“Ah, cabaret carte blanche! Is it like striking out on your own, picking the color bright purple for your living room walls (or hair), choosing pizza and chocolate for breakfast? Thus Erik Sisco’s perhaps nose-thumbing show title, a romp relishing cabaret’s self-designability, self-assignability rather than—he says—being limited by casting agent assignments, etc. Michael John LaChiusa’s brash, strutting “See What I Wanna See” and other not-fully-personalized choices paraded his self-confidence and fine deep baritone but were distancing, delaying opportunity for glimpsing who he really might be. With One Touch of Venus’s “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” he indeed felt like a stranger. Such material, as performed, felt locked in musical theater character-specific context. That was the opposite of his stated goal to, for example, extend “Ol’ Man River”’s toil and turmoil to travails of waiters. (News flash: hauling trays of pasta at The Olive Garden isn’t quite loading bales of hay or working the barges along the Mississippi.)

When he dropped the masks, the poseur became rewardingly real and his singing was imbued with more colors and thoughtfulness. With Falsettos’s “What More Can I Say?” he tenderly conveyed his finding long-lasting love, and the Beatles’ “In My Life” was a moving remembrance of his late stepfather. Not surprisingly, coming out came up for this up-and-coming vocalist, the “Stonewall Sensation” singing contest winner hailed at that legendary gay bar.

Magnetic Todd Adamson and Kate Pazakis added volcanic vocal fireworks in an exciting guest spot.

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