Sometimes an audience is psyched to welcome a familiar entertainer Home Again. The Metropolitan Room crowd was certainly ready for Teri Ralston's opening night. While not that well known in the cabaret community, she has paid her dues in theatre, and her pals were out to cheer. In turn, she took command from her jumping first song, Peggy Lee and William Schluger's, "I Love Being Here With You." She set an upbeat mood although it is not the most comfortable song for a soprano, not that anyone was complaining.

Teri Ralston revealed what a perceptive interpreter she is, and how astutely she takes you into the belly of a song. With humor, intelligence and preparation, she unveiled tales of a woman who got her lucky break in Company soon after college. She has worked with the theatre masters of the past several decades, Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, David Merrick, and she related anecdotes with candor and delivered her tunes with sensitivity.

"This is a nostalgic evening," she told the audience and went into Kander and Ebb's melancholy standout from The Rink, "Colored Lights." While she is a soprano who can belt with gusto, her most insinuating moments were ballads; she darkened her tone for, "In Buddy's Eyes" (Sondheim), "Old Friend," (Nancy Ford and Gretchen Cryer) and Irving Berlin's "I Got Lost in His Arms." She quipped about love and life -- "My God, it never changes," and then belted a rueful snatch of "The Man I Love" and "Another Mr. Right Left," an ode of bluesy resignation written by Wally Harper for Debbie Reynolds in Irene. Ralston recalled the wit in a song cut from Follies, "Make the Most of Your Music."

With musical director, Shelly Markham at the helm, this show was juicy enough, but special jolt came with Ralston's old pal, Pamela Myers, who proved herself an affable standup comedian even before her first song, "Little Green Apples" (Bobby Russell), which she used to audition for Company. When was the last time you heard that song? It got her the gig, and she went on to introduce "Another Hundred People." With Ralston back, they sang "You Could Drive a Person Crazy." Ralston's closing song was "Marieke" (Brel-Jouannest-Shuman), the song she sang for her own Company audition.

One downside with this entertaining show was Ralston's loss of the lyrics in several songs. For a singer less connected with lyrics and with telling the story, maybe it's no big deal. Teri Ralston, however, is so involved that she easily draws in her listeners and hooks them. For her to break that connection was regrettable in a show so worth seeing.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
January 7, 2008
www.cabaretscenes.org