By Bart Greenberg***It’s not often that a cabaret show is flawless. But it does happen and it did happen when Tony Award winner Jenn Colella brought her highly personal program to The Laurie Beechman Theatre. Titled 
Big Dyke Energy, the show recounted her romantic life, from her teenage years instigating kissing games with her friends to her series of crushes on straight women to her coming out and more stable relationships with women. It’s a touching, sometimes tragic, sometimes very funny, story, very well-told and illustrated by an interesting mix of songs. Surprisingly, very few were drawn from musical theater, with more of an emphasis on country western tunes tying in with Colella’s deep southern childhood. Each one of the numbers was delivered with superb feeling and inspired musicianship.
Promising a “dyke forward evening,” featuring lots of sad songs, Colella began the show by inviting the audience into 
her world with “Come to My Window” (Melissa Etheridge), which the enchanted gathering quickly agreed to. One of the early highlights of the evening was the surprisingly funny “Untouchable Face” (Ani DeFranco). Colella demonstrated many aspects of her personality from the very sexy “Burn That Bridge” (Trey Anastasio, Amanda Green) to the soft and yearning “Gravity” (Sara Bareilles), building thhe tune to a powerful climax, to the ultimate break up song, “Like the Way I Do” (Etheridge). Most of her break ups, she confided, were with straight girls who returned to their male beaus: “because I grew up in the Deep South, I’ve lost some girls to Jesus.”
What Colella didn’t lose was a discovery of herself. As she came out to herself and others, she had great reason
to celebrate. And so she did with an amazing version of “Hallelujah” (Leonard Cohen). Beginning as a hypnotic prayer, it built and built as the audience held it’s collective breath. This is the kind of magic moment people attend cabaret for.
More came with an incredibly touching rendition of “She’s Always a Woman” (Billy Joel) and her celebration of her own motherhood experience with “The Mother” (Brandi Carlile). By the end of the evening, everyone in the room felt like they knew the diva personally and would have happily invited her into their homes. Hopefully, we’ll be spending more time with Jenn Colella at the clubs.
All photos by Bart Greenberg
