St. Lou Fringe 2014: The hits

Comedy magician Christopher Bange

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I have been a big supporter of the St. Lou Fringe festival since its inception three years ago.' This year I was out of town for most of the festival's run (June 18-22), so I only got to six events. Rather than writing a review of each one, I have decided put them into three groups: hits, near missies, and flops (a.k.a. “I want my 45 minutes back”). We'll start with the hits.

Most Fun: "More Bange for Your Buck" – Actor, clown, and comedy magician Christopher Bange served up a heaping helping of laughs with his own unique take on some classics of the conjurer's repertoire.

If you've seen even a few magic shows in your time, you've probably seen the Linking Rings, the Miser's Dream (in which the magician seems to pull an endless supply of coins out of thin air), and the Zombie Ball levitation. Mr. Bange, though, made these effects entirely his own, with a skillful mix of jokes, mime, and superb physical acting.

The Zombie Ball, in which a sphere seems to float around the stage on its own power, was typical of Bange's approach. It came at the end of a long routine in which sponge balls appeared and disappeared rapidly, and repeatedly popped out of his mouth, apparently of their own free will. In apparent desperation, Bange threw them all into a hat and tossed a scarf on top, only to have a giant size sponge ball emerge under the scarf (we know it's a sponge ball because it pops up on top of the scarf and runs up Bange's arm at one point) and start tearing around the stage under the scarf, apparently dragging him with it. Mr. Bange's skill as an actor is what made it work, reminding us of Houdini's observation that "it's not the trick, it's the magician."

Highest Energy: “In Full Swing” by The Four Fronts – This quartet of swing dancers—two men, two women—presented an amazingly intense survey of 20th century popular dance styles, from the Peabody (a foxtrot variant from the ragtime era) to West Coast Swing from the 1950s. The Lindy Hop (a dance named after aviator Charles Lindbergh which formed the basis of West Coast Swing) figured prominently throughout the show. The music was recorded, as were the reminiscences of the swing era and, in particular, of the legendary Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, where white and black dancers mixed to the rhythms of the (yes) the Lindy Hop.

The Four Fronts are not, as far as I can tell, professional dancers but rather swing enthusiasts who have taken their love of the genre to professional heights. They don't have the lockstep precision that you might get from professionally trained dancers, but with this kind of democratic vernacular dance that's a great advantage. Each one of the Fronts has a distinct personal style, just as dancers did back in the Savoy days.

If the energy and high spirits of the Four Fronts could be captured and stored, it would power a small city. Their show was irresistibly joyful and “family friendly” in the best sense of the term.

Most Polished: “Riffs in a Set of 10” by Chris Limber and friends – The veteran St. Louis actor/director assembled an impressive cabaret act that (as the title implies) knitted together ten big band and Great American Songbook classics from the 20s through the 40s with original image-rich poetic soliloquies that sounded like they would have been right at home coming from a skinny guy with a goatee, black turtleneck, and shades in an underground coffeehouse circa 1958.

The songs included hits like "Basin Street Blues," The Joint is Jumpin'," and "How High the Moon" (with new and gently satirical lyrics), as well as lesser-known novelties like "Frim Fram Sauce," which was introduced by Nat "King" Cole back in the '40s. That famously chilling song about lynching, "Strange Fruit" (recorded by Billie Holiday in 1939), was essentially tragic relief in a show dominated by a mood of spirited playfulness.

Mr. Limber surrounded himself with other fine musicians for this show. When I saw it at the final performance, his collaborators were Michele Isam on sax and vocals, Joe Dreyer on piano, Dave Torretta on bass and Rose Fisher on vocals. Pretty much everybody had a hand at the drum set at one point or another, and even Mr. Torretta got a vocal solo. Quite an impressive array of talent.

For a festival as varied as the Fringe, 3 hits out of six shows is a pretty solid score.

A river ran through it

Connie Fairchild

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Who: Connie Fairchild, with Michele Isam and Karen Coletti
What: Down by the River
When: Saturday, March 9 and Friday, March 28, 2014
Where: The Gaslight Theatre

Some of you may remember Connie Fairchild and the local band that bore her surname from the 80s and 90s. Performing a mix of R&B, rock, and jazz—today they'd probably call it "roots music"—the band won awards and fans locally.

Now Connie Fairchild has made what producer Jim Dolan billed as her cabaret debut as part of the Gaslight Cabaret Festival. And while the result wasn't really cabaret so much as a themed concert, it was musically solid and very well received by a sold-out house that clearly included a large contingent of fans and friends.

Titled "Down by the River," the show featured a nice variety of songs mostly dealing with rivers, floods, rain, and other forms of aquatic motion both literal and as metaphor. As Ms. Fairchild noted in her between-song patter, she has lived most of her life in river towns—including Paducah, Kentucky, Baton Rouge, and St. Louis—so the theme has a lot of personal resonance. "[T]here are a lot of great songs that fit into the theme," she noted in an interview with St. Louis Public Radio's Terry Perkins. "The river’s such a great metaphor for life — never the same, always changing."

So, in the course of the evening, we got American Songbook standards like "Cry Me a River" and an upbeat version of Hoagy Carmichael's "(Up a) Lazy River" that owed a bit to the 1961 Bobby Darin hit and included some nice scatting by co-star Michele Isam. There was a gospel-ish take on Jimmy Cliff's 1969 "Many Rivers to Cross" and Randy Newman's 1974 "Louisiana 1927," which Ms. Fairchild introduced with stories of how her family escaped a flood by walking along the railroad tracks, which were always on high ground. Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" got a nice heartfelt treatment and the classic spiritual "Wade in the Water" had genuine soul.

Michele Isam

Ms. Fairchild has the kind of light, flexible, and somewhat smoky voice that went well with this material, especially when joined (as it often was) in close harmony with Ms. Isam’s (a former member of Fairchild and co-founder, with Carol Schmidt, of Jasmine) and pianist/music director’s Karen Coletti. In fact, although this was was billed as a solo cabaret, it would probably be more accurate to describe it as a concert by a trio headed by Ms. Fairchild. Certainly Ms. Isam's singing, sax, and percussion were integral to the show, as was Ms. Coletti's work on piano and synth. There was a clear musical and personal chemistry among the three women that was very appealing.

That said, if Ms. Fairchild is serious about adding cabaret to her already impressive list of credentials, there are a few tweaks that might be in order.

There wasn't, to begin with, the kind of dramatic arc or narrative through line usually associated with cabaret. Too, Ms. Fairchlld tended to tell us what each song was about up front rather than allowing us to discover it through her performance (as is usually the case in cabaret), and there was a certain sameness to the trio's approach (polished as it was) that didn't always do justice to the words of some of the more lyrically interesting songs. And while Ms. Fairchild connected with the audience in her patter, when singing her eyes were usually closed or turned towards her fellow performers or her music stand. In cabaret, you need to keep that connection going all the way through.

None of this is unusual in a concert setting, I think, where audiences have likely come to expect an attitude that's less about the lyrics and more about the music. And to be fair, once I understood that this was more concert than cabaret, I wasn't much bothered by any of it either. In fact, when they were really cooking and playing off each other in standards like "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening" (music and lyrics by Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer) the spirit of fun was pretty irresistible. It was an entertaining evening, the audience loved it, and that—not the hokey-pokey—is what it's all about.

Connie Fairchild's "Down by the River" has a repeat performance on Friday, March 28th, at 8 PM at the Gaslight Theatre, 358 North Boyle. For more information: gaslightcabaretfestival.com. Note that the Gaslight has no parking lot, so you'll want to arrive early to grab a spot on the street. Fortunately the adjoining West End Grill has a nice assortment of food and drink to occupy you until show time.

Connie Fairchild set list; songwriters provided if known

1. Green Garden (Laura Mvula)
2. Say It With Love
3. A Change Is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke)
4. In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening (Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer)
5. Louisiana 1927 (Randy Newman)
6. Wade in the Water (Traditional)
7. Cry Me a River (Arthur Hamilton)
8. (Up a) Lazy River (Hoagy Carmichael)
9. Echoes of the River
10. I'm On My Way (Traditional)
11. I Think It’s Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)
12. I Can’t Stand the Rain (Ann Peebles)
13. Many Rivers to Cross (Jimmy Cliff)
14. Drown In My Own Tears (Ray Charles)
15. Happiness (Allen Toussaint)
16. Encore: Liquid Spirit (Gregory Porter)

Influential women

"Women Under the Influence" L-R: Carol Schmidt, Michele Isam, Debbie Schuster, and Katie McGrath

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Ask most folks what kind of music they associate with cabaret and you’ll likely get some mix of “great American songbook” and “show tunes”. No surprise there; the Golden Age of American songwriting is, in fact, well represented on the small stage. Tim Schall’s entertaining and informative Rodgers and Hart Songbook from a couple weeks ago was a classic example.

But the cabaret tent is a big one, and in just the past year here in St. Louis alone we’ve had shows based on such diverse sources as contemporary country (Jeff Wright’s Southern Roots), 1950s and ‘60s TV themes (Ken Haller’s The TV Show), and turn-of-the-last-century vaudeville (my own Just a Song at Twilight).

I bring all this up because on Monday (November 12) I had the pleasure of sitting in on a rehearsal by a new quartet, Women Under the Influence (three of the members of which I’ve worked with on stage in the past), that also takes its inspiration from performers whose work is not particularly well represented on the cabaret scene: the girl groups and soul sisters of the 1960s. Pop and R&B classics like “Met Him on a Sunday,” “He’s So Fine,” “Come See About Me,” and “He’s a Rebel” make up most of the set list, but there are also a few nods to contemporary stars like Adele (“Rumor Has It”), Rhiana (“Take a Bow”), and even Dolly Parton (“Jolene”).

This isn’t just a nostalgia trip, though. The essence of cabaret is the way in which the artist puts his or her own stamp on the music and makes it into something new. The members of WUI—Carol Schmidt and Michele Isam of “Jasmine” fame, along with local cabaret stars Debbie Schuster and Katie McGrath—are well-established performers with their own unique styles. Carol is pianist and music director for the show, with Michele filling in on other instruments (percussion and harmonica at the rehearsal I attended). They’re making all of those tunes their own—with tight vocal harmonies and even a bit of swingin' '60s choreography—and, in classic cabaret style, telling a story in the process.

By artfully arranging the songs, WUI’s show moves from the first crush, through true love, down into betrayal and back up into independence. It’s could be the story of one woman or of late 20th century women in general. It might even be a little of both. WUI are creating a space for ambiguity there, and ambiguity is where art lives.

The Women Under the Influence show is being produced by singer Robert Breig's Mariposa Artists (the increase in local cabaret producers is a positive trend I may address in a future post) and will be presented this Saturday, November 17th, at 8 PM in the Showroom at Joe Buck’s Restaurant at 10th and Clark downtown. The space, I’m told, seats around 120 in a very “night clubby” ambience. And, of course, the bar and restaurant are there for your dining and drinking needs.

Tickets are available at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/281908. There’s even a good cause involved; a portion of the evening's proceeds will be donated to Places For People, whose mission is “[t]o provide innovative and effective mental health services to people in need while creating a system of care that promotes personal recovery.”

It’s just another reminder that there’s a lot more to the cabaret scene than one might suppose. It’s why I love going to cabaret shows; you never know when you’re going to encounter something new and surprising. And who doesn’t like a good surprise?