and richly textured orchestrations match Genny Wynn's superb lighting design-also an active participant in the drama.  Neal Weaver, LA WEEKLY

...shouldn't be missed...Arlen and Eugster' s triumphant writing plus Arlen's performance equal Hit..Hit..Hit!, Melva Geyer GREENVILLE HERALD BANNER October 26, 1990

....a beautiful, gentle, warm voice one wishes would sing you to sleep ever night...very moving..mesmerizes the audience...brings the piece to such life that the audience is lost in the emotion with which he beholds "God's winterfied beauty" and surrendered wholeheartedly. Do not miss this! Jynette Hoff, THE EAST TEXAN November 1 1990.