Editor's Desk

K. T. Sullivan and Karen Kohler rolled the dice and won: they presented their smartly conceived cabaret show Vienna to Weimar on February 24 — Oscar night — at the Triad on West Seventy-second Street. By a few minutes into the program, it was doubtful that anyone in the audience worried about missing Seth MacFarlane's opening monologue. 

Vienna to Weimar begins reassuringly, with Sullivan offering Rudolf Sieczynski's "Wien, Wien nur du allein," English words by Kim Gannon. (Gannon is one of my favorite trivia subjects: he wrote the words for some awfully good popular songs, including Max Steiner's "It Can't Be Wrong," taken from the 1942 Bette Davis film Now, Voyager, and the Christmas classic "I'll Be Home for Christmas." He deserves to be mentioned oftener than he is.) Then Sullivan lit into a delightful version of Fledermaus's "Mein Herr Marquis" (including the English words by Howard Dietz), hitting all her comic marks with ease and grace; she has a wonderful self-mocking quality that lands consistently with the audience. With Kohler, Sullivan also dusted off "Wenn die beste Freundin" (When the Special Girlfriend) and "Maskulinum-Femininum," both by Mischa Spoliansky and Marcellus Schiffer, revealing them as the sophisticated, subversive gems that they are. It fell to Kohler to cover the Weimar section of the waterfront and convey most of the spoken history lesson to the audience, which contrasted effectively with Sullivan's lighter approach. And although Sullivan didn't get near the chilling fury that an artist such as Nina Simone can bring to the Brecht–Weill "Pirate Jenny," she did manage to make that song uniquely her own. After spinning through a fine group of Friedrich Hollaender numbers, including the choice "Illusions," both women brought the evening to a memorable close with Leonard Cohen's "Take This Waltz," from 1967, and Franz Lehár's "Merry Widow Waltz." Jed Distler was the evening's excellent musical director. 

As New York's cabaret scene continues its quiet erosion, K. T. Sullivan is one of its enduring delights.  

BRIAN KELLOW

For a while, during her club act at 54 Below on January 24, Marin Mazzie looked like she might spend the evening circling without landing. She opened with a remembrance of her Illinois childhood, giving us a snapshot of a typical Saturday evening when her parents, cocktails at the ready, danced in front of the hi-fi to classic romantic ballads of the period such as "Tenderly." During this part of the evening, Mazzie seemed oddly "posed" and removed from the audience; she seemed to be in on a joke that she wasn't going to share with us, and it was hard to get a handle on where we might be heading. 

Fortunately, things picked up once she began to sing Top-40 hits from her own growing-up years. With excellent support from a band headed by her musical director Joseph Thalken, Mazzie gave killer renditions of schlocky '70s numbers such as the Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You," the Barbra Streisand–Paul Williams Gibson greeting-card romance "Evergreen" and Barry Manilow's "When Will I Hold You Again?" which she managed to make us believe is a pretty terrific song. Just as she was reaching an excellent performance peak, the evening seemed to end rather abruptly, leaving the audience feeling just slightly undernourished.

Mazzie is one of the most exciting singing actresses on the Broadway scene, and I'm always a little frustrated that, apart from Passion, she hasn't originated a show that was really worthy of her. (Her replacement-cast performance in Next to Normal, opposite her talented husband Jason Daniely, was one of the most electrifying turns I've seen in years.) Now I'd like to see her do a full-scale cabaret show on the order of those offered by the great Marilyn Maye — something that really lets us know who she is.  

BRIAN KELLOW