It was more than just a variety show of particularly talented people; it was a gala, a reunion and a get-together of performers, friends and cabaret-goers who were part of, or party to, twenty years of Jamie deRoy and friends.  The celebration, and it was clearly that, opened with dozens of video clips of Jamie in performance over the years – some as singer, some as host, and some as stand-up – in an ever-changing wardrobe that persuaded the viewers that she must look good in just about everything.

Jamie has always been fond of parodies, and over the years has kept her skeptical eye on current trends.  To get the performance ball rolling, she offered a parody from fifteen or so years ago, a spoof on the then-burgeoning number of performers getting their own TV shows.  To the tune of “Making Whoopee,” she sang,

What have they got / that I have not?
They’ve got a talk show.

Later in the show, she would do another parody, equally topical and even funnier, this one utilizing a medley of tunes borrowed from West Side Story.

All the guests were long-standing veterans of past years.  Songwriter John Forster performed a Jamie favorite he described as “my improbable tribute to the state of Massachusetts.”  Cabaret folk recognized his surreptitious pleasure driving through the state and “entering Marion,” then “entering Beverly,” and, none the less enthralled, “entering Sharon.”

Jay Leonhart claims “it isn’t possible to sing and play the bass.”  And then, of course, goes on to prove that, if anyone can, it’s Leonhart himself.  His whimsical lyrics carry the day, while the bass accompaniment accentuates his story songs rather than provides a melody one can whistle.

Magician Benjamin Levy (no relation to this Peter Benjamin Leavy) baffled the audience with some seeming impossible slight of hand, including cutting open a lemon to retrieve a missing twenty dollar bill borrowed earlier from a patron, set afire and destroyed.  Also author of a book, Remember Every Name Every Time, Levy proved that possibility by identifying by name at least a hundred people in the audience he had introduced himself to before the show began.

There were other video segments in the two-hour-plus entertainment.  Clever editing made ten-second or less snippets of some of the hundreds of guests she’d had on the shows quite persuasive about their audience-winning qualities. We saw clips of Susannah McCorkle, Steve Allen, Jason Graae, Laurie Beechman, Henny Youngman, Celeste Holm, Nancy LaMott, Sidney Myer, Stephen Schwartz, Kay Ballard, Jerry Orbach, Sheldon Harnick, Carol Hall, John Pizzarelli, Baby Jane Dexter and dozens of others…a parade of familiar and admired faces.

Heather Mac Rae performed both solely and, with “Daddy’s Girl,” in duet with Jamie.  Seven members of the a capella group, The Accidentals, helped close the anniversary show with “It’s Over.”  But watching Jamie’s obvious delight as she observed her guests perform made it crystal clear that twenty years may be a milepost for Jamie deRoy and friends, but far from the end of its road.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
October 19, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org