If your idea of cabaret is sunshine songs and grinning, then Jeff Dean’s Exploited Again ain’t for you. However, if you cotton to edge and some dish, pull up a chair. Exploited Again explores the rocky relationships among three generations of a legendary entertainment family: namely Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, and Garland’s wicked witch of a stage mum, Ethel Gumm. In a medley which included ”I’m Nobody’s Baby“ with updated lyrics by Dean, and “Me and My Baby,” we recall how Gumm and Garland, neither the best of mamas, called their offspring “baby” long after babyhood. Dean brings a rich, smooth vocal instrument to the stage which enabled him to deliver a variety of songs well. Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill’s “It Never Was You” found the tenderness of Judy’s own remarkable version. Dean delivers Kander and Ebb’s “Mein Herr” with even more bite than did Liza in Cabaret. It took time for us to get that his parody of “The Man That Got Away” (“The Man I Love Is Gay”—history to which both Judy and Liza were prone) was supposed to be funny, but, ultimately, it got good laughs. Exploited Again could use even more light moments. Dean’s rewrite of “Rose’s Turn” (Gypsy) morphed into “Ethel’s Turn” and was bitterly intense, but would have packed a stronger wallop had it been a shorter medley. “Quiet Please, There’s a Lady on Stage” (Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager) was the perfect encore.

Carla Gordon
Cabaret Scenes
November 20, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org