Reviews

Sharon McNight at the Metropolitan Room

Written by Jay Jeffries   

Sharon McNight may well be the funniest woman in the world! Judging from the gales of laughter emanating from the Metropolitan Room last night, I think that’s a safe assumption to make. In a delirious hour and forty minute show, she generates a cacophony of chuckles, giggles, guffaws, whoops and downright belly laughs. And that’s not all, folks!

“Gone, But Not Forgotten” is Sharon’s madcap tribute to the songstress/comediennes who are not longer with us but whose fame lives on and on.  Remember Judy Canova, the Ozark Nightingale?  Well, Sharon McNight summons her up singing “The Wabash Blues,” complete with yodels. She begins with “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone,” an apt theme for the evening, and a tribute to the late great Ethel Waters. 

Along the way, she manages to channel Madelaine Kahn channeling Dietrich singing Mel Brooks’ loony “I’m Tired” from “Blazing Saddles.” And later, hardly exhausted after tributes to Betty Hutton singing “Rumble, Rumble” and Ethel Merman singing “Some People” (complete with Merman’s trademark high C), she conjures up “Tired,’ the song which brought fame to Pearl Bailey.

But there’s nothing tired about Sharon McNight. Blessed with a pair of saucer eyes and a cupid’s bow mouth that keeps straying to the side of her face, she is a veritable bundle of electric energy. She knocks off Patsy Cline’s “Sweet Dreams” and “I Fall To Pieces,” and scats her way through Martha Raye’s jazz version of “Old Man River.” Now that’s something you won’t hear anyone else do in a cabaret act these days!

Before the evening is over, we’ve also been treated to Sophie Tucker belting “The Man I Love,” Hildegarde warbling “Darling, Je Vous Aime Boucoup” in her fractured French, and a brilliant imitation of Bette Davis, almost on key, croaking Frank Loesser’s “They’re Either Too Young Or Too Old” complete with a punch bowl-sized martini glass and garnished with a gargantuan olive.  All of this, of course, with the right amount of memory-invoking patter and outlandish ad libs.

Think you had enough? Think you’ve already laughed until your sides are splitting? Get ready! Sharon begins singing the plaintive verse to “Over The Rainbow” and segues into the entire Munchkin scene from “The Wizard Of Oz” where she manages to portray Judy Garland, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton and an entire cast of Munchkins, houses falling on witches, broomsticks flying through the air, waltz clog steps, and side quips in quick succession. It’s an amazing feat and she still isn’t tired!

Last night she closed with “Bacon,” a zany homage to her favorite food, but I’m so tempted to return to hear her sing Noel Coward’s bittersweet “If Love Were All.” Sharon is California-based so, when you get a chance to see her in The Big Apple, run, do not walk to wherever she is playing. She is the consummate cabaret comedienne at the peak of her game.

The wonderful Ian Herman is Sharon's musical director and accompanist

April 26, 2008

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Reviews for Sharon's other shows

Review for HATS