Amorika Amoroso: The Whore Next Door

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Amorika Amoroso

The Whore Next Door

Don’t Tell Mama, NYC, Sept. 29, 2016

Reviewed by Rob Lester for Cabaret Scenes

Photo: Maryann Lopinto
Photo: Maryann Lopinto

Definitely daring, certainly startling, Amorika Amoroso takes risks, but takes no prisoners. She takes the stage, she takes a stand, and she takes the prize. I mean that last part literally—she is the grand prize winner of the highly competitive 2015 Mama’s Next BIG Act!’s vote-getting nights and this presentation by the hosting venue, Don’t Tell Mama, is part of her prize. If you didn’t see her in those summer weekly rounds in 2015, you may have seen her picture on a postcard or ad because a graphics design promo package was also part of her prize. Loyal readers of Cabaret Scenes magazine also saw her fill its pages some months back because a feature article therein was also a part of the prize. The formidable and fascinating Ms. Amoroso proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she’s deserving. She rises to occasions and she raises our consciousness and raises the bar for all who want to do an unblinking, thinking-outside-the-boîte show. She is quicksilver savvy, charismatic, and very much her own unique, feet-well-planted unapologetic self. If there’s some neurosis under the irreverent confidence or a loose cannon firing these sure shots, it only adds to the impact of the roller coaster ride that replaces the more typical cabaret “journey” through emotions and (yawn) some singer’s checkered or unchecked love life.

I suppose that by this point in the review I’d be remiss to not mention that the Amoroso ammunition includes a powerhouse voice that matches her outsize personality. Material that demands BIG finds Mama’s Next BIG Act! ready, willing, and able-voiced to scale the heights of the high drama or high, sustained notes, all of which sustains our interest. Our skin gets goose bumps because she’s comfortable in her skin and can deliver on a grand scale and imbue everything with tsunami-sized BIG force of nature that she is. Even songs and genres that might not be my cup of tea normally become uber-strong tea laced with Red Bull and whisky when this woman and arranger/pianist Steven Ray Watkins (also house musical director/accompanist for that summer contest she won) are those brewing.  The alliteratively named lady is a fan of hip-hop from her early years and I’ll be damned if she doesn’t make it work in the context of a cabaret show. She can be tough and off the cuff, she may have a chip on her shoulder, but also a very secure head there—and so heady is the feeling one gets reeling from the impact of her show.Although the interview published in Cabaret Scenes (which I re-read after attending the second show in this run) mentions her father playing lots of Sinatra records as she grew up, and her coming around to very much appreciating them, her heavy-duty set list is not heavy on Great American Songbook standards. The only number here approached by Sinatra is one he did in a swinging, casual way with Count Basie: Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Wives and Lovers.” Its unenlightened, frightened tone (“I’m warning you….”) positing that a wife better be wary of the roving eye of her husband so they’d better be sure their eyes are on the prize of the hard-working hubby and their eyeliner is straight (“Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up…”). Score eight thousand points for feminism as the sassy, sarcastic singer makes a mockery of the pre-Women’s Liberation lyric of the early 1960s that has aged about as well as the decade’s Watusi and lava lamps. She gets much mileage out of being horrified by the pat-on-the-head,  chiding of the song, getting the audience up to speed with her feelings, and then topping the moment by telling how when she was telling her mother that she was singing this old hit and that a word that rhymes with “hit” would hit the fan as she took it to task, Mom said cheerily, “Oh, I love that song!” And as she drops that fact, all our jaws drop in unison.

The theme of the act’s cheeky title is not that The Whore Next Door is literally a prostitute on the other side of your picket fence or shared apartment wall. In her smart, politically sharp “wake up and smell the coffee” spoken material, she talks about people who sell themselves, sell out, or sell their souls to the highest-bidder devil in other ways— politicians, Wall Street high-rollers, and those Wives and Lovers who are maybe mating for money matters more than for matters of the heart. Hilariously highjacking Jeff Moss’ sweet Sesame Street song introducing all “The People in Your Neighborhood,” she, Watkins and director Lennie Watts added lines about those cheery folks in local communities, around every corner whom they tag as having price tags, and she calls them out one by fun one. The juxtaposition of the bouncy, blithe melody and chipper affect against the acid thrown to reveal true colors of exploiters is explosively LOL.

The contributions and shaping by the oft-collaborating duo of Watts and Watkins are fortuitous and frankly fabulous. S.R.W.’s driving musicianship steers the vehicle with versatility, keeping things on course with no automatic pilot. It’s great to see the jazz/cabaret bassist mainstay Tom Hubbard rock out and go electric, and drumming dynamo Donna Kelly punctuating with percussion knows how to hold back and how to go for it, too. This show, kind of heavy on heavy-message material, could have come off heavy-handed and pounding or preachy. But this is an all-pro company that would never let that happen. All are present and generally calibrated.

First-call director Lennie Watts was the creator and host of the singing contest that brought the decidedly amazing Amoroso to the attention of cabaret audiences after her work in theater and other kinds of musical performance experiences. He also birthed and emceed the earlier MetroStar Talent Challenge competition at Metropolitan Room when he was booking manager there in its early years.  His directing style especially suits strong performers who want to attack something off the beaten track. His work with Billie Roe early on at Don’t Tell Mama in her show saluting the film noir genre memorably set her on a solid path when she returned to performing, moving on to later enter and win MetroStar herself and is now breaking the mold with her theatrical Monopoly directed by Mark Nadler. Billie and Amorika share more than a director, contest-winning status, and the “Roe” sound in their surnames; they take risks and are magnetic. Speaking of talent, the 2015’s runners-up are also involved, their second and third-place finishes allowing them to start shows as each other’s opening acts. Those talented women are Lisa Yaeger (whom I saw do a potent short set highlighted by a couldn’t-be-better “Better Days” (Brian Lasser) before the arrival of the anointed first-place finisher. Runner-up Wendy A. Russell (also a member of the harmony group Those Girls) is anything but chopped liver.

Viva Amoroso, who has two more shows: October 13 and 20, both Thursdays,  and, one hopes fervently, many more to come. An adventurous cabaret-goer who likes some “edge” will be happily kept on the edge of his or her seat in this unpredictable evening and might almost fall off that seat laughing. A long monologue about growing up as a Catholic school student was an audience-pleaser, as the singer glibly talks about wishing she’d had “action figure dolls” of both the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene so she could play with them, imagining them teamed “a crime-fighting duo.” Like the stand-up comic she probably could easily be, she continues with anecdotes bringing us into her P.O.V. with commentary that begins with “Have you ever noticed….?” What we DO notice most of all is that this talented woman is simply terrific and terrifically entertaining. But, as a BIG plus, the “BIG Act!” acts to also makes us think—without reluctance.     

Broadway scores of various stripes are mined for gold, all glitteringly on-topic gems.  The Whore Next Door stays in the neighborhood for a selection from the Cy Coleman/Ira Gasman score that provided songs for the for-hire prostitutes and their pimps parading in the Don’t Tell Mama nearby streets in days of yore and whore, The Life. It’s the piece literally about selling a piece of flesh and it fleshes out the theme directly (the defiant “My Body”).  A more coy Broadway classic allowing a woman to love a little libido amuses anew with the view of Oklahoma! resident Ado Annie and her uncanny tendency to flirt or lift her skirt, confessing “I Cain’t Say No.” And even more Broadway pops up, mostly in boldly pop anthemic vein, all the easier to allow opening a vein by visceral Amoroso. There’s the Chess piece “Where I Want to Be” and the act includes Sister Act’s “The Life I Never Led.” And representatives from three currently-on-Broadway blockbusters: “I Didn’t Plan It,” by Sara Bareilles, an item on the menu from Waitress, and a taste of triumph via  “I’m Here” from The Color Purple coming through with flying colors and tied to the title song of the jukebox musical Beautiful: The Carole King Musical    

Should one insist that this critic carp, cavil, and quibble, I’d feel ungrateful when the performance is so richly rewarding, but, if pressed while impressed, I’d suggest what might make better best. The night could benefit with a little more variety in tone, as a lot of hot-tempered no-holds-barred anthems can be too much of a good thing when that heat is turned up to 10 pretty early on. But then again, this is the winner of the competition where the comically ballyhooed gag prize was a Black & Decker toaster oven! Maybe she got into the hot stuff habit. Also, while Amorika Amoroso is a hearty heroic strong woman mix with the best qualities of  Joan of Arc and Joan Rivers, of a theater queen and Queen Latifah, a blazing Bette Midler/Betty Buckley mix channeling Betty Friedan’s feistiness, one wonders about a gentler side gently given a chance to emerge. Obviously, she feels things deeply, has been through some Life Stuff, and there is soft, fragile skin under the scar tissue. Not that we need her to get all gooey and dewy-eyed, but the amorous Amoroso could be interesting, as love and romance makes melted marshmallows of us all.  Her opening number, George Harrison’s lament/scolding meditation on the human condition and selfishness, “Isn’t It a Pity,” might find balance in the same-named classic by the Gershwins about belatedly finding a lovely love match. Lastly, the program is top-heavy with humor and some of that might be rationed to be more present closer to the end. I don’t think it would prevent this capable performer from getting back into the drama. I think of the singer Barb Jungr who favors intense and sad approaches to songs, one after another, but provides respite with lighthearted spoken comments between some. This allows a potentially emotionally drained audience crying into their two-drink minimum drinks to sip and think and smile and have a breather.

Maybe because it seems that Amorika Amoroso can sing and do anything that makes one want to hear her do everything. If she walks the tightrope without a net, it’s because she has the skill and guts to do it. The woman with the initials A.A. will likely get straight “A”s as she does each of her next BIG Acts. What she has now is a terrific and tough act that will be a tough act to follow.

Rob Lester

2015 is native New Yorker Rob Lester's eighth year as contributing writer, beginning by reviewing a salute to Frank Sinatra, whose recordings have played on his personal soundtrack since the womb. (His Cabaret Scenes Foundation member mom started him with her favorite; like his dad, he became an uber-avid record collector/ fan of the Great American Songbook's great singers and writers.) Soon, he was attending shows, seeking out up-and-comers and already-came-ups, still reading and listening voraciously. He also writes for www.NiteLifeExchange.com and www.TalkinBroadway.com, has been cabaret-centric as awards judge, panel member/co-host, and produces benefit/tribute shows, including one for us.