Hector Coris's performance background in revues and his experiences creating inventive multi-performer cabaret revues of his own were precursor to this first go-it-alone cabaret venture, Life Is Wonderful.  Make no mistake, this solo creation was no conventional cabaret show.  While he shunned the all-too-common first-time-out autobiography, paradoxically his material—a contemplation of life, mortality and death—was far more personal.  “As you probably guessed, “ he said, “I'm not the most romantic person.  I don't like love songs.”  Nevertheless, that left him with plenty of songs to include, from twice-visited Kander and Ebb's “Life Is... (...what you do while you're waiting to die)” to William Finn's “You Gotta Die Sometime.” Coris even included a song about his prospective gravesite, David Caldwell's “A Tomb With a View.”

Certainly, artists' contemplation of mortality is nothing new. Each generation deals with the finality of one's existence.  For centuries, people were cautioned that their rewards, or punishment, would come in the next world.   The unexpected presence of a skull in many classical paintings is symbolic, a reminder to the viewer that we all are mortal.  In today's far more secular times, perhaps those Kander and Ebb lyrics from Zorba more closely reflect the general view, if not Ray Jessel's black-humored “Life Sucks, Then You Die.”  With the gloom, equally ubiquitous throughout the generations is an unbridled hedonism: eat, drink, and be merry while you can.

Coris is an accomplished entertainer, personable and audience-savvy, who handled his offbeat subject in an affable fashion, more concerned with his selections’ lyrics than with hummable melodies.  Hope and mirth were not ignored—Michael Feinstein's and Marshal Barer's "For Love Alone,” affirming ”nothing dies that flies for love alone,” an enthusiastically belted “As We Stumble Along,” suggesting keeping “your eyeballs on the highballs in your hand,” and a saga of a young performer whose role at Disney World is in the guise of a teacup. Still, while a few selections affirm the wheel of life—if winter is here can spring be far behind?—too often the wheel stops turning and death predominates. Perhaps for the young people in his audience, mortality seems far too remote to contemplate.  But for those already past puberty when the Beatles debuted on the Ed Sullivan show, illumination of Coris’s own way of  dealing with his concern—“I think about death a lot”—would add the missing piece to an otherwise unusual and well executed show.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
May 5, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org