Review: Marcia Roney's THE WAY I SEE IT at Don't Tell Mama Worth Seeing

Musical comedy cabaret artist Marcia Roney debuted her new show on May 23rd at Don’t Tell Mama and a full house of friends, family, and cabaret colleagues filled the Brick Room so full that the venue had to add tables to accommodate them.  DTM booking manager and patriarch Sidney Myer even had to surrender his seat to a patron, watching the proceedings from the lighting booth.  To sell out your opening night is a beautiful thing, and, in cabaret, when it can be hard to sell out any performance, that is an especially beautiful thing.  And after seeing Marcia Roney in action, this writer and cabaret devotee understands just why everyone had the urge to be at that performance, for Marcia Roney is a skilled and savvy performer with a knack for both the musical and the comedy parts of her genre.

THE WAY I SEE IT is an hour (plus a bit) of Marcia Roney standing (mostly) center stage and telling stories that lean into the personal, the humorous, and the heartwarming, all decorated by songs right out of the Great American Songbook and The Broadway.  It does not seem as though it would be appropriate for Marcia Roney to be one of those ladies singing pop music and radio hits - she is ideally suited to the music she and her team have selected to build her show, because Marcia Roney is one of those amazing funny ladies with comic timing melded with musical talent.  This type of entertainer still exists today, but the heyday for this type of woman is a few decades past.  Women like Marcia Lewis and Imogene Coca spring to mind - almost vaudevillians but a little more modern than the architects of the style, like Sophie Tucker and Gracie Allen.  Think Totie Fields and Dorothy Loudon, Pat Carroll and Alice Ghostley - the women who filled the nightclubs of the Nineteen Sixties.  That’s Marcia Roney.   She hits the stage, she chats a bit, she sings a bit, she sets ‘em up, she knocks ‘em down, and she keeps you captivated, and in the palm of her hand.  Like I said, these women are still out there, they are still working, they are still cultivating and presenting this type of entertainment… there just aren’t as many of them.  So when you find one, you have to grab on and hold on and keep showing up to hear the stories and the songs.

For her hour (plus a bit) on the stage of The Brick Room, Ms. Roney has Tracy Stark guiding her from the piano and Lennie Watts guiding her from the director’s chair, and the threesome is well-matched.  Watts understands the formula and gives Roney the foundation and (frankly) the permission to do the joke set up/punchline format the way the OG cabaret ladies laid down the rules.  They aren’t reinventing the wheel because it works here.  Marcia is HILARIOUS.  She has impeccable comic timing (sometimes dry, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes wide-eyed), but she also has masterful storytelling skills, so you don’t always see the punchline coming.  Sometimes she’s just talking and sharing and luring you in with a perfectly natural story about an event, a memory, a thought, an  opinion, a feeling, a friendship, and then WHAM!, she’s got your head back and the laugh pouring forth.  Other times, she’s got you sitting in your seat, aware there’s a punchline coming, and waiting for it… and the anticipation is delicious.  But it isn’t all comic timing, here - there are touching personal stories and reminiscences that are pure gold, gems of tales that shine a light on Roney’s life, her history, her outlook, and her puppy, Roxie Hart (you hafta love anyone who has a huge photo of their pooch up on the piano - come on, now).  Between the genuine Marcia sharing her stories and the funny girl Roney with the comic timing, we are talking about a Lady who is absolutely irresistible.

Musically, The Way I See It is exactly as it should be.  Stark has provided perfect arrangements of songs by Irving Berlin, Kander & Ebb, Peter Allen, Comden and Green, Leslie Bricusse, Cy Coleman, and even Mann & Weill and Gore & Pitchford (a medley of “On Broadway” and “Fame” is as pop-y as the show gets, and Stark melds the music for Marcia to perfection).  Whether singing a rousing medley of old time hits like “Dream Lover,” “Sh-Boom,” and “Sincerely,” or performing a truly sincere “The Way I See It,” Marcia has the versatility to ace up-tempos or ballads, and while it is true that there were highlights in comedy numbers like “Everybody’s Girl” and “Repent,” it should also be observed that Roney nailed the tender “When I Look in Your Eyes” and the lovely “My Favorite Year,” as any proper musical storyteller would.   She had a nice connection to “Quiet Please, There’s a Lady on Stage” and knowledgable understanding of how, best, to deliver a Berlin medley that combined “It All Belongs To Me” and “You’d Be Surprised” (a highlight in the evening).  And on the subject of medleys, Stark does Roney proud with her work on an abundance of mash-ups included in THE WAY I SEE IT, but, particularly, with an eleven o’clock number that combines five uber-famous songs that every cabaret singer sings and every cabaret patron knows - it is a treatment with clear intention germane to Roney and her story, well executed by everyone involved, which can be said of the entire outing.  Simply put, THE WAY I SEE IT appears to be a perfect representation of who Marcia Roney is, and the kind of storytelling she wants to tell, well-executed and well worth catching.  The Funny Lady with the vocal chops is alive and well, and doing musical comedy cabaret at Don't Tell Mama.

Find great shows to see on the Don’t Tell Mama website HERE.

Marcia Roney is on Facebook HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher

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