For Cynthia Crane, The Time Has Come to tell all. This fusion of carrot-topped pixie and saloon chanteuse delivers a persuasive show of humor, heart and honesty at the Metropolitan Room. With vivacious personality and keen acting chops, she wraps the program around optimism, but also delves into the dark corners, finds the humor, reveals her politics, delivers a sense of romance and, of course, love gone bad. Created with intelligence and care, her show includes songs that tell something about the singer and something about the listener. Crane's patter is smooth, with points carrying her from one selection to another, each part of the story.

"I'm a cabaret singer out to change the world… I worry about practically everything." For example, the moon. For Crane, the moon is for dreaming and romance, not walking. She chooses an impassioned, melodic "Luna Rosa" (Goell/De Crescenzo) to make her point.

Crane easily switches from comic elf to forlorn waif to seen-it-all broad. Her eclectic selections include "Smokin' Reefers" (Dietz and Schwartz), the soulful "My Old Flame" by Coslow and Johnston, and Cole Porter's patter song made famous by Gertrude Lawrence about "The Physician" who diagnosed perfectly but "he never said he loves me." In Shade and Teagarden's "I Got The Right to Sing the Blues," her voice scoops low into the melody with Paul Greenwood's piano rumbling behind her. She sings confidently with some jazzy edges, in a tone more like rough linen than silk, and her charm and energy help put across tunes like "Why Try to Change Me Now?" (McCarthy and Coleman) and "I Fall in Love Too Easily" (Cahn/Styne) with acknowledgement, rather than regret. Evident is the Frank Sinatra influence; phrasing to communicate the message, not like an actor but like a woman.

Crane is, she admits, a WASP, insisting that WASPs have soul, and wryly proving it with Sondheim's "God-Why-Don't You-Love-Me Blues (Buddy's Blues)" from Follies, note-perfect and word-perfect.

Accompanists Paul Greenwood on piano and Boots Maleson on bass, melodically underscore her theme from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass: "The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things/Of shoes and ships and sealing wax/Of cabbages and kings."

The Time Has Come to get yourself to the Metropolitan Room and see Cynthia Crane, a captivating vocalist with a lot to tell, who keeps you entertained while doing it.

Cynthia Crane brings The Time Has Come to the Metropolitan Room October 14, 21, 28, 2007

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
October 14, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org