Cabaret Scenes Review

Bree Benton, a fetching looking actress, brought an intriguing concept to Don’t Tell Mama in the form of a one-woman quasi-musical theater piece. The intriguing part was that she and her musical director and accompanist, Franklin Bruno, created the song list for her playlet from sheet music of a near-century ago that they’d collected from antique shops and library sales.

It’s crystal clear at the opening, as Benton enters the room wearing a frayed tattersal dress and carrying a hobo’s kerchief-wrapped bundle on the end of a stick on her shoulder, that the audience – to borrow a phrase from another show – is either in for comedy or for tragedy tonight.

The direction is tragedy, worthy of a Barbara Stanwyck 1930’s flick. From a 1906 "There, There, Little Girl, Don’t Cry (A Life Lesson)," or the 1909 "I’ve Got a Pain in My Sawdust (the Plaint of the Little Bisque Doll)" – certainly dolls get pregnant, no? – followed by "Oh, Take Me to My Mamma Dear" from 1903, the songs are delivered so over the top that one must conclude Poor Baby Bree is meant to be a parody of the heartbreak genre. Benton even gives a tearful depiction of an unbought toy shop "Soldier on the Shelf."

Benton has a pleasant voice and an engaging stage presence, but the intent of the show is never clarified, leaving the audience unsure whether to laugh or cry. The spoken parts are scripted, not patter, and only because I was later informed by Franklin Bruno do I know that Benton’s “Little Red Riding Hood Routine” was “taken verbatim from an early Vitaphone short of the Foy Family’s vaudeville act,” and that she also included a speech from the courtroom scene in Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. Informing her audience of some of the songs’ origins, and the sources of her monologues would be a useful step in helping the rest of us appreciate Poor Baby Bree. So would an indication of her goal and a couple of numbers to break the unrelieved sense of gloom and despair.

There may be a good show stirring among Benton’s musings, but until they’re more organized and made better defined, we’ll never know.

Peter Leavy
Cabaret Scenes
November 18, 2007
www.cabaretscenes.org



	Bree Benton Poor Baby Bree Don't Tell Mama New York, NY
Bree Benton, a fetching looking actress, brought an intriguing concept to Don’t Tell Mama in the form of a one-woman quasi-musical theater piece. The intriguing part was that she and her musical director and accompanist, Franklin Bruno, created the song list for her playlet from sheet music of a near-century ago that they’d collected from antique shops and library sales. It’s crystal clear at the opening, as Benton enters the room wearing a frayed tattersal dress and carrying a hobo’s kerchief-wrapped bundle on the end of a stick on her shoulder, that the audience – to borrow a phrase from another show – is either in for comedy or for tragedy tonight. The direction is tragedy, worthy of a Barbara Stanwyck 1930’s flick. From a 1906 "There, There, Little Girl, Don’t Cry (A Life Lesson)," or the 1909 "I’ve Got a Pain in My Sawdust (the Plaint of the Little Bisque Doll)" – certainly dolls get pregnant, no? – followed by "Oh, Take Me to My Mamma Dear" from 1903, the songs are delivered so over the top that one must conclude Poor Baby Bree is meant to be a parody of the heartbreak genre. Benton even gives a tearful depiction of an unbought toy shop "Soldier on the Shelf." Benton has a pleasant voice and an engaging stage presence, but the intent of the show is never clarified, leaving the audience unsure whether to laugh or cry. The spoken parts are scripted, not patter, and only because I was later informed by Franklin Bruno do I know that Benton’s “Little Red Riding Hood Routine” was “taken verbatim from an early Vitaphone short of the Foy Family’s vaudeville act,” and that she also included a speech from the courtroom scene in Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. Informing her audience of some of the songs’ origins, and the sources of her monologues would be a useful step in helping the rest of us appreciate Poor Baby Bree. So would an indication of her goal and a couple of numbers to break the unrelieved sense of gloom and despair. There may be a good show stirring among Benton’s musings, but until they’re more organized and made better defined, we’ll never know. Peter Leavy Cabaret Scenes November 18, 2007 www.cabaretscenes.org

Bree Benton

Poor Baby Bree

Don't Tell MamaNew York, NY

Don't Tell Mama
New York, NY