Molly Ringwald
After one of the numbers in her set at the Pheasantry last night, Molly Ringwald turned to her pianist and musical director Peter Smith, her eyes shining. “I really felt that!” she said in a tone of surprise. Here’s a thought: if the sensation of experiencing strong emotion while you sing is so novel it warrants comment, you might want to think about your approach to cabaret.
An Evening with Molly Ringwald ran for two nights and marked its star’s London concert debut, promoting her album of American songbook numbers, Except Sometimes, which she repeatedly flourished from the stage, and following on from roles in various stage musicals. (Ringwald also recently started writing a pretty popular advice column, As Molly Ringwald, for the Guardian.) But to those of a certain age or disposition, the performer remains inseparable from her image as the archetypal pouty 80s high-school princess – a persona established by what the show’s billing, with some justification, calls “the iconic films Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink”.
So, it was clear why the audience was there: because it was Molly Ringwald! It was less clear why Molly Ringwald was there.
It certainly wasn’t to rake over or shed light on her screen career. An excited frisson bubbled through the audience on the two or three occasions when she mentioned in passing being an actress or living in Hollywood, but passing mentions were as far as that went. Fair enough – there’s no obligation to dwell on the past. (Her hair was even blonde not red! But we’ll let that go too.)
Even on its own terms, however, her set was lukewarm and uncertain, not unenjoyable but conspicuously lacking in passion or narrative or, well, motivation of any kind. Molly! (I wanted to cry) If you don’t want to talk about John Hughes, that’s fine. We’ll get over it. But help us understand what we’re all doing here!
Citing a generalised affection for the American songbook – “how can you not sing these songs?!” – and her parents’ careers as musicians, Ringwald offered a two-part set of moderately familiar numbers from the likes of Rodgers and Hart, Fats Waller, Johnny Mercer and Stephen Sondheim, backed by a strong jazz trio of Smith on piano, Alec Dankworth on double bass and Winston Clifford on drums. (Whether we needed such extended musical breaks during practically every number is another question.)
Her stage presence was amiable if sometimes nervous-seeming; she was likeable and engaging on the hoof but had little in the way of prepared patter and didn’t engage with audience members for more than a sentence or two. We heard more about her kids than anything else, but not to much purpose.
What, then, of the actual singing? Ringwald’s voice is clear and pleasing but she seldom seemed very invested in what she was uttering and rarely looked to be in danger of breaking a sweat. Perhaps she just liked the songs. But her taste and her talent didn’t necessarily align. Her voice is relatively light and thin, making it a good fit for numbers laced with fragility or vulnerability; I Get Along Without You Very Well was a stand-out for this reason, and because she bothered to fill us in on the rather touching story of the song’s creation.
But she showed a pronounced predilection for fast-paced rat-a-tat numbers, such as If I Were a Bell, from Guys and Dolls, that were less successful. For such staccato delivery to really work, a performer needs both precision enunciation and a palpable sense of barely contained effervescent energy. Ringwald’s performance had neither. I Feel Pretty was rendered anything but by her choice to spit the words out at machine-gun pace rather than luxuriating in their romance.
There were frustrating glimmers of what lay beneath, including a wistful, yearning version of On the Street Where You Live (the only other song beside I Get Along… that was contextualised with a meaningful backstory), and the rush of anger, confusion and sadness that drove a fierce a capella lead-in to Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? But then that too deteriorated into a rat-a-tat jumble. Yet there was a spiky sense of politics under that song, as there was beneath a sarcastic comment about the songbook being “something – something! – to be proud of” as an American.
It could have been a show about tracing a line through that songbook, or a show about politics, or a show about being in some iconic movies, or a show about being a mother. But it wasn’t really a show about anything.
Posted by Ben Walters at 18:45 on Tuesday November 11 2014
