If there are more engaging vocalists on the cabaret trail than Christine Ebersole, I haven’t yet met them. In Upper-Westside Manhattan’s Symphony Space, a theater-turned-concert-hall, she and keyboard magician Billy Stritch kept an SRO audience tantalized as they presented a song list that ran from the iconic Irving Berlin to the contemporary Scott Frankel & Michael Korie.

Stritch worked his effortless sorcery at the keyboard and periodically sang or joined Ebersole in a duet, the pair allowing New Yorkers the sole long look at their new show as they prepared to take it on a European tour.  A recollection of their initial meeting in the cast of 42nd Street provided one of the evening’s several highlights: four songs from the Al Dubin and Harry Warren musical.  Stritch took “We’re in the Money” to exuberant heights, Ebersole charmed with an enticing “Lullaby of Broadway.”  If Stritch is in his glory with upbeat numbers, he also can surprise one with a moving rendition when called for, as it was when he played and sang Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh’s ”It Amazes Me.”

Ebersole’s anecdotes of her teenage years and earliest public performances, albeit sprinkled with wit and charm, recaptured an almost-little-girl quality. The contrast with her exquisite vocal artistry – a voice as clear as a silver bell and as versatile as a 4-G smart phone – was breathtaking, her mastery taking her voice anywhere she chose to go.  She shifted from a sprightly flirtatious “Chase Me, Charlie” to an introspective, contemplative “Mad About the Boy” with ease and conviction, calling forth a prolonged ovation from an enthralled audience.  One of the most beautiful numbers was saved for last, as Ebersole encored with a song from her Tony-winning role in Grey Gardens, “Will You?”

It’s amazing what two exceptional performers can accomplish with but a piano and an appreciative audience even when the room seems so cavernous compared to cabaret’s usual haunts that a regular cabaret-goer feels singularly distant from the performers.  Yet, as absorbing as was the show, Symphony Space missed the mark in an important area.  The audio was excellent, if a shade or two too loud.  More critically, the stage was illuminated, and that was all one could say about it. There was none of the drama a good cabaret room’s tech director adds to a show with lighting that he or she varies in intensity, direction and color to match the mood and emotion of each number.  Regrettably, it was as if someone initially turned on stage lights and went home.

On the other hand, Symphony Space proclaims on one of its broadsides that they are bringing “Signs of Intelligent Life to the Upper West Side.”  It’s hard to argue with that.  Credit where credit is due.

If you can’t chase this show to Europe, keep an eye peeled for it when Christine Ebersole and Billy Stritch bring it back home.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
May 17, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org