MINNELLI

PROVIDENCE — Like the actress she is, Liza Minnelli inhabits her songs, and inhabits her show. She speaks as though she’s singing and sings as though she’s speaking, and after nearly 50 years on stage, in the headlines and in the tabloids, every song is about her even if it’s not.

Last night at the Providence Performing Arts Center, Minnelli’s performance at the venue’s 30th-anniversary gala, in front of a black-tie audience that included Governor Carcieri, Mayor David N. Cicilline and former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., it all ran together, producing an end result that was every bit as much a unified piece of musical theater as any two-act.

If they hadn’t invented the word “brassy” to describe a human voice already, they would have once Minnelli sang. Her set list is a display of great classic-pop songwriting, recalling the best of Tin Pan Alley and the American musical theater without running into the false-nostalgic Great American Songbook ditch.

But until you’ve seen Minnelli live, you don’t see the part of the package that’s kept the 61-year-old Minnelli at the top for nearly 40 years — the acting chops that show through her eyes. There was the hurt confusion of “What Did I Do?” (from On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, directed by her father, Vincente Minnelli). And the game ambition of “New York, New York.” The hopeful steel of “Maybe This Time” (a song which, by definition, gets more poignant every time you hear it) and the (ultimately misplaced) faith in the power of showbiz in “Cabaret,” which closed the first act. Each song became its own mini-drama, and like any piece of theater, you sat and waited to see how it turned out even though you already knew.

Minnelli cracked wise several times, about her divorces (“I wanted to divorce … somebody, I don’t know”), her weight gain and loss, and her advancing age “Remember how I used to sit down in the second act?” she said as she sat down during the first act. But if she moved a little less than decades ago and worked harder to do it, she wasn’t afraid to show she had to reach for this dance step or that high note, which made it easy to forgive.

The second half of the show was dominated by a replication of part of the nightclub act of Kay Thompson, Minnelli’s godmother, and The Williams Brothers. Minnelli took the part of Thompson, with four smooth-singing stand-ins for the Williamses. Minnelli interspersed bits from Thompson’s act with her own remembrances of her godmother, and of growing up on the MGM lot and her start in showbiz (at the Cape Cod Melody Tent at age 13).

The numbers were skilled, and historically interesting if occasionally corny (particularly the closer, “I Love a Violin”). And the between-song reminiscences were heartfelt. But it wasn’t as interesting as Minnelli’s own stories of personal and showbiz history.

It seemed no surprise that she ended with “I’ll Be Seeing You,” and her a cappella rendition was astounding.

rmassimo@projo.com