Put Maude Maggart's imaginative and delightful new show, Good Girl/Bad Girl, at the top of your evening-out list. Reason One: her voice. Ever sweet and silvery, it shines with new character and maturity as she glides effortlessly from phrase to phrase and from mood-to-mood, from saucy, sultry and sensuous to tender and transporting. Reason Two: her program -- songs playfully representing "good girls," "bad girls" and a few damsels in between. The former are represented by such numbers as the reminiscing "The Folks Who Live on the Hill" (Kern/Hammerstein II), "This is A Changing World" (Coward) and a little known piece by Joan Baez, "Love Song to a Stranger." Then there are good girls who happen to love not-so-good men, such as Julie Jordan questioning "What's the Good of Wond’rin'" (Rodgers and Hammerstein II) and Rodgers and Hart's lady lamenting that "He Was Too Good to Me." Even a fairy tale heroine gets called into question, with "How Could Red Riding Hood (Be So Very Good, and Still Keep the Wolf From Her Door?)" and -- same lady -- with Sondheim's "I Know Things Now" (from Into The Woods). With Lanny Meyers at the piano, Yair Evnine on cello and guitar, and Tim Flannery on lights and sound, Maude Maggart's show reflects classic cabaret at its finest.

Maude Maggart presents Good Girl/Bad Girl through February 10.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
January 26, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org