I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t get AARP Magazine (it shows up, whether you want it or not) who would ever think of saying, “Let’s catch a cabaret act tonight!” Like discovering Sasquatch in Central Park, reuniting the Spice Girls, or spotting me dining at a Guy Fieri restaurant, it’s never gonna happen.
Unlike those who aren’t necessarily diehards in the following forms of entertainment, yet occasionally go to the movies, the opera, or a Yankees game, either you’re a cabaret aficionado or you don’t go at all. In fact, non-devotees probably don’t event know it exists. There are no clever websites devoted to it. Social media ignores it. Entertainment magazines afford the genre little beyond listings. And no one ever, ever, ever calls cabaret cool.
And yet imagine if you could watching Adele perform from fifteen feet away in a room that only seats 125. And for what you shelled out for those Lower 24 Level seats to see her at the Barclays Center, you also get dinner—and I don’t mean nachos or ballpark franks—plus top-shelf booze? Now, how swell would that be? Granted, Adele has not given indication that she is suddenly downsizing her career to accommodate such intimate venues anytime soon, but it’s not a problem. Her presence is not required.
Because once in a delirious, fortuitous while, someone walks onto a cabaret stage who is so vivaciously spirited and gob-smackingly talented, blessed with a radiant voice that fluidly alternates between rattling the stemware and tossing off comedy-club-quality one-liners, that it’s worth keeping your tie and jacket on after work, or forcing yourself into a half-Windsor even if you don’t normally knot one. I’m afraid you will have to get that kind of spiffy if you are going to venture uptown to the anachronistically disconcerting, yet as-charming-as-it-is-tony Café Carlyle to catch this nova in an evening sheath. So who could possibly merit all this fuss?
The Great Red Way: A Tony Award winner in 2008 for 'Gypsy,' Laura Benanti attends the 2016 awards.... [+]
I wish Laura Benanti really didn’t belong back on Broadway where she can win more Tony and Drama Desk Awards. And I’m sure her agent thinks it wise she does more TV besides Nashville, The Good Wife, and Supergirl (where she’s deliciously schizoid playing both Kara’s knowing mom and evil bitch of an aunt) so more people will readily recognize her.
And the fact that she’s due to give birth in February really throws a wrench into my brilliant master plan. Because if this glorious, glistening, and pretty damn sexy lady made the rounds of the brightest boîtes in America like Joe’s Pub and Feinstein’s in New York, the Gardenia in West Hollywood, Yoshi’s in Oakland and Dimitrou’s Jazz Alley in Seattle, and they all chipped in to properly publicize this under-appreciated form, Benanti could single-handedly make cabaret as get-down-here-now popular as the viral sensation that was ignited when she impersonated Melania Trump on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Okay, now you know who she is.
As that knee-slappingly brilliant stunt proved, Benanti is wickedly funny, sly and urbane, mocking past marriages and celebrated co-stars, and wryly bemoaning the vanishing role of the Broadway soprano. She jokes a lot in song as well, with cheeky riffs on Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” and Tina Turner’s version of “Proud Mary.” But when it's time to open the pipes and let it go, swinging wide with coloratura-challenging numbers from She Loves Me while channeling the fury of Tori Amos and the disappointment inherent in Harry Chapin, sharing a Joni Mitchell lament, and gently offering a lovely tune by her accompanist Todd Almond entitled “Take Good Care of Me,” all you can do is swoon happily and say to yourself softly, “Holy crap.”
The longer she’s onstage, the more you’re willing to surrender any resistance to this unique form of entertainment. And when she ends the evening with a tribute to how her mom taught her how to recognize and appreciate happiness, singing in a crystalline whisper Kander & Ebb’s “A Quiet Thing,” if you don’t bite your lip, close your eyes, and then check to see if no one caught that quickly brushed tear, you may have no soul. Has Laura Benanti finally made us realize that cabaret is that goddam cool? You bet your ass.
