Life Is A … – At Sea – [12/02/2014]

When I was a kid, I didn’t scream or yell, I sang. If I was angry, or hurting, or confused, I would go upstairs to the attic and drop the door shut, and turn up whatever soundtrack was my current obsession for that month (it was usually Scarlet Pimpernel) and I would sing. And when I came down, I would feel better…

These days, when I need it, I still have a few….the machine doesn’t have Scarlet Pimpernel of course, but it does have my standard…

People don’t realize that Cabaret isn’t actually a happy song. It’s a very sad song. It’s Sally Bowles’ complete defiance of a world turned against her, a world that is turning against itself. Her statement that to hell with you all, I’m staying the way I am despite the fact that you seem intent on knocking me down. There are multiple reasons for this, all integral to the storyline of the actual play, and normally…that’s not how I sing it. I normally sing it traditionally, playing the coy, working the obvious jokes inherit in the lyrics, selling it for the moral of positivity it has become. I don’t sing it as a challenge.

Often…

But once in a very great while, I need to pull in the original context, and when I wrap my fingers around that microphone, I’m not there…I’m not where I want to be either…but I’m not there. I’m somewhere else. And it becomes my defiance to the world.

And when those times happen, there is no audience, there is no energy loop, there is no nothing. And I put that ever so tiny hitch between the words “happiest” and “corpse” in the verse about Elsie from Chelsea, which changes the emphasis from the traditional laugh off to making it obvious that Sallie is thinking about her own mortality, that she is Elsie, or so easily could be…if things hadn’t changed.

So when I need it, I don’t just sing…I become Sallie.

And for whatever reason (and there are a few) tonight I needed it. And for the first time in a long time, didn’t see the jaws drop and I didn’t hear the applause…though they were there, in droves, buffeting against my own personal bubble like the wings of birds. I’m still getting compliments on the performance, but I didn’t hear it if that makes any sense…

But I did walk off that floor feeling better…

And after all, life is just a Cabaret