Carol O’Shaughnessy
The Rat Pack and Me
Moonshine Room, Club Café, Boston, MA, November 13, 2021
Reviewed by John Amodeo
If you weren’t at the Club Cafe’s Moonshine Room on Saturday, November 13to see Carol O’Shaughnessy’s show, The Rat Pack and Me, then you missed a happening. Such events of thrilling entertainment come along so rarely that you have to just pinch yourself to know that you are actually there and it’s not a dream.
Using a tight script written by Jack Neary, Carol spent the evening confiding in the audience about her youthful brush with the famous members of the Rat Pack at the Sands Hotel in 1960. As she told her story, she had the audience in the palm of her hand every moment. In between confidences, she wove songs made famous by Frank, Sammy, and Dean.
Accompanied by the remarkable seven-piece
Tom LaMark Orchestra with a full horn and reed section, Carol was in full swing
from her opening “Ring-a-Ding-Ding!” to her closing “Just Once in a Lifetime.”
“You Make Me Feel So Young” had a lovely bounce to it. Then there were her
ballads, and few people can turn on a dime from raucous laughter to poignant
heart-wrenching moments like Carol. During “One for My Baby (and One More for
the Road)” and “Mr. Bojangles” you could hear a pin drop.
Same with “The Hungry Years,” a rarely heard gem recorded by Sinatra in 1976. And everyone enjoyed singing along to “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime.” Sure, there were a few hiccups, but that’s to be expected with a first performance of a dense 90-minute play with music. Judging by the three standing ovations she received, we can only hope that Carol might do this again, when she’s fully settled into the role. She might need a bigger venue and a longer run, because I would bet good money that the whole sold-out room of more than 100 people would want to go again; never mind that those who missed this show who would want their chance at seeing such an extraordinary performance.
