Eden Espinosa can sing.

She can sing with power that electrifies an audience.

What she seemed incapable of doing was varying her style to offer some relief from full vocal power to something a bit softer — for the sake of variety if not simply to distinguish one song from another.

With Espinosa, virtually every number became a show-stopper, including outstanding versions of Ricky Martin’s “I Am Made of You” and “I’m Gonna Be Strong” (Barry Mann/Cynthia Weill).   She was also effective in a duet with Ty Taylor, one of her backup singers, on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You,” a salute to Michael Jackson.

Ironically, the only song on which she modulated her full-speed-ahead delivery a bit was her finale — “Defying Gravity” from Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked, in which she starred as Elphaba in New York and on the road — which she performed in a gentler version that built to a softer climax than the way the song is done in the context of the show.

That number followed a duet with Audra Mae, who opened the evening and returned at the end of Espinosa’s set for a duet on an Audra Mae original called “Ruby Slippers” — one of the few songs in which Espinosa, singing harmony, toned down her powerful voice.

Given that Audra Mae is the great grand-niece of Judy Garland and Espinosa starred in a show based on characters from The Wizard of Oz, the song had particular poignance, including the lines, “No rubies on my shoes/Just an illusion/But I can’t get home/Just by clicking my heels.”

In her own set Audra Mae —  a compact bundle of dynamite with a Janis Joplin quality to her voice — varied her program with a mix of rock, a little Broadway (“Joey, Joey” from Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella) and a haunting original song based on a letter from a Civil War soldier to his wife.

The evening also featured a couple of solos from Paula Cole, who wrote “Me,” Espinosa’s title song.  Cole sat at the piano and quietly demonstrated pure artistry and effective communication on two of her own songs — “I Am So Ordinary” and “I Don’t Want to Wait.”

Espinosa was backed by an eight-piece band that was amped so high, it sometimes drowned out her own amped-up singing.  Christopher Lloyd Bratten was musical director

The show was directed by Billy Porter and presented by Upright Cabaret as part of its three-part  summer series saluting Stephen Schwartz.  Espinosa was preceded in June by Shoshana Bean, another former Elphaba; and will be followed Aug. 23 with a preview of Schwartz’s new opera, Séance on a Wet Afternoon and a musical salute to some of his other music.

Elliot Zwiebach
Cabaret Scenes
July 24, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org