"We're just like Fred and Adele [Astaire]!" Will Trice gushed as he and his sister, Kathryn Pryor, arrived onstage at The Duplex. "Except that we don't dance... or date members of the opposite sex." Add that they're from Arkansas and radiate a deliciously perverse down-home country flair, and you have them in a nutshell.

In their recent outing at The Duplex, Royal Fretting, the duo tried to recreate the classic double acts of days gone by while providing some contemporary twists. While their renditions of "Mirror, Mirror" from Follies and "I Can See It" from The Fantasticks were quite charming, their over-long cabaret (which ran an hour-and-a-half with an intermission -- daring, but inadvisable even for seasoned pros) did not conjure the magic of those old-fashioned legendary pairs. Instead, by trying to fit their songs around an "emotional" center, they seemed artificial and trite. For their next show, they might do well just to sing -- their voices are lovely and strong, and they have good stage presence when they're not trying to be funny or poignant.

Tesse Fox
Cabaret Scenes
June 16, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org