By Michael Barbieri***It’s not often that I get the chance to review a cabaret show a second time, but Christina Pecce’s Witches, Bitches and Divas was well worth revisiting! I had reviewed Pecce’s show a couple of years ago and called it spellbinding. Well, this newer incarnation performed at The Green Room 42, was even better! One might even say this performance was bewitching!
Christina Pecce is a classically trained mezzo-soprano who is equally skillful with many musical styles, including opera, Broadway, pop, jazz and selections from the Great American Songbook—quite an impressive roster! Additionally, judging from the level of physical presence and emotionality she brought to her material, Pecce is also an accomplished actress.
Slinking through the audience to a creeping, mystical intro, she began the evening with a witchy medley of James Horner’s “Come Little Children (Sarah’s Theme),” from Hocus Pocus, along with “Poor Unfortunate Souls” (Ashman & Menken), “No Good Deed” (S. Schwartz) and Sondheim’s “Last Midnight,” from Into the Woods. This medley set the perfect tone for the evening—a potion that was a bit mysterious, with a nice dollop of humor added for balance. We then got a lovely example of her operatic range with a fun, flirty “Habanera” from Bizet’s Carmen. She began by whistling (which I also found impressive, as I’m completely unable to whistle, myself) and finished up by toying playfully with the audience.
After welcoming us, Pecce explained that this show is about exploring the roles to which women have been relegated throughout the history of entertainment. She told us she’d be embracing those limitations, but also looking for ways to expand upon those roles and therefore empower women to find the strength within them. To that end, we heard her rendition of Sting’s “If You Ever See Me Talking to a Sailor,” from The Last Ship, which she set up as a possible backstory for Ursula the Sea Witch in The Little Mermaid.
Telling us that she had made a living as a nanny, she then gave us a funny and rather telling Nanny Medley, which combined the TV theme “The Nanny” (Ann Hampton Callaway), the Sherman brothers’ “Feed the Birds,” from Mary Poppins and “Little Girls” (C. Strouse, M. Charnin), from Broadway’s Annie. Each song came with a different characterization—going from bouncy and spirited, to soft and loving, and finally, and most hilariously, a perfectly annoyed and exasperated delivery of Miss Hannigan’s “Little Girls!” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: not only would Pecce make a fabulous Hannigan in Annie, but she just plain belongs on Broadway, period!
Other notable moments included a sultry “I Can Cook Too” (Comden, Green, Bernstein), a powerful rendition of “What Baking Can Do,” from Waitress (Sara Bareilles) and after changing into a champagne-colored satin and marabou robe, a wonderful pairing of Sondheim’s “Pretty Women” and “Ladies Who Lunch.” Here, she played with the dichotomy of the two songs—by turns romantic and then boozy and disenchanted, complete with a gigantic martini! We got a compelling, yet melancholy “I Miss the 
Mountains” (Brian Yorkey, Tom Kitt), from Next to Normal, after which she showed off her pop music chops with Jim Steinman’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” made famous by Celine Dion. On this particular power ballad, Pecce strutted the stage and had the audience sing along as part of a cabaret karaoke experiment, as she put it. Yes, a bit on the cheesy side, but truly great fun!
She wrapped up the evening by thanking her excellent band, Brandon Brooks on drums, David White on bass and Musical Director Matthew Stephens on piano. With tongue firmly in cheek, she praised the audience for coming out and risking their lives to see her, and launched into her closing number, a fun, jazzy version of Beyoncé’s “Love on Top” (Beyoncé, Terius Nash, Shea Taylor), which culminated with a stunning high note!
Christina Pecce will be bringing Witches, Bitches and Divas to The Lyric Stage Company of Boston on Saturday, August 28th. And she’ll be back in New York in November for a holiday show in collaboration with Queens Opera Theatre and Musica Reginae Productions. If you have the chance to see this wonderful and yes, spellbinding performer, by all means, hop on your broomsticks and get there!
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