Doris Dear’s Gurl Talk with Ray DeForest
Doris Dear’s Gurl Talk
with Ray DeForest
Feinstein’s/54 Below, NYC, April 21, 2016
Reviewed by Joel Benjamin for Cabaret Scenes
Doris Dear, the distaff side of entertainer Ray DeForest, led her audience on a merry dance down memory lane, suburban America style. Using the pretext of Doris’s upbringing in the Staten Island home of mom and dad, Taffy and Duke, she evoked a slightly cleansed version of the fifties and sixties with their plethora of rich, pop culture images, such as “Gidget” (Howard Greenfield/Jack Keller) and that great, tongue-in-cheek ode to the white bread pleasures of suburban living, “Somewhere That’s Green” (Howard Ashman/Alan Menken), all sung with proper wide-eyed, false naiveté in a surprisingly strong, layered baritone.
She entered with “I Enjoy Being a Girl” (Rodgers & Hammerstein). Dressed in all her modest finery, she told tales of entertaining her parents as a child—“Born to Entertain” (Marvin Laird/Joel Paley)—and being taken to NYC museums and shows by Taffy. She was greatly influenced by what she observed.
The storyline began with an idealized childhood with idolized parents whose marriage slowly began to deteriorate until her mother told her the facts of life via Sondheim’s “Now You Know.” Nevertheless, Doris Dear survived and triumphed: “I’ll Plant My Own Tree” (Dory & Andre Previn) and “Big, Blonde and Beautiful” (Marc Shaiman/Scott Wittman).
Dear never quite hit a consistent satirical tone, often getting too serious, mushy and weighty with such songs as “You’re My World” (Umberto Bindi/Gino Paoli/Carl Sigman), “Some Enchanted Evening” (Rodgers & Hammerstein) and that old cabaret favorite, “Guess Who I Saw Today” (Murray Grand/Elisse Boyd) (which was offered to explain the dissolution of her parents’ marriage).
She eschewed the camp and winking sexual innuendo, the kind most drag artists love. Instead, she opted for letting her well-written “autobiography” and her singing do her work. In one way, it was a relief not to force giggles at “dirty talk,” but, despite the good singing, charmingly accompanied by Musical Director Rick Jensen (piano), Tom Hubbard (bass) and Dan Gross (drums), plus the usual exaggeratedly teased hair and colorful makeup, Doris Dear’s morality tale never quite took off, despite offering moments to savor.
Category: Cabaret Reviews, New York City, New York City Cabaret Reviews, Regional
