Hey, fella, wanna have a good time? Check out Marianne Challis.  Hold on—not that way.  Yes, she’s the “Middle-Aged Party Girl” but Marianne Challis’s current show is The Cosmo Report at Feinstein’s at Loews Regency.   Her raison d’être, however, remains to inspire her audience to raise their glasses, laugh a lot and maybe cry a little.

This party opens big, Challis belting a galvanizing “It’s Today” (Jerry Herman) boosted up with Dorothy Fields and Harold Arlen’s “Today I Love Everybody.”  She then socks it home with a jazzy “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.”

Challis uses her acting skills to deliver personal, wacky anecdotes with an ironic wink at life’s ridiculousness.  She is among the best in relating to the audience, never forgetting about the folks in the corners, but settling down when she approaches a serious ballad.  George and Ira Gershwin’s insinuating, “How Long Has This Been Going On?” starts with the chorus, moves into the verses, and keeps the phrases crisp and brimming with soulful intent.  “Blackberry Winter” by Alec Wilder and Loonis McGlohon, Challis sends the song’s intent right to the heart.

She has a well-trained voice, uses careful phrasing and long lingering lines.  Nerves unsettled some lyrics and a few notes on opening night, but Challis slid by them smoothly with an easy shrug.  Who cares?  We’re having fun and let’s go on with the next tune.

Director Scott Barnes helped arrange an assortment of mood switches, from a bouncy “Darktown Strutters’ Ball” (Shelton Brooks) paired with “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (Irving Berlin) to Angela Kaset’s timetable of a woman’s life and love, “Something in Red.”  Challis brought out all the catty wit in “Tom Cruise Scares Me” (David Ippolito) and dove into the marital fury in Stephen Sondheim’s “Could I Leave You?”  Cosmo Girl’s report about current trends led into the clever song choice of Christine Lavin’s “I Am Psychic So Are You,” engaging the audience without pushing them to sing or clap along.

Marianne Challis is a gift-wrapped cabaret package. With Tedd Firth on piano, Dick Sarpola on bass and John Redsecker on drums, cabaret’s Cosmo Girl is enjoying every minute of her party, and you’re invited!

Marianne continues at Feinstein's January 24 & 25 at 8:30 pm.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
January 17, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org