Kim David Smith: Morphium Kabarett

May 17, 2016

Kim David Smith (by Joe Hepworth)Morphium Kabarett at Pangea is an entertaining variety show created and hosted by singer Kim David Smith and music-directed by Tracy Stark. While many multi-performer evenings smack of financial consideration (more acts will bring more friends and family to fill the audience and pay more covers), this show and the guest artists so reflected the style and personality of its host that such considerations never arose.

Smith is a strikingly handsome young man with a strong, expressive voice. It became immediately apparent that his love of cabaret is filtered through what he imagines to be the dark and dramatic Berlin-style definition of that word. His performance is one of gleaming, diamond-hard surfaces that impress, but, like diamonds, are cold and devoid of real emotion. It is performing with a capital “P” but not very revealing. It is problematic when a performer reveals more about himself in the patter between songs than in the actual singing.

But, as I said, the singing was impressive. Smith opened with “Pirate Jenny” (Kurt Weill, Bertolt Brecht), provocatively donning a female character as our first image of him—and doing the song as well as I’ve ever heard it done. It was followed by “Johnny, wenn du Geburtstag hast” (Friedrich Holländer) sung in its original German, with little or no introduction, much less translation, so that audience members unfamiliar with the piece were left to flounder with its meaning and with the cause of Smith’s histrionics. (Incorporating “Erotica” (Madonna, Shep Pettibone, Anthony Shimkin) gave the song a welcome flip into modernity.) Since, as host, Smith gets to perform only a limited number of songs. the similarities between the first two songs and, later, “Song of Black Max” (William Bolcom, Arnold Weinstein) and “And the Times Are Dark and Fearful” (Hanns Eisler, Bertolt Brecht) provided too many of the same moment. We realized early on that he was a master of this type of song and wanted him to show us something else, something more. He did just that with a stark reimagining of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” (Lamont Dozier, Brian and Eddie Holland), which worked quite well and offered a glimpse of what delights a more varied program might provide.

The guest artists the evening I attended delivered variations on the presentational style that Smith embodies. Erin Markey did two original songs, showing off an impressively rangy voice trapped with muddled lyrics and too often resorting to a decidedly un-musical wail for dramatic effect. Jordan Hall brought an R&B variation to the evening with an interesting version of Fiona Apple’s “Slow Like Honey,” but here, too, it was all about sound and little about story. The final guest, Molly Pope, offered the one moment of genuine, human emotion in her beautifully raw version of the Gershwins’ “Someone to Watch Over Me.” Unfortunately, in her pre-song patter, she dismissed the song in advance by saying that she had been forced to sing it, as if she had to apologize for feeling something. Her other song, “Little Amsterdam” (Tori Amos), was more in keeping with the glittering surface and emotional emptiness of the night.

The voices were so good and the host so charming and funny when he was speaking, that the evening was never a bore, but it was so stylistically single-minded that it proved unsatisfying in disappointing ways.

Pangea – May 2, 9, 16, 23

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About the Author

Gerry Geddes has conceived and directed a number of musical revues—including the Bistro- and MAC Award-winning "Monday in the Dark with George" and "Put On Your Saturday Suit-Words & Music by Jimmy Webb"—and directed many cabaret artists, including André De Shields, Helen Baldassare, Darius de Haas, and drag artist Julia Van Cartier. He directs "The David Drumgold Variety Show," currently in residence at Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, and has produced a number of recordings, including two Bistro-winning CDs. He’s taught vocal performance at The New School, NYU, and London’s Goldsmith’s College and continues to conduct private workshops and master classes. As a writer and critic, he has covered New York’s performing arts scene for over 40 years in both local and national publications; his lyrics have been sung by several cabaret and recording artists. Gerry is an artist in residence at Pangea, and a regular contributor to the podcast “Troubadours & Raconteurs.” He just completed a memoir of his life in NYC called “Didn’t I Ever Tell You This?”