To call Lypsinka's show The Passion of the Crawford cabaret requires a stretch of the imagination - a show in which the performer never utters a word of her own, a full song is never sung, and no musicians appear on stage. If you expand cabaret to include an artist's complete mastery of their craft, a historical retrospective of an entertainment icon, an evening of unique precision and perfection, then Lypsinka's must-see show is cabaret at its finest.

Lypsinka, the creation of John Epperson, is renowned for skillfully editing recorded snippets of song, spoken word, film, stage and movie dialogue and music into a skillfully crafted pastiche that both honors and pillories larger-than-life female characters of film and stage, in this show Miss Joan Crawford. A large portion of the show re-creates a 1973 interview that John Springer conducted with Crawford at Town Hall in New York - a celebrity interview replete with inane show-biz drivel and worshipful adoration. The questions allow us to see a fascinating portrayal of the performance that Crawford is giving. The result is an often funny, often tragic look into the persona of Joan Crawford.

Epperson's performance is as tightly controlled as Joan Crawford's interview. With meticulous care and perfectly honed acting, he can evoke howls of laughter from a simple facial gesture, eye roll, hand gesture or quivering lip. He inhabits Crawford's skin as easily as his own and the effect is both mesmerizing and fabulously creepy. The show has Epperson lip-synching two bizarre readings: an ode to the title characters of Alice in Wonderland and Little Boy Blue, and Max Ehrmann's corny Desiderata delivered with absurd dramatic reverence.

Our fascination with celebrity continues to this day and The Passion of the Crawford both exposes the voyeur in all of us as well as the insecure artifices that our 'star system' engenders. Both compassionate and ridiculous as its topic, The Passion of the Crawford is an exquisitely fascinating character study and tour de force performance by a talent as unique as its subject.

The Passion of the Crawford continues at the Empire Plush Room through April 22.

Steve Murray
Cabaret Scenes
April 3, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org