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By Jan Wallman
In writing about cabaret after I retired as a cabaret owner I made it a hard and fast rule to not review any performer I had presented in my clubs. I’m relaxing that rule for this article and I hope you won’t find it a conflict of interest.
To begin with I met Paul Bodden as a patron of my clubs. He and his partner were huge fans of singer Barbara Lea who regularly appeared in these rooms more than any other artist. She was the major influence in Paul’s beginning career and the muse to whom his current performance is dedicated. In the intervening years since I gave him his first club booking Paul, who is also an accomplished actor, has branched out as writer of songs, both music and lyrics. A large part of this act is devoted to his original songs.
While most of them are very personal and serve to delineate his own life story they are certainly adaptable for other singers. Advice to those planning a cabaret act and learning new material: check it out! See the show, hear the CD titled “I Lose My Heart (and Other Body Parts…)”
His opening song “Fool for Love” shows us immediately who this guy onstage is. As an actor (read ‘lyric interpreter’) Paul has a strong presence. The hardest thing for an actor to do is to play himself. In this he succeeds admirably in his own song and segues neatly into the Duke Ellington\Luther Henderson Jr. “Love You Madly” as Duke did it, singing directly to each member of the audience. He has an incredible mix of songs; standards like the Harold Arlen\Truman Capote title song from “House of Flowers” coupled with the not heard often enough “Incurably Romantic” by Kahn\Van Heusen, to more of his own work, particularly “Born to be His (The Older Man)”, a most impressive tribute to his long time partner, Thad McGar. Without a doubt this is the most awesome number of the evening.
The middle section was the Barbara Lea portion of the show. She was in the audience on opening night to receive his testimonial. What a thrill that was to the many who remember and revere this iconic jazz-cabaret-recording artist. Paul sang four of “her” songs, the plaintive “Child in Me Again” by Annie Dinerman who was another loved singer/songwriter in my village club. Paul did a rousing version of “Make Believe,” very different from the way it was sung in Kern/Hammerstein’s “Showboat;” another of Barbara’s triumphs was the spoof “Remember” from Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” and just to show us how zany she could sometimes be, Irving Berlin’s “Monkey Doodle Doo.” These selections gave us old-timers lovely memories of dear Barbara and introduced new folks to the art form of cabaret and what it was all about in its hopefully not forgotten past glory.
I could go on about the rest of the entertainment but you’d do better by making a reservation for one of the remaining dates. You owe it to yourself to enjoy the well chosen standards and Paul Bodden’s own amazing songs. All in all an exciting show. I’m proud to say I knew him “when” and pleased to see how far he has come. This kind of thing only happens when a talented performer devotes a lot of hard work to his craft and surrounds himself with such supporters as excellent pianist\musical director\arranger Seth Weinstein; sensitive and clever director Peter Napolitano, and New York’s pre-eminent technical director Michael Barbieri on lights and sound.
Call the Metropolitan Room at (212) 206-0440 for reservations for Saturday February 21, February 28, both at 5:00 PM.
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In writing about cabaret after I retired as a cabaret owner I made it a hard and fast rule to not review any performer I had presented in my clubs. I’m relaxing that rule for this article and I hope you won’t find it a conflict of interest. 
