 |
|
||
|
|
Willis Moore is a hopeless romantic. He's in love with love, light, and all things bright and beautiful. So it was strange that I should go to his caberet show last Sunday at the Plush Room. I'm more of a dark romantic. I think all successful road trips should end in a small yet brutal prison sentence, all love affairs should end in death, and all cabaret singers should chain smoke Lucky Strikes while telling increasingly morbid tales of heartbreak, with bursts of acrid humor, to a desperately drunk, yet attentive, audience. But of course caberet has a brighter side, and Willis Moore, with his bing-bang-zoom-I'm-in-love optimism, and baby-soft vocal chords, is the archetype. Moore and music director Christopher Winslow, put together a wide-eyed romantic collection of well-crafted original songs and old standards, like the tentatively optimistc translation of "I Must Have Done Something Good." Moore is outrageously self-aware, when he is sentimental and sappy he is unabashed with lilting high-notes, and soliloquies on slowing down in this hurry hurry crazy world, and when he goes for the laughs he gets them with self-lampooning humor and songs like the cutsey My Baby and Me about a picture perfect S&M relationship. Throughout the performance, Moore keeps his audience's attention with one part tenacious charm and one part atmospere. The Plush Room, with its well-lit stage and a hush-hush-oh-so-efficient staff that could never put up with a room full of suicidal drunks, never mind so much as a single puff of smoke, is the perfect venue for Moore's elegantly shmaltzy show. But not everyone was shocked into reverence with the Plush Room's quiet sophistication. The pretty young woman seated next too me earned deadly looks from the waiters and impatient shushes from the patrons for her unpardonable crime of being an audible drunk. It wasn't like she didn't enjoy the show; she did. She cuddled with her date during the romantic parts, sighed during the sentimental parts, and laughed at every joke. She was silly, sloppy drunk and seemed to be desperately in love, and when I looked at her, I could see her, somewhere in an alternate universe: drunk, broken hearted, and weeping at the impossible hopefulness of love as the cabaret singer lit up another cigarette and broke into "I Must Have Done Something Good." Moore has a few Sunday shows booked at the Plush Room (just in time for Valentine's Day) so grab your sweetie and go. January 24th, 31st, and February 7th at 7:30 p.m. Please Make Reservations 940 Sutter St. (between Leavenworth and Hyde) San Francisco, CA (415) 885-2800 - $15.00 |
||
|
Reproduction of material from posthoc is prohibited without written permission. Copyright 2002, Posthoc, Inc. |
|||
Grab
your sweetie and go
