Mark your calendar for the monthly Calendar Girl series by crafty, caustic, combustible Colleen McHugh. Each month’s set list sets up a different theme by this polished, justly confident pro. February reprised her audience-pleasing collection of post-Valentine’s Day recollections of rueful regrets and raging, relished revenge. Although this savvy and sassy, self-deprecating singer can break you up with laughter, she also breaks your heart with ballads and torch songs. Her unfussy, convincing treatment of Irving Berlin’s classic lament of hopelessness, “What’ll I Do?,” is focused and touching. Lovely tones and vulnerability emerge. A jilted lover taking sadistic pleasure in her ex’s woes with “Goody, Goody” lets her have comical catharsis galore. There’s much opportunity for belting, brashness and breezy banter. Instructing pianist/foil Eugene Gwozdz on the dramatically intense tone she wants for accompaniment, she suggests, “Make it sort of like Dracula at Betty Buckley’s wedding.” (She gives a teaser of a dead-on impression of Buckley.)

I’d prefer to have not so many cabaret warhorses like “The Man That Got Away” and “Stars and the Moon” unless there’s a really new angle or arrangement concept; they were respectful and fine, but Colleen is too creative not to find more unchartered territory. A trademark is instantly creating one song based on an audience member’s experience, rhyming names and facts; this time it was gay coupling in Canada and its smart silliness went over well. As with other material, it was done with a playful wink and a crooked smile—and style.

Rob Lester
Cabaret Scenes
February 26, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org