BWW Reviews: STACY SULLIVAN's Intimate New Show at the Metropolitan Room Has An Identity Problem

Stacy Sullivan is a warm and amusing storyteller with an entertaining family history. The first six numbers of her new Metropolitan Room show on Thursday night, Since You Asked (after the Judy Collins song), are bridged by tales of her parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and her upbringing in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, five of these songs have only the most tenuous relationship to material that follows, diminishing reception with thoughts of--Where's the connection? What's she trying to say?

Only the tandem of songs describing the dustbowl experience during the great depression--"This Land is Your Land" (Woodie Guthrie) and "I Think It's Gonna Rain Today" (Randy Newman)--feels appropriate. That pairing is interesting and effective. Sullivan's performance is bone weary and woeful as if she doesn't believe for a moment relief will come. It's like watching a candle go out.

Narrative about Sullivan's ancestors staking a land claim is followed by Rene Rosnes/ David Hadju's colloquial love song, "Who Do You Belong To?" Its evocative hook makes no sense in context of the show. While song seven, "Wild is the Wind" (Dimitri Tiomkin/ Ned Washington), creates a real time character who is over the moon besotted--eyes close, breath is deep, it follows a description of her move to California which also doesn't compute. Is this show about Sullivan's journey out of Oklahoma to New York? Does it mean to use weather as a tie-in and, if so, to what does the title relate? The zigzag of material does justice to neither concept.

Of the songs remaining, "Too Darn Hot" (Cole Porter) is light and flirty; "In My Arms" (Plumb) brims over with sincere, maternal love-there's a sob in her voice; a tandem "Landslide" (Stevie Nicks) and "I Get Along Without You Very Well" (Hoagy Carmichael) offer captivating vocals, the second of the medley pointedly for the vocalist's father.

Sullivan's emotion is clear and present, but Since You Asked seems directed at attending family members and personal friends rather than the rest of us. (I also attended her opening night show on April 4, so this is not a one-time observation.) It's overlong and peppered with asides to people she knows. Arrangements from her Music Director and guitarist Troy Fannin lack character, making almost everything sound colorless which is a disservice to any singer.

I didn't see Sullivan's tribute show last year about the late jazz pianist Marian McPartland, but her preceding Peggy Lee piece was terrific--tight, original, and musically rich. Here, the vocalist doesn't melodically open up until three quarters of the way through the set. What appeared effortless then (the kind of presumption achieved with much work) seems now to be a struggle.

Directed by Savannah Brown, with Matthew Watanabe on piano and Jamie Mohamdein on bass.

Stacy Sullivan performs Since You Asked at the Metropolitan Room again on July 11 (4 pm) and August 29 and November 14, both at 7 pm. For tickets, go to: http://metropolitanroom.com/

Photos courtesy Stephen Sorokoff

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