You could almost call it a musical version of Saturday Night Live.  Sandy and Richard Riccardi’s Metropolitan Room show was a fun-filled hour of lampoons, jabs and jibes on a host of topical subjects.  With mostly their own original songs, but with an occasional borrowed tune to which the pair wrote parodies ranging from puckish to cynical to contemptuous, they took sharp aim at, among other items, politicians, TV evangelists, Broadway musical wannabes, sexual orientation, and the Twitter explosion.

The music and material gave Sandy Riccardi plenty of opportunity to establish her proficiency as a versatile singer and actress.  If anything, she so immersed herself in the procession of characters she assumed, that the audience might not have had time to appreciate the quality of her near-operatic voice.  But sharp-witted content was more the show’s objective than was a musical recital.

The numbers included a spoof on some of the current crop of Republicans jockeying for the Presidential candidacy, a song revealing why some guys feel they need to drive a truck the source of “The Southern Girl’s Mating Call,” and a rollicking ode to a woman’s “change of life.”

And, while I won’t give it away, one of the show’s highlights was Sandy’s response to Sarah Palin’s remark of a few years back that she was “speaking for all the soccer moms.”

Richard Riccardi (Sandy’s husband) may have been sequestered behind the piano, but as her spouse, partner, musical director and accompanist, he was a willing—and eminently salutary—accomplice to the musical goings-on, much of which he composed and/or co-authored. Together, Sandy and Richard Riccardi made for one hell of rib-tickling and satisfying cabaret night out.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
November 10, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org