Review: Melissa Errico The Ultimate Enchantress In TERMINAL INGENUE at The Green Room 42

There are few people in this world who love to tell stories as much as Melissa Errico does. There are few people in this world who need to tell stories as much as Melissa Errico does. It doesn't matter if she is telling a story written by someone else by playing their character, or if she is telling a story written by herself for one of her cabaret acts, or if she is telling her personal story, her family's story, or someone else's story in one of her famous New York Times articles. It doesn't matter if she is simply standing in front of you and talking about someone she loves, someone who inspires her, or someone she passed on the street on her way to meet you. Whatever the story or the medium, Melissa Errico is here to tell that which she has seen, felt, thought, or learned in ways more passionate and more eloquent than those more commonly found in the dusty tomes that populate the shelves of the libraries where we all, once, found the inspiration for our own imaginations. Melissa Errico is a poet, a painter, a walking work of art that lives and breathes to tell stories, and we are all the lucky beneficiaries of her passion.

Last night Melissa Errico debuted her new show at The Green Room 42. Quite often, when we see Ms. Errico, she is on the stage at 54 Below looking like one of the grande dames of the silver screen era. For her Noir, Legrand, and New York shows Melissa was in head-to-toe glamor with beading, stilettos, coiffure, and complete and total Hollywood - "The Full Marlene" as Parisian and Manhattan cabaret artist Tony Cointreau likes to say. Last night at The Green Room 42, though, Melissa was a different kind of glamorous. In suede clogs, jeans, and a white cotton eyelet blouse, Melissa was all princess curls, fresh face, and down to earth, not unlike the Venus that she once played in a famous musical by Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash. This was a side of Melissa Errico we haven't seen in a minute, a more personal side, a more vulnerable side - absolutely appealing, completely intoxicating, and thoroughly enjoyable, in every way. It was a stroke of genius for Marc Tumminelli and Melissa Errico to devise the debut of this play at The Green Room 42, where the audience is on a level playing field with Melissa so that she would be able to reach right out and touch them, talk to them, and gather up their hearts, like wildflowers she has stumbled upon during a walk in the woods.

And gather them, she did.

The name of Melissa Errico's new show is TERMINAL INGÉNUE and it comes with a subtitle: The Mis-Education of Melissa Errico. This writer is a big believer in the era of two-titled cabaret shows coming to an end but in the case of this club act, both of Ms. Errico's titles are most welcome because hand in hand, they say a great deal about what the audience is about to see, as well as that which can be said about Melissa Errico; for this is a musical memoir, and as such, there is much to be said, to be sung, and to be learned - all of it resplendent and intelligent. The intelligence is more, for in spite of her beauty, her artistic abilities, her storytelling predilections, the horse leading the Melissa Errico charge is intelligence. It practically walks in the room before she does, and it makes each and every Errico outing exciting. A lot of things make a Melissa Errico show exciting - the way she immerses herself in every moment, the technical brilliance of her vocal abilities, the immaculate scripts that create the framework of the show, and the sheer star power that the lady exudes, as well as that intelligence and utter fearlessness. This is a take-no-prisoners performer, and this is a leave-it-all-on-the-floor show.

Terminal Ingénue shares with the audience the tales of Melissa Errico's life. It is designed to, specifically, chart her life as a singing actress that specializes in a particular kind of role - think Eliza Doolittle, Tracy Samantha Lord, Maria Von Trapp, Queen Guinevere, and the aforementioned Venus. Thanks to her body's refusal to age (and, clearly, a great moisturizer) Melissa Errico has been able to play those parts well past the sell-by date of most ingénues, and therein lies the story arc of Terminal Ingénue. Naturally, as the storyline of the actress is told, the storyline of the woman must also be shared, and with her usual witty repartee and florid verbiage, Errico doles out the stories of beloved family members, famous colleagues, and theatrical experiences, rather like a croupier dealing a deck of cards. In a manner that is simultaneously linear and extemporaneous, Melissa Errico elicits laughter much of the time with set-ups built into her monologues and a natural humor that will not be confined by the structure of a script. Indeed, this writer's favorite moments in any Melissa Errico show are when she goes off book in one of her delicious and delectable tangents because that's when we get the purest form of Melissa. In ninety minutes of sheer beauty and artistry, these are the moments when she is at her most irresistible.

Also, when she sings.

Boldly, beautifully, and brazenly Melissa Errico wraps herself into each moment, every monological utterance, and all the musical interpretation to be found in these works by Cole Porter, Lerner & Loewe, Lerner & Lane, Rodgers, Hammerstein, The Shermans, Misters Sondheim and Legrand, and more. Honesty plays across her voice and informs her voice as she presents traditional arrangements from My Fair Lady (a satisfying "Without You") and jazz treatments from Sweeney Todd (a refreshing "Not While I'm Around" arranged by Rob Mathes), unknown songs from My Fair Lady (a scrumptious "Shy") and Busker Alley (the lovely title tune), and compositions for which she should, by now, hold the sole copyright - songs like "How Are Things In Glocca Mora?" and "Hurry! It's Lovely Up Here!" This is what musical storytelling should look like. Melissa Errico is a theatrical person. She is larger than life. Even standing on the sidewalk talking to you about the mundanities of life, Melissa Errico is a beacon of light. Still, when she sits on a stool crooning "Night Ride Home" she is as accessible as she is when standing at the mic purring "It's Alright With Me." When she is in character, with props, singing her song from Amour (HER song - nobody else's) "Other People's Stories," she is as relatable as she is while standing in the bentside of the piano serenading "I Loved You Once In Silence" (both numbers highlights in a spectacular evening). It matters not the portion of her play or the trajectory of the story, wherever Melissa Errico is in the carnival ride of the story arc, she has the uncanny ability to draw the audience to her. Medleys from On Your Toes and One Touch of Venus provide acting moments, and a sensational new composition by Adam Gopnik and Peter Mills is a thrilling and almost epic history of Melissa's upbringing in the world of theater. The outing started at a good place and, thanks to Melissa's own stage presence, the artistry of her unparalleled Musical Director, Tedd Firth, and the inclusion of special guests JC Maillard (on guitar) and Thierry Arpino (on percussion), ended at a Great Place. It is also possible that that greatness was aided along by back-to-back performances of two songs everyone has sung but that Melissa Errico, now, owns.

The penultimate number in Terminal Ingénue is a Rob Mathes-arranged "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" that has left this writer wondering if an entire evening (or album) of jazz-infused Broadway shouldn't be the next Melissa Errico outing. This lovely song that has been sung so many times sounded as fresh and new as though it had been written yesterday, and it presented a Melissa Errico quite unlike anything this writer has seen from the Tony Award nominee. And just when it seemed the performance made it impossible for the night to get any better, Melissa and co. re-invented Mr. Sondheim's "Move On" in a manner so joyous and bright as to turn a tender moment of musical philosophy into an anthem of optimism. Cabaret director Robbie Rozelle could be heard to say, afterward, that Ms. Errico had caught the melody as a surfer catches a wave and ridden it back to the shore. Speaking as a person whose favorite musical actually is Sunday In The Park With George: after hearing this solo performance of the ubiquitous composition, there is no going back to the others.

Melissa Errico is the consummate cabaret artist. The at-capacity house filled with celebrities last night certainly knows it, and as soon as Team Errico is ready to take this debut performance, tighten it up and send it out into all the clubs, everyone everywhere will be saying the same thing because it is the truth. Take it as gospel. A Melissa Errico musical cabaret is an event, an experience to be savored, remembered, and spoken of as a most magical night - especially this oh-so-personal musical memoir of an eternal, not Ingénue, but Lady.

Find other great shows to see on the Green Room 42 website HERE.

THIS is the Melissa Errico website and HERE is the Tedd Firth website.

JC Maillard has a website HERE and Thierry Arpino has an online presence HERE.

Photos by Stephen Mosher; Visit the Stephen Mosher website HERE.