By Michael Barbieri****Unapologetically smart! Unapologetically funny! Unapologetically moving. Mary Ellen Ryan’s wonderful show, No Apologies was all this and more! Performed at Don’t Tell Mama as a sort of TED Talks lecture, Ryan took on the world of female archetypes as defined in song by men. And while the show was didactic and thought-provoking, it was always unapologetically entertaining!
Originally from Pittsburgh, Mary Ellen Ryan began singing and acting in local start-ups and experimental theater groups. This brought her to the HB Studio in Greenwich Village, where she honed her skills studying with Herbert Berghoff and Bill Hickey. She took a brief hiatus from performing to raise her son, but found her way back to the stage through Collette Black’s Cabaret Workshops. A proud member of Manhattan Cabaret Arts under the direction of Eadie Scott, her interest in the arts has been a lifelong passion. No Apologies marks her debut as a solo performer.
At the top of the show, Ryan took the stage as Professor Feminista, the host of the TED Talk. She explained that one of the questions women deal with most often, in regard to sexual politics, isn’t so much “Who do you think you are?” but “Who does he think she is?” This led into her opening number, the sassy “Don’t Ask a Lady” (Cy Coleman, Carolyn Leigh). She delivered the song’s witty, sexy lyrics with gusto and won the audience from the very start! I particularly enjoyed her feather boa moves, which seemed to be a nod to the legendary Julie Wilson, one of whose signature songs this was. Ryan then made a point about how women are perceived in society, telling us that people seem to judge them not by who they are but by what they do. Donning an apron, she delivered a beautifully simple, heartbreaking “Just a Housewife” (Craig Carnelia), a favorite of mine, which always brings me to tears—this performance included.
We heard a number of songs about the societal concept of what a woman’s place should be, including a spunky rendition of “Chief Cook and Bottle Washer” (John Kander, Fred Ebb) and two that showed how perceptions can change in a matter of ten years—the first being “I’m a Woman” (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller), with its mantra of cooking, cleaning and taking care of her precious man and the second, “I Am Woman” (Ray Burton, Helen Reddy), during which Ryan actually climbed onto a pedestal and sang “You can bend but never break me, ‘cause it only serves to make me more determined to achieve my final goal… I am strong, I am invincible!” A point beautifully made!
Throughout the evening, Ryan transformed herself into various characters in order to take us on her journey. Ducking offstage, she threw on a feathered headdress and returned as Rusty Leatherton, a smarmy Vegas-style lounge singer. Clearly based on Rusty Warren, a bawdy singer and comic popular in the 1950s and 60s, with a bit of Lily Tomlin’s “Tommy Velour” thrown in for good measure, Leatherton was the crowd-pleasing favorite of the evening. Punctuating her lounge act with off-color jokes, Rusty gave us the “Horrible Man Medley,” an assortment of chauvinistic songs, including “Wives and Lovers” (Burt Bacharach, Hal David), “It Must Be Him” (Gilbert Bécaud, Mack David)—during which she literally waited by a telephone for his call—and a hilarious interpretation of Paul Anka’s “Havin’ My Baby.”
The biggest emotional wallop of the evening, however, came with Ryan’s heart-wrenching rendition of Joni Mitchell’s “Magdalene Laundries.” The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland were institutions operated by the Roman Catholic Church to house women who challenged traditional notions of Irish morality: unwed mothers, young attractive women who were considered “temptresses,” or strong, capable females with minds of their own. They became slaves of the state, forced into hard labor simply for being who they were. Effecting a soft Irish brogue, Ryan sang “I was an unmarried girl, I’d just turned twenty-seven, when they sent me to the sisters for the way men looked at me.” Her straightforward, unadorned delivery of lines like “Peg O’Connell died today, she was a cheeky girl, a flirt. They just stuffed her in a hole…” played to devastated silence from the audience. Truly one of the most moving moments I’ve experienced in cabaret!
Now, much as I enjoyed the show, I do have a couple bits of negative criticism. The first relates to Ryan’s voice, which at times seemed unsure, reedy and unsupported. The bridge of Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman” was pitched so high as to be fairly shrill. Additionally, there were too many instances of Ms. Ryan stumbling over lyrics, particularly in some of the wordier songs. These problems, however, may have had something to do with this being her solo debut. Still, her overall performance was so winning, the audience was with her one hundred percent.
Minor quibbles aside, this was a lovely, insightful show, with expert work from all involved. Musical Director Ricky Ritzel provided strong, stirring accompaniment on the piano which helped establish the show’s many emotional tones. The fluid direction from Eadie Scott kept the pace brisk and allowed the talented performer to use the small stage to its best advantage. And indeed, I found Ms. Ryan’s ability to move from comedic to dramatic material with such effortlessness to be quite remarkable.
Who does she think she is? She’s Mary Ellen Ryan and I look forward to seeing her on the cabaret stage again soon! No apologies necessary!
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