Meow Meow
The Venetian Room, San Francisco, CA, October 30, 2022
Reviewed by Steve Murray
Bay Area Cabaret opened its 2022-23 season with a rare programming choice: post-modern diva Meow Meow, the alter ego of Melissa Madden Gray. It’s unusual in that Meow Meow’s modern cabaret has an in-your-face 20th-century Weimar style that challenges and provokes audiences. This was not a show-tunes and Great American Songbook evening, and it wasn’t for everyone’s palate for sure. Behind the comic façade and burlesque slapstick was a thoughtful, talented chanteuse who allowed the music to do the talking.
She played on her unique appearance, looking like a windswept Joan Collins. Strutting onstage as the diva she is, Meow understatedly observed “It’s a lot, I know.” When no one threw flowers at her feet, she stopped the show to provide her own adoration. She played with the lighting techie, providing her own queues, often to mask his taking a gulp of wine straight out of the bottle or chewing on hard candies. When she shockingly couldn’t get the stage to revolve, stagehands presented her with a lazy susan and spun her around during a lovely cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees.”
She’s a natural comedienne which endeared her to the audience, but she truly shined when she sunk her teeth into her wildly eclectic material. From her Pink Martini days she offered “I Lost Myself (I’m Hungry…and that ain’t right)” written by composer/collaborator Thomas Lauderdale, along with a co-written “Hotel Amour” from her CD of the same name. Her delivery was mesmerizing and emotive.
Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht were represented by “Pirate Jenny” from The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigoschenoper), boldly performed entirely in German. Also sung in German was Brecht/Weill’s 1929’s “Surabaya-Johnny,” performed rather than just sung and showing she understood the context of the material. Another German cabaret song, “Alles Schwindel” (“It’s All a Swindle”) may have pushed the limit of non-English presentations. Rounding out her European chanson homage was a lovely interpretation of “Sans toi” (“Without You”), with music by Michel Legrand and lyrics by Agnès Yarda performed en française.
Accompanying Meow Meow was Emmy Award-winning pianist/composer/singer and music director Lance Horne, who has worked with a host of super-talented performance artists such as Rufus Wainwright, Justin Vivian Bond, and Taylor Mac. His light and lyrical touch made for a perfect counterpoint to Meow’s material.
She closed the show with a haunting cover of Patti Griffin’s “Kite Song,” a call for overcoming grief and sadness and weathering the storms of life. It was a poignant, beautiful finale that represented the unique persona that is Meow Meow.
Next up for Bay Area Cabaret is Broadway World’s “Vocalist of the Year” and Mabel Mercer Foundation award winner Carole J. Bufford on November 20th. Tickets are available at http://www.bayareacabaret.org/ or by calling (415) 927-4636.
