Anita Kallen and Catherine Thomson are talented, attractive women who bonded representing Chicago well last summer at the Yale Cabaret Conference. Their show, Dangerous Women, offers an intriguing premise. Most of the songs are about overtly messing with men (and others). Thomson has a ball with Lola’s Damn Yankees medley. Kallen’s best moment (and, for my money, the show’s best moment) is Christine Lavin’s “Musical Apology” (“Regretting What I Said”). Lavin’s fake apology lyrics are hilarious in how extreme they are and Kallen told the story simply without punching the comedy (making it funnier and more compelling). Top-shelf Musical Director Mark Burnell joined in for Dave Frishberg’s “Slappin’ the Cakes on Me,” but I wondered why this number, highlighting Burnell’s signature laid-back delivery, was placed in the eleven-o’clock slot. Graeme Thomson’s new lyrics to Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” are fascinating and go by so fast I want to hear them again.

Indeed, I enjoyed the show, yet something seemed to be missing. What these “dangerous women” needed to share more, particularly in their conversations, was themselves. The show would have been richer and truer had we come to know the ladies better: what makes each sometimes feel like a “dangerous woman”?; what connected them individually and to each other through this theme and through life in general? Yes, the songs about murder and mayhem are great, but ultimately what makes women dangerous is the way they can shatter men’s hearts.

Carla Gordon
Cabaret Scenes
June 3, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org