By Michael Barbieri****I’ve been a fan of Meg Flather for many years. I first encountered her as part of a duo called Leather & Flather, where she sang with singer/pianist Christian Daizey. During my days as a technical director, I designed the lighting and sound for Four-te, a close-harmony vocal group with which she performed, and I worked on a couple of her solo shows at the Metropolitan Room. But nothing could’ve prepared me for the sheer cabaret bliss of her most recent show, Back When We Were Beautiful, at Don’t Tell Mama
Born in the Philippines, Flather eventually moved to New York City where she studied at the High School of Music and Art, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and SUNY. She is a MAC and Backstage Bistro Award winner and a three-time nominee for the Broadway World Award. In addition to her musical accomplishments, she’s also a Brand Ambassador for skincare lines sold on QVC, HSN, Shop NBC and more. She’s known as the “Home Shopping Diva” and her 2001 show of the same name was called one of the Top Ten Cabaret Shows of the Year by critic Stephen Hanks.
Back When We Were Beautiful is an exploration of women’s lives—story songs about women as they navigate the years. Flather’s opening number, “Somewhere Only We Know” (Keane), contained a double message of sorts; on one hand, she seemed to be saying that these were stories women were uniquely qualified to tell, but on a deeper level, however, the song was about memory and the loss of youth. Flather delivered lyrics like “I came across a fallen tree/I felt the branches of it looking at me/Is this the place we used to love?/Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?” very simply, her crystal clear alto unclouded by artifice. Her tone was wistful and very real, setting the stage for an evening of beautiful honesty. With Suzanne Vega’s “Gypsy,” we delved into the subject of young love. Flather’s emotional connection to the material was evident and it allowed her to dig deeply into the song and paint strong, visual pictures with the lyric and her vocals.
Flather is, of course, a wonderful singer, but also a tremendous actor. Her renditions of songs like “Love at the Five and Dime” (Nanci Griffith), “Back to Before,” from Broadway’s Ragtime (Flaherty/Ahrens) and her devastating version of “Another Winter in a Summer Town,” from Scott Frankel and Micheal Korie’s Grey Gardens were imbued with such depth of feeling, it was clear that Flather was not just singing these songs, she was inhabiting them, and we, the audience, were transported into the worlds she was describing. These were stunningly dramatic moments from a masterful performer!
On the lighter side, Melanie’s classic “Brand New Key” was given a brand new interpretation. In Flather’s hands it became a stalkerish song filled with mischievous mock anger and frustration. We also heard “Dear Mr. Sellack” (Terre Roche), an amusing ditty about a woman asking for her waitressing job back after her dreams of fame have fallen through. Al Dubin and Harry Warren’s “Keep Young and Beautiful” became a tongue-in-cheek, outdated tutorial, ending with Flather—ever the skincare pitch person—reminding us to “Exfoliate!” And then there was the sardonic “I Love It When You Call Me Names” (Joan Armatrading), about a masochistic relationship between a “big woman and a short, short man/and he loves it when she beats his brains out.” Each of these numbers showcased Flather’s ease with comedic moments, giving the evening a nice sense of balance.
Flather was not alone onstage, of course. She was accompanied beautifully by Musical Director Tracy Stark, who collaborated with her on many of the arrangements. Something of a wonderful paradox, those arrangements were spare and focused, so as not to detract from Flather’s performance, yet occasionally clever and lush. One of my favorite numbers was a fresh new take on Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for the Money,” arranged as a ballad by Flather and John Mettam. As adapted by Stark, the disco trappings were stripped away and the slower tempo revealed a poignancy in the lyric that made the song more powerful than the original. In addition, Stark contributed lovely harmonies on several songs, adding yet more layers of color and texture. And though he was not onstage physically, Director Lennie Watts’ presence was impressive. He not only gave Flather fun bits of business, like her aggressive, stalky skating during “Brand New Key,” but he showed a subtle hand with the ballads as well. During the more melancholy, introspective numbers he had Flather simply stand and look off into the distance, as if seeing the memories she was describing.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a show as raw, honest and engrossing as Back When We Were Beautiful. Through song, Meg Flather showed us her heart—her romantic heart, her playful heart, her broken heart and a heart that’s grown stronger with age and loss. There was no dishonesty or pretense at all, and Flather wasn’t just singing these songs, she was living them!
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