By Michael Barbieri****You really can’t go wrong with Michael Kirk Lane! He’s charming; he’s childlike; he knows his way around comedic material and yet he can melt your heart with a tender ballad. In his new act, Just Because, at Don’t Tell Mama, he showed us these various sides of his personality and created a lovely evening of cabaret.
Once again, Michael Kirk Lane has stepped out from behind the podium at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, where, along with Kenny Bell, he keeps the room running smoothly. He is a fixture in the New York cabaret and piano bar scene and he’s a two-time MAC Award nominee. And among many other accomplishments, he is also the Associate Producer for No Strings Productions, a company that makes puppet films which help to educate children in troubled areas of the world.
Lane welcomed us with “Another Curtain Goes Up,” Marc Shaiman and Scott Whittman’s amusingly cynical take on show business—one man shows, specifically. Lane contributed a few lyrics of his own, which he mined for some big laughs. One line in particular, “If you can’t get a real gig, then HELLO CABARET,” got a big response from a sold-out crowd made up of both cabaret goers and performers! “I Love Play Rehearsal,” from Joe Iconis’ underappreciated musical, Be More Chill, brought out Lane’s schoolboy appeal and his mock-woeful “I’m All Alone,” from Eric Idle and John Du Prez’ Spamalot, was delightfully tongue-in-cheek—especially with the dryly humorous running commentary from Musical Director William TN Hall.
Inspired by his love of puppetry, Lane’s first cabaret act, Songs From The Rock, The Street and The ‘Hood, featured songs from “Fraggle Rock,” “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” For this new show, he revisited a couple of those numbers, including the silly, charming “Me Lost Me Cookie” (Joe Raposo), originally sung by… well, you can probably guess! And speaking of silly, his duet of the wonderfully odd “Birdhouse In Your Soul” (John Flansburgh, John Linnell), with special guest Sidney Myer, became a sort of camp love ballad that had the audience in stitches!
One of the inspirations for this show, Lane told us, was his family’s love of music—his grandmother,’s influence in particular. He spoke of family functions where everyone gathered around the television to watch “The Lawrence Welk Show.” The family’s favorite moments were, of course, the times when Welk’s singers would perform Irish songs—and God forbid anyone in the room should interrupt those moments!! This led into a medley of Irish songs that were originally put together to honor his grandmother when she passed away in 2007. We heard “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?” (George L. Geifer), “MacNamara’s Band” (Shamus O’Connor, John J. Stamford) and one hilariously unorthodox and inappropriate selection which you’ll just have to hear for yourself! The medley wrapped up beautifully, with J. R. Shannon’s classic “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral (That’s an Irish Lullaby),” which Lane had sung at his grandmother’s funeral. His sweetly voiced, heartfelt rendition of the song was gorgeous, extremely moving, and displayed his deep emotional connection to the material, bringing a tear to my eye, as well as to everyone else’s, I’d imagine.
Another standout number, for me, was Tim Minchin’s “Not Perfect,” a serio-comic ballad that spoke to the duality of life around us—the earth, the country, a house, our bodies and even our brains. It seemed to me almost a grown-up “Sesame Street” song in that it teaches us that we have to accept the good and bad in everything. Interestingly though, the song was released in 2005; the verse about the country foreshadowed our current political situation: “This is my country and I live in it, it’s pretty big and nice to walk on and the bloke who runs my country has built a demagoguery and taught us to be fearful and boring…” That passage was so perfectly prescient, it was amusing and chilling at the same time. Lane’s delivery of the song was absolutely flawless—stripped of all artifice and sung with a touching, naive simplicity that merely highlighted the depth of the lyric. It was one of the best performances I’ve seen from him!
As I sat watching Lane’s show, I couldn’t help but wonder what the connection was between all of these songs. The set list seemed rather random and disparate. As the evening progressed, however, I began to catch on. This was simply a collection of songs that made Lane happy or that had some special significance to him. He wanted to share them with us… just because! The show’s title was, in fact, its theme!
Lane plans on bringing the show back soon, so if you haven’t yet seen it, I do recommend catching his show most heartily. Go see Michael Kirk Lane… just because. Just because it’s a lovely show and just because Michael is a talent you should know!
Leave a Reply