Mary Cleere Haran: I Love Lyrics

The Cabaret at Savor

In an interview for my podcast a couple of weeks ago, Steve Ross noted that what cabaret singers do is “to make the songs stories ... as opposed to just delivering the lyrics. Cabaret, most simply put, is about the words.” He was, of course referring to own extremely successful act, but that description applies equally well to Mary Cleere Haran's appearance here this week.

The title of her show says it all: she does love lyrics, and demonstrates it right at the top by singing what are, as far as I know, all of the lyrics to Cole Porter's “It's DeLovely”. The full-length version takes the love affair from initial flirtation through marriage and up to Junior's emergence as a film idol, all done with the linguistic inventiveness that was Porter's trademark. It's one of the strongest opening numbers I've heard in quite some time.

In the course of the evening, Haran gives the audience a sampling of some of the best lyrics by Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Lorenz Hart, Buddy DeSylva and Dorothy Fields, among others. The songs range from old favorites such as “Fascinatin' Rhythm”, “A Fine Romance”, “'S Wonderful” and the Gus Kahn/Isham Jones classic “It Had to Be You” to rarely-heard numbers like Rogers and Hart's love letter to city life “Way Out West” (from Babes in Arms) and Irving Berlin's poke in the eye of moral priggishness “Pack Up Your Sins and Go to the Devil” (from 1922's Music Box Revue). Haran dedicates that one to the “ex-Caths” in the audience and, this being St. Louis, there were plenty of us in attendance.

This is only Haran's second appearance here in St. Louis and my first opportunity to see her. I came away immensely impressed with her charm, wit, vocal versatility and theatrical smarts - not surprising, given that she started her career on the musical stage. She's one of the few cabaret artists who will actually act a song. She does the 1920s chestnut “The Boy Friend”, for example, in the character of a Helen Kane-ish flapper, complete with an appropriately girlish voice. The Gershwins' “Do It Again” gets a steamy rendition that leaves not doubt whatsoever as to what the antecedent of “it” might be and Berlin's “Harlem on My Mind” is filled with the exile's yearning for home.

Her version of that song, by the way, is a classic illustration of how profoundly a performer can affect one's perception of the material. Inspired by Josephine Baker's superstar status in France, the song struck me, when I heard Steve Ross do it just two weeks ago, as a somewhat chauvinistic putdown. In Haran's skillful hands it becomes something much more and I wasn't surprised to learn that, in her view, the song isn't about Baker so much as it is about Berlin's own nostalgia for a past that, while economically harder, might have been emotionally easier than the songwriter's present.

In between the songs, Haran provides fascinating biographical nuggets on the lyricists and their musical collaborators, all delivered with a lively and sometimes self-deprecating wit. It makes for a fast-paced and consistently entertaining evening that's also a highly enlightening overview of that great flourishing of American song that took place between the last century's two world wars. Haran maintains that this period was the high point of the American Songbook, and her performance certainly makes a persuasive case for that assertion.

Accompanying Mary Cleere Haran is the equally impressive Don Rebic, who did such a fine job backing Karen Akers here a few years ago. A classically trained pianist with substantial jazz and musical theatre experience, Rebic has worked with some of the biggest names on the cabaret scene. His playing here is technically flawless and supportive without being excessively showy - everything, in short, that a cabaret singer could want.

The bottom line is that if you love cabaret, you'll love Mary Cleere Haran's I Love Lyrics. She's at the Cabaret at Savor, 4356 Lindell in the Central West End, through Saturday [November 11, 2006]. The show includes dinner from Savor's excellent kitchen but if you'd rather go straight to the music there's a late-night show on Saturday without the meal but with a two-drink minimum. For ticket information call 314-531-0220 or go to the web site at licketytix.com.

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