Review: Ellen Marlow Stuns in SILVER LININGS at The Green Room 42

In a dark, mauve-curtained room, on the fourth floor of a hotel, around 7:15 p.m. on August 26th, the lights began to dim, and a scattered audience of socially distanced cabaret goers erupted into cheers and applause as Ellen Marlow bounded onto the stage. Marlow was at The Green Room 42 performing "Silver Linings", a show that recapped the emotionally tumultuous past year and a half since Covid-19 shut down Broadway (and her production of "Frozen"). Coincidentally, it was also my first show since January 2020, and the entirety of "Silver Linings" felt like a coming home.

Ms. Marlow's first song of the evening was the 1993 Sunset Boulevard number "As If We Never Said Goodbye," a song made all the more emotional knowing that "Silver Linings" was meant to be something of a recap of the nearly year and a half that New York City's performers spent out of the spotlight. Marlow had her arms spread wide, belting out the song's climax, and every eye in the room was pinned to her as her voice carried us on a journey of the past eighteen months.

Moving chronologically, "Silver Linings" traveled from the months before the pandemic hit when Marlow was tapped to be the understudy for Princess Anna in "Frozen" on Broadway, to the theater district's shutdown, and her subsequent move out of the city, back through the long summer of 2020. Through music, Marlow explored everything from the cooking bug that she (and the rest of the US, it seemed) caught mid-pandemic - she delighted the audience with the deep, long notes of "Stoned Soul Picnic" - to the TV shows that carried society through. While Marlow name-dropped several prestige shows that captured the world's attention over the past year, including Queen's Gambit, it was the second season of Ru Paul's Drag Race UK that she said personally helped her survive, providing one of the most high-energy, joy-filled songs of the night, "UK Hun," where she was joined at the front of the stage by her two backup vocalists, all of whom took turns dancing and enjoying the song.

Needless to say, the audience was enraptured by the performance.

Throughout the evening, all of Marlow's myriad talents were on display - obviously, her singing, which evokes emotions and feelings in every note; but her body language and facial expressions conveyed her ability as an actor, and the stories she sprinkled throughout the show would have been just as suited at a comedy club. One of my favorites was right before she sang "Movin' Out," when Marlow said that after Broadway's shutdown everyone felt the need to "Get the hell out of New York." It was the first instance of her personality coming through (the song was the fourth in the 16-song lineup), and it was delightful.

Ellen's song selection was brilliant for so many reasons. First of all, it truly encapsulated the zeitgeist of the past year and a half. Secondly, it was eclectic, not just in theme but also in genre, allowing Marlow to truly showcase her range of talents. She sang everything from Taylor Swift's "august," (truly inhabiting the folksy cottagecore vibes of the album folklore) to a mash-up of Olivia Rodrigo's "good 4 u" and Paramore's "Misery Business," a boot-stomping combination that brought the house down. In between, there were musical theater numbers like the super fun "I Can Do Better Than That" and, of course, Anna's "For The First Time In Forever" from Frozen itself.

Marlow's musical choice to close out the show was Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" and it truly couldn't have been a better selection to reflect the sentiment of the pandemic and of the evening. Throughout the room, arms raised and people swayed to the music, rapt and filled with enjoyment. I found myself rooting for Marlow's continued success, and am definitely adding her name to the list of must-see performers when she hits the stage next.

You can check out Ellen Marlow at her website here, and more great shows at The Green Room 42 can be found here.

To post a comment, you must register and login.