Wow! This is the cabaret debut of this 35-year-old stage, TV and radio actress – and what a debut it is!

Some people seem to just have a gift. They get it, without necessarily even knowing why. When Melanie arrived on stage and told us that she was “scared s***less,” in all seriousness, we laughed. Then she explained how being an actor allows you to put up various levels of protection because you’re inhabiting a role rather than being yourself. She had a firm understanding that cabaret requires you to strip down all those barriers and just be yourself. That can be petrifying, but Melanie’s a natural, and a very warm and funny woman, so she drew the audience right in from the get-go.

She describes her show as an autobiographical reminiscence, and that it is.  She began her career at the age of eight in her native Trinidad. Even now, 27 years later, her mother’s asking her when she’s going to get “a real job”. Those words must ring true to many people. Melanie’s rendition of Coward’s “(Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage) Mrs. Worthington” should be proof enough to her mother that this is where she belongs! She can make you double up with laughter, and bring you to tears, and that is exactly what cabaret should do.

Her anecdote about having been called the “Doyenne of British Musical Theatre” at a time when she was out of work for four months – and then having to audition for a chorus part on a Sunday morning – is a truthfully funny classic I will remember for years to come.

Her voice is lovely, with a strong, clear belt and a sultry, mellow croon. Her heartrending version of Charlie Smalls’s “Home” from The Wiz brought me to tears. Then she picked the show right back up with the best and funniest version of David Friedman’s “My Simple Christmas Wish” I’ve ever heard.  My favorite of the night was a wonderful weaving of Jimmie Cox’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” and Arthur Herzog, Jr. and Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child,” closely followed by the medley of Roy Turk and Fred E. Alhert’s “Mean to Me” and Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx’s “There’s a Fine, Fine Line,” and an incredibly poignant version of Jacques Levy and Steve Margoshes’s “These Are My Children.” My least favourite song was Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger’s “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” – not because she didn’t sing it beautifully, but because she didn’t get inside the lyrics on that one number – it’s the one and only song in which I didn’t believe her.

Some hopefully helpful criticisms, since there’s almost nothing to criticize in this show. Find an outfit you don’t have to fight with! You looked lovely, but I was forever in fear that you and your shawl would end up in a fight on the floor, although, that might just make the show even funnier. Try not to sing with the left side of your face downstage, as it accentuates the fact that you have a tendency to sing out of the right side of your mouth.

Melanie was well assisted by her Musical Director/pianist David Randall and the evening’s hostess, Valerie Cutko, who really set the mood beautifully with John Bucchino’s “Grateful.” I am grateful I was at Melanie’s cabaret debut, and hope we’ll be seeing more of her on the cabaret circuit.

Harold Sanditen
Cabaret Scenes
March 7, 2010
www.cabaretscenes.org