Challenge: find a show that will please an out-of-town teenage girl whom you want to take to cabaret but whom you don't want to sit in polite silence while she listens to standards even her parents gave up in favor of The Beates and The Grateful Dead. Happy solution: Amy Wolk's show at the Metropolitan Room.

Amy is young (she talked of just turning thirty). She is, to quote the lyric of her opening medley, which included Rodgers' and Hammerstein's "It Might as Well Be Spring," as "bouncy as a baby on a swing." The often in-your-face attitude in her patter never crossed the line into obnoxiousness, but would appeal to the rebelliousness of young people. And she is very talented!

For the older members of the audience, Amy Wolk had much to offer. Her mixture of standards and contemporary songs involved a great variety of pieces that allowed her to range over a myriad of emotions: wistful, ironic, angry, defiant, vulnerable. "Fancy" by Bobbie Gentry is a story song of rags to riches that is extremely powerful and complex. "Love, You Didn't Do Right By Me," by Irving Berlin, was delivered with a faintly satirical attitude. Throughout, Amy made it clear she knows what her lyrics are about: no just singing the notes for her, despite a very fine voice.

The audience made it obvious that Amy has a regular following. A persistent question for this reviewer was what was unique about her personality, for there are other talented, young, bouncy singers in cabaret. Few of them, however, can so artfully combine what seem like contradictory qualities: cluelessness with knowingness. She says she probably won't do a new show for about a year. Hopefully, then, she will reprise this one. Either way, watch for her.

Barbara Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
April 21, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org