What is This Thing Called Love? Not just a piece of a song title, but also the title of one of the town’s warmest and richest-in-music cabaret outings. It’s the new show, at The Algonquin’s Oak Room, combining the talents of Eric Comstock and Barbara Fasano–two performers long established as soloists and now, in a generous hour-plus show, dovetailing their talents in a warm-hearted, richly musical program that invites audience smiles of pleasure from start to finish. Their singing up to the maximum, their patter down to the minimum, and their own enjoyment of their musical and marital partnership contagious to their listeners, Barbara and Eric keep the show moving at a neat pace throughout the evening.

Numbers include works of many songwriting greats, such as Rodgers (and Hart or Hammerstein), Bernstein and Sondheim, Lane and Harburg, Porter and Berlin, plus more contemporary writers such as Joni Mitchell and John Wallowitch. The musical arrangements, uniting the talents of Eric on piano and Sean Smith on bass, are lean and rich, particularly effective on their instruments-only rendition of Frank Loesser’s “Joey, Joey, Joey.”

What is This Thing Called Love?  A musical must-see of the season – before it closes on March 6.

Peter Haas
Cabaret Scenes
February 9, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org