Blake Zolfo: 25! A Premature Retrospective

Randolph B. Eigenbrode | May 29, 2017

Blake Zolfo

25! A Premature Retrospective

Metropolitan Room, NYC, May 25, 2017

Reviewed by Randolph B. Eigenbrode for Cabaret Scenes

Blake Zolfo

There’s a tongue-in-cheek quality that often emerges in a Steve Schalchlin project involving an earnest and innocent delivery which underplays a biting reality. Serving as MD, duet partner and (often) songwriter for Blake Zolfo’s new cabaret, Schalchlin helps to diffuse what could have easily dissolved into a self-centered piece for Zolfo—a survey of memories and reflections in the 25 days leading up to his 25th birthday. Yes, the reality remains that young performers don’t typically have a breadth of life experience to warrant a memoir show, but, luckily with Schalchlin to play off of (and with), Zolfo shines.

Here we meet a musical theater golden child who’s dashingly handsome, charming, and possesses a swell lyric tenor. One can only wonder what struggles (of note) this overachiever could have faced? But, one by one, they appear: day jobs, in a humorous “Triple Threat” (Schalchlin/Amy Lynn Shapiro); emotional unavailability in “Keep Me Guessing” (Schalchlin); and social comparison in “Farther Along” (Schalchlin/Zolfo). Working in tandem, Zolfo and Schalchlin feed off each other and certainly complement each other’s dynamic differences.

Yet, Zolfo often works at the songs rather than embody them. Smoothing the edges might work for a piece like “Here Comes the Sun” (George Harrison), further aided by its stark ballad arrangement, but other pieces suffer and the audience is robbed of a vulnerability that Zolfo is capable of. In “What’s the Point?” (John Kander/Greg Pierce), he sings “What’s the point of safe?” and, indeed, these lyrics take on a meta-like accuracy. (Zolfo introduced this song in the Off-Broadway musical Kid Victory.)

And before you know it, Zolfo is singing his encore, Schalchlin’s “Going It Alone.” Tender and measured, the singer reveals his heartbreaking and biting reality: he, too, feels alone. Here, he shows the most promise and, perhaps for his retrospective at 30, he will dare to take risks that would allow an audience to fully love him.

Tags: 25! A Premature Retrospective, American Songbook, Amy Lynn Shapiro, Blake Zolfo, Broadway, Broadway Musicals, Cabaret, Cabaret Reviews, Cabaret Scenes, CD, Clubs, Composers, Farther Along, George Harrison, Going It Alone, Great American Songbook, Greg Pierce, Here Comes the Sun, Jazz, Jazz Singers, Jazz Vocalists, John Kander, Keep Me Guessing, Kid Victory, lyricists, Metropolitan Room, Musicals, Musicians, Nightclubs, NYC, Popular Song, Randolph B. Eigenbrode, Revues, Show Tunes, Singers, Songbook, Standards, Steve Schalchlin, Supper Clubs, Triple Threat, Venues, Vocalists, What’s the Point