An Evening at the National
Restaurant in Brighton Beach

At 9:30 on a recent Saturday night, six Russian musicians crowded the stage of the National Restaurant on Brighton Beach Avenue, belting out a rock song called “Madeleine.” The National's wide dining room accommodates about 350 people, mostly at long, well-appointed tables arranged around a polished-wood dance floor that remains largely empty this early in the evening. The diners, consisting overwhelmingly of Russians of all ages decked out in flashy weekend formal wear that suggested a cross between a suburban high school prom and a mafia wedding, concentrated on the heaping plates of heavy food and bottles of vodka arriving in waves via an army of black-tuxedoed waiters.

At about 9:32, one man at a table in the back, near the kitchen, who had been flicking Marlboro Light ashes into an empty vodka glass despite the prominent No Smoking signs, began making his way toward the stage. If you were there, you would have noticed him. For one thing, he was the only black man in the room. It's also safe to say that at about six foot three and close to 190 pounds, he was the biggest; he wore black jeans, heavy boots, and an embroidered vest over a white shirt, and his kinky hair fell nearly to his shoulders. He carried a microphone. He disappeared thorough a door at stage left and reemerged on the stage itself, where he struck a pose and joined in on the chorus, with a lusty, “Letemya debyeza preveyo, ma ya Madeleine, ma ya Madeleine.” Over the past ten years, Ian Starr, as this singer calls himself, has gotten quite comfortable singing in Russian with a bunch of Russian performers before a Russian crowd in Russian-owned establishments.

Two songs later he bounded back to his table near the kitchen, smiles widely, and says with great enthusiasm: “These people, they're like family to me.” The imposing stature suddenly seemed incidental to the gentle lines of his face, as smooth and round as a baby's. And as he winked and glad-handed with the owners, the managers, the wait staff, and the customers, you could see that Ian Starr likes standing out in a crowd.

The National, one of a half-dozen or so Russian clubs on Brighton Beach Avenue, employs about 20 entertainers, most of them Russian, from the identical twin singers Ella and Dina to a 16-year-old contortionist. This troupe serve up six hours of entertainment on weekend nights, a bizarre melange of Russian, American, European, and other pop music (from a disco “Total Eclipse of the Heart” to “Another Brick in the Wall,” to, of course, “Macerena”), as well as elaborate floor shows straight out of Vegas. A native of Asheville, North Carolina, Starr has performed here for about two years, but has been working Brighton Beach Avenue for longer than most of his colleagues. He'd been knocking around the New York club scene for several years when a Russian neighbor convinced him to audition at a club called Uzbekhistan in 1986. The club hired him, and put his picture in the window outside. Back then, Star says, “that was kind of intriguing, you know. A black guy singing here?” Before long he learned to sing Russian standards like the silly “Singarella” (Cinderalla), the upbeat “Botylka Vina” (Bottle of Wine), and the drippy “Letni Docht” (Summer Rain). He's since picked up some choice Russian phrases that he likes to drop when chatting with patrons. “They go crazy. 'Where'd you learn to speak Russian!' I tell them Brighton Beach University.” More peculiarly, he even lapses into broken English at times, advising a band mate who's sending material to a record label: "Put picture from CD."

The National doesn't really fill up until around midnight, but at two o'clock in the morning, when the exhausted band takes a break, Starr seems as energetic as ever. Taking a seat at a table just offstage between Ella and Dina, he wolfs down a piece of fish, makes jokes, and asks about Russian words; Ella giggles and nibbles a blintz, and Dina simply looks on, poker-faced. “His pronunciation is very good,” Ella drawls through a slow Russian accent when Ian charges back toward the kitchen. “I've heard a lot of American singers do Russian songs, and he really has the inflections.”

Like any immigrant enclave, this section of Brooklyn known as Little Odessa is crowded with dreams of greater things, and Brighton Beach Avenue night clubs are the dreamiest places in the neighborhood. Ella and Dina, for example, are said to be “big stars” in Russia, but hope to attract a wider audience here. And in this way, Ian Starr and his fellow performers are just alike. He, in fact, has recorded a dance single called “Walking On Sunshine” that recently landed on Billboard's club charts, as he points out several times during the evening. “Number 14 with a bullet,” he tells Ella and Dina, who simply nod, before the three of them head back to the stage, where the band is reassembling for the night's last set.