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Carole J. Bufford
November 24, 2009
“intro”
Metropolitan Room – November 19, 21
The small “i” in the title of her show, “intro,” is the only thing lower-case about Carole J. Bufford. When she is on stage, SHE IS ON STAGE! She can deliver a song with more force and drive than a speeding locomotive, and she enlists the aid of her every gesture and body part in the service of selling her musical wares. Combine that with a voice that is both powerful and attractive and you get a performance that can thrill an audience.
Directed by Lennie Watts, “intro” opens with a marvelous rendition of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön” (Sholom Secunda, Jacob Jacobs, Sammy Cahn, Saul Chaplin), in which each line delivery earns our attention. She does a hell of a job on Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”—it’s big and it may lack grit and rawness, but it is quite striking on its own more stylized terms. On the other side of the spectrum is Bufford’s tender reading of Lennon & McCartney’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which she relates to the stage in life in which roles become reversed and one takes care of one’s parents; this subtext makes her interpretation that much more poignant. (Bufford performed these last two songs when she competed in the MetroStar Talent Challenge this past summer; they helped secure her a spot in the top three.)
Bufford gives us a few novelty numbers: “Mountain Lullaby,” a comically mean way to say “go to sleep” that is associated with Dorothy Shay, the Park Avenue Hillbilly; Colin Meloy’s outrageously nasty “A Cautionary Song”; and Tommie Connor’s “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” with rather adult additional lyrics by Bufford. All are winners.
There is only one problem; a clue to it can be found in my opening paragraph, where I talk about her selling her musical wares. In many of the numbers I have not yet mentioned, and in much of her patter, she seems intent on selling herself to us, on winning us over. She widens and flashes her eyes too often, undulates her shoulders too much, delivers lines unsubtly. She PERFORMS when she should simply perform. She indicates when she should interpret. As a result, songs that should be touching are, instead, slick; material that should express honest emotions comes across as calculated.
For example, Cole Porter’s “Ev’rytime We Say Goodbye” seems studied and contrived—so it falls short of being moving. While her rendition of Bobby Russell’s “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” is quite polished, it would benefit from a touch of brooding sadness, and the bigness of her handling of Bessie Smith and Stuart Balcom’s “You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon” would be more successful in a large theatre than it is in an intimate cabaret room. Jimmie Hodges’s “Someday (You’ll Want Me to Want You)” starts off almost as an unadorned statement, then grows to a wow-’em nightclub number. So, too, with Jimmy Cox’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” in which neither down-ness nor out-ness is communicated.
She should place greater trust in her talent—after all, she’s got more of it than most people walking the earth. Mind you, she’s so skillful at presentational performing, that in some settings, or in limited doses, she’s likely to score without changing a thing. However, I am convinced that if she tried to do less, she would accomplish so much more—as she does with her affecting rendition of Sam Cooke’s “Nothing Can Change This Love,” in which she beams with simple, genuine joy at the very thought of “this love.”
Nate Buccieri provided the musical direction, and on a few songs his piano accompaniment is augmented or supplanted by Alex Cooper on guitar. Both gentlemen are great assets to the show.
Roy Sander has been covering cabaret and theatre for over thirty years. He’s written cabaret and theatre reviews, features, and commentary for seven print publications, most notably Back Stage, and for CitySearch on the Internet. He covered cabaret monthly on “New York Theatre Review” on PBS TV, and cabaret and theatre weekly on WLIM-FM radio. He was twice a guest instructor at the London School of Musical Theatre. A critic for BistroAwards.com, he is also the site’s Reviews Editor; in addition, he is Chairman of the Advisory Board of MAC.
