Krisanthi Pappas has an irresistible stage personality which is infinitely likeable, and a honeyed voice with a tremulous vibrato that adds color to the plainest line. A consummate musician, she created her own arrangements for this show, a Broadway celebration, occasionally presiding at the piano and even the drums.

For a performer who usually straddles cabaret and jazz with admirable aplomb, her strong interpretive skills were slightly off here, at least to start. Still, she demonstrated impressive vocal syncopation on “A Shine on Your Shoes” and intimidating vocal sparring with drummer John DiSanto on “I Got Rhythm.” On the latter, the show’s finale, the entire five-piece band—piano, bass, drums, guitar and sax—was cooking on all five burners.

In this two-hander, the much weaker first act took its time to build momentum. It finally did, with a full throttled “Oh, Lady Be Good!,” with some stunning scatting, followed by a salacious “All That Jazz” which pulled out all the stops. Though some of the first act pop ballads didn’t quite pop, Pappas nevertheless impressed with “I Say a Little Prayer,” where her lush emotional and vocal delivery easily eclipsed the original.

But the stronger second act, filled with non-stop crowd pleasers, demonstrated Pappas’s power to charm and impress. She channeled Eartha Kitt in “Whatever Lola Wants,” sizzled with sultry sexiness on “Fever” and took no prisoners in an uptempo version of “It Might as Well Be Spring” that would spoil you forever, and spoil any other version of it.

John Amodeo
Cabaret Scenes
September 11, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org