“Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli Live at Mama’s” the sign reads.  But just in case there’s any confusion, that is followed with “Starring Tommy Femia and Rick Skye.”  A good description, because their show at Don’t Tell Mama was indeed a star turn, and an audience pleaser from start to finish.

There’s more than impersonation going on here. The show is part put-on, part send-up, part true to the characters at their genuine best. Judy and Liza are characters Femia and Skye have used as their subjects for years, and the question is: Are they so good at it because they’ve been doing the characters for so long, or have they been doing the characters for so long because they’re so good at it?

They’ve got the asides, the mannerisms, the pauses, and Judy’s and Liza’s singing styles down pat, to the point where one man in the audience turned to his lady friend and said, “If you close your eyes, you could get goose bumps.”  Goose bumps aside, I’d be tempted to say they’ve got the mother and daughter act down to a science, if it weren’t that I think it more accurate to say they’ve got it down to an art.

Although the humor of this show is keyed to those with at least a passing awareness of the Garland and Minnelli lore (which seems to include almost everyone past puberty and a goodly pre-pubescent contingent as well), Femia and Skye create such stage characters that they take on their own lives.  Even if you’d never heard of either Garland or Minnelli, three-quarters of the goings-on would still be perfectly comprehensible and the jokes quite funny.

Both Femia and Skye do other, independent cabaret shows on Judy and Liza, but together they are an even more formidable.  Understandably, the show has Femia-as-Judy solos, Skye soloing as Liza, and – of course – the two performing (and dealing) with each other. Although I am convinced that most of this performance would easily have held its own in any comedy room, there were serious moments when songs long identified with the ladies were afforded a serious and effective presentation. Among them, Liza’s “(Theme from) New York, New York,” and her “Maybe This Time”; Judy’s Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody and her signature song, “Over the Rainbow.”

Femia and Skye are affectionate, if equally irreverent, with their series of quips.  Such as Liza’s half-sister, Lorna Luft’s, purported title of her own cabaret show: Songs My Mother Taught My Sister While I Was Waiting in the Other Room.  Okay, a few jests may have been sharper than a serpent’s tooth, but they all seemed in fun, and the audience ate them up.

Ricky Ritzel was the assured hand at the keyboard; Denise Andersen was tech director.

Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli Live at Mama’s plays every other Saturday at Don’t Tell Mama.  Catch it if you can.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
June 25, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org