On a cabaret stage, Fran Leonardis may characterize herself as a New Jersey wife, mother, and “housefrau,” but she is hardly a female Walter Mitty. For one thing, she’s appeared in about a dozen musicals staged in various New Jersey theaters. For another, she burst upon the New York cabaret scene last summer when she was second runner-up in the Metropolitan Room’s MetroStar Talent Challenge (behind winner Marissa Mulder and first runner-up Stacie Perlman). So, while It Will Never Be That Way Again (a song from the 1992 Marvin Laird/Joe Paley off-Broadway show Ruthless, which Leonardis appeared in for a Jersey production) was her solo cabaret debut, Leonardis doesn’t come across as a rookie performer, and that experience—along with her flair for comedy—helped her produce an entertaining, if uneven, show.

One of her promotions quoted an audience member calling her a cross between the delicious Dorothy Loudon and great Alice Ghostley, which is something of an overstatement. This diminutive domestic diva is more like a budding Roseanne Barr with a voice. While Leonardis possesses a solid mezzo-soprano, her real assets are her natural comedic gifts and the self-deprecating sense of humor she brings to her performance.

“I was an ordinary nothing, just like you,” Leonardis sang to the audience with a smile during her opening number. But after spending 11 years as that housewife from Jersey, she decided to become “what so many men and a few women desire to be—a cabaret diva.” She certainly looked the part, in her black dress with a leopard print on the collar, cuffs, and a leopard bowtie in her black hair just above a blob of fuschia streaks. She then went on a run of fun numbers, from “Born to Entertain” (also from Ruthless, during which she used her black high heels as a percussion instrument), to the English translation of Cesare Andrea Bixio’s “Mamma” (which she stopped after a few bars to hilariously declare that her mother “hates this f-ing song”), to “It’s All About Me,” Chuck Pelletier’s ode to small supporting roles in musicals, something which Leonardis clearly related to and climaxed with “Come see me in Spider- Man: Turn of the Dark as . . . The Web.”

Her tour de force came next—and probably too early in the show—as she channeled Frau Blucher and killed on the difficult “He Vas My Boyfriend” (Mel Brooks) from Young Frankenstein. But the comedic momentum was stopped cold when she went flat in spots on the classic Mack Gordon/Harry Warren ballad “At Last.” The same issue emerged on the David Shire/Richard Maltby, Jr. ballad from the musical Big, “Stop, Time” (the second part of a mother and sons-oriented medley with “And His Rocking Horse Ran Away”), which just wasn’t delivered with enough poignancy, and during which her voice cracked a bit in her higher register. She overacted and obscured the lyrics on Kander & Ebb’s “Arthur in the Afternoon,” didn’t make you care during the throw away “I Don’t Care” and, late in the show, she wasn’t quite able to pull off Kander & Ebb’s soaring “But the World Goes ’Round.”

Leonardis is more in her element when she can belt a funny, quirky novelty song such as the Tom Kitt/Brian Yorkey opus “More… and More… and More!” (“The Costco Song”), a believable song coming from the perspective of a suburban housewife. Another highlight of the show’s second half was Leonardis’s “Que Sera Collage,” a cute homage to the 1950s, during which she segued in and out of the famous Doris Day hit with three other hit songs of the period that were fun surprises. Musical Director Barry Levitt excelled on the clever mash-up.

During the penultimate number, the show’s title song, Leonardis sang that “A woman born to entertain must use applause to ease the pain.” By that point, the housewife-from-Jersey shtick was pretty much played out. Now that she’s established that she belongs on a stage as much as in the kitchen, it will be fascinating to see what she comes up with for a follow-up show. If she can build on this debut, sticking mainly with songs that play to her comedic strengths and adding more solid jokes and bits, Fran Leonardis could become one of New York cabaret’s more compelling performers. She’s talented and funny, but isn’t quite the cabaret “diva” just yet.

Stephen Hanks
Cabaret Scenes
April 9, 2012
www.cabaretscenes.org