Cabaret Review : Shepherd’s Cinegrill Performance Lacks Musical Focus

Cybill Shepherd recently suggested that she wished her cabaret audiences would be as fascinated with listening to her as they are with watching her.

The problem with that wish, as became immediately clear during her performance at the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill on Saturday night, is that she offers so many distractions--both visually and in her musical interpretations--that it is almost impossible to simply hear through to the songs.

Dressed in an elegantly tailored white suit accessorized with suspenders, bosom-revealing decolletage and her trademark gym sneakers, Shepherd was a busy study in carefully choreographed motion. She supplemented her movements with a wide assortment of grins, winks, asides and gestures, occasionally interrupting the flow of music by engaging her listeners with personal (at times extremely personal) tales and memories.

None of these distractions was individually problematic. Shepherd, at 45, is still a strikingly beautiful woman, a certified star and an entertaining character, and it’s not surprising that the sold-out Cinegrill audience was enchanted by her.

The difficulties arose when Shepherd’s visual presentation superseded the music. Blessed with a big, operatically trained voice, she has not yet managed to adapt either her sometimes grating upper timbres or her often stiff phrasing to the varied demands of the blues and pop songs that are the foundation of her repertoire.

In the rare moments when she backed away from pure vocal technique--a gentle piece for her children, a sweet tribute to her hometown of Memphis, and a thoughtful rendering of Noel Coward’s “Louisa” were the best examples--a glimmering of Shepherd’s potential interpretive range broke through. More commonly, she delivered tunes such as “I Told You I Loved You, Now Get Out,” “Blue Moon,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It” and a few blues with a belting vocal aggressiveness that bordered on overkill.

Shepherd has all the equipment to be an effective cabaret singer. But to do so, she needs to find a better balance between her visual and her aural presentations. Equally important, she needs to bring the same creative intelligence to her musical readings that she does to her acting. Songs, like scripts, are stories to be told.