Shawn Ryan is a marvelous showman who knows how to please an audience with songs and patter. In a relaxed, casual evening with no subtext other than simply to entertain, Ryan ran through an eclectic mix of standards and amusing, more obscure material interspersed with funny, often self-deprecating stories.  He also presented guest star Andrea Marcovicci, whom he introduced as “the queen of cabaret,” adding that she often refers to him as “the other queen of cabaret.”

Among Ryan’s best moments was the insinuating “If I Can’t Sell It, I’ll Keep Sittin’ on It” (Alex Hill/Andy Razaf), one of the best double entendre songs ever written, which Ryan acknowledged is usually sung by African-American women, but which he made his own. He also took a look at how a gay caveman might come out to his family in the hilarious “Way Ahead of My Time,” a brilliant song by Peter Mills from 2000’s The Taxi Cabaret, and sang about the day a woman playing a Disney character lost her cool in the very funny “Snow White” (Zoe Lewis).

Ryan and Marcovicci teamed up for a delightful “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (Frank Loesser), followed by Marcovicci’s solo tour de force on the same songwriter’s “Hamlet,” a word-twister written originally for Betty Hutton, but delivered here with perfect style and enunciation by Marcovicci, abetted by Shelly Markham on the piano.

On his own, Ryan ran the gamut from nervous Nellie to great star in his “audition medley,” starting with Jason Robert Brown’s “Climbing Uphill,” then seguing smoothly into the powerful combination of “I’m the Greatest Star” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade” (both by Jule Styne/Bob Merrill).  And he soared with Streisand’s version of E. Y. Harburg/Harold Arlen’s “Down with Love” in a bravura version that, in the middle of the song, incorporated bits from 25 Streisand recordings in four minutes. He also scored on Katy Perry’s hit  “I Kissed a Girl,” adding the lyric, “It felt weird/There was no beard”—which featured a nice bongo bit by pianist Kelly Park—crooned his way through a lovely “How Deep Is the Ocean?” (Irving Berlin)—including an extended scat on the word “deep”—and delivered an easy-going take on the song used as the True Blood theme, Jace Everett’s “Bad Things” (“I’m gonna do bad things to you” ), which he aimed at his young-looking and very effective bass player, Alex Frank.

Besides Park and Frank, Ryan was backed by Brian Carmody on drums.

Elliot Zwiebach
Cabaret Scenes
April 20, 2012
www.cabaretscenes.org