At the end of The Love Markets‘ first set, for their rendition of Angie Louise‘s ribald anthem “My Little Wiener Schnitzel,” singers Nick Garrison and Louise began tossing sticks of meat into the crowd, and butterscotch kisses, and the gentleman adjacent to me sprang suddenly to life, waving briskly, then settling back dejectedly when he realized no treats were forthcoming for the balcony row.
“I knew we weren’t going to get any,” he told me. “They’re not aerodynamic enough.” I was almost tempted to challenge him on that statement, but the song was starting, and its beer-hall-polka rhythm would soon have everyone swaying in their seats. Besides, isn’t that exactly the kind of thing you hope will happen at a cabaret? All irony had vanished, for a second: STICKS OF MEAT! UP HERE!
Very much like Weimar, I imagine.
We were all in the Bullitt Cabaret at ACT Theatre for this sold-out, one-night-only show (like MacArthur, The Love Markets plan to return: keep an eye on their upcoming gigs calendar), with cabaret-style tables on the main floor, and bar stools along the balcony. On stage, it was all black slips (they reappeared in lavender for the second set) and berets, treating you to the experience of seeing Dave Pascal with a trademark bass player’s deadpan thousand-yard gaze and a drooping shoulder strap.
The Love Markets were born from the aftermath of 5th Avenue’s production of Cabaret a few years ago, when Garrison and Louise decided the cabaret must go on. Backed by Rob Witmer on accordion, Dave Marriott on trombone, Pascal on bass, and Chris Monroe on drums, Garrison and Louise simply sing, with occasional time-outs for between-song banter, which is when you learn that Garrison’s niece, when she was two, looked “just like” Marion Clotillard as Edith Piaf, so Garrison taught her to go around clutching her head and shouting, “Marcel! Marcel!”
Songs in the repertoire are by Kander & Ebb, Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill, Friedrich Hollaender, Piaf, but also by Leonard Cohen, Janis Ian, and Angie Louise herself. If it takes a certain chutzpah to put your songs in the mix with Weill, Louise’s efforts come off very well. Partly, this is context: Cabaret would normally bring you music (and concerns) of the day, and Louise’s “Ballad of the Housing Bubble” is a terrific tune that feels very right, uniting eras in outrage over banksters and fleeced sheep. “Banks of the Lake Wannsee” is a meditation on the arrival of something called “leisure time,” abruptly lost as Germany went to war–even on a first hearing it’s powerful.
Garrison’s tenor and Louise’s alto make a unique combination, with Louise swooping down for low notes. Both are relatively big-voiced compared to pop singers, and technically and stylistically adept. They adopt and discard different vocal mannerisms, and accents, depending upon the song. They seem to sing from a sense of each song’s character; sometimes that’s winking double entendre, sometimes it’s the displaced-refugee angst of Eisler’s “To the Little Radio.” For fans of Garrison, his “La Vie en rose” is probably worth the admission.
In the end, the only thing missing was the steady clink of glasses in a real nightclub (no table service at the Bullitt). That’s not just because I like cocktails, but because the evening’s war-weary, poverty-burdened, prostitute-laden, gay-anthemed lyrics don’t feel the least bit remote, the way The Love Markets sing them.