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| Kim David Smith performs Morphium Kabarett |
Morphium Kabarett.
Created and performed by Kim David Smith. Directed by Amanda Hodder. Magic Mirrior Spiegeltent. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. June 17 and 18. 2017.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
He slinks slowly on high heels
through the audience at their tables in the Magic Mirror Spiegeltent, pausing
for a moment to run his fingers through a person’s hair. Dressed in Top Hat and
Tails, with vest and white tie, Kim David Smith is the epitome of the stylish,
sexy scion of the cabaret. His voice as
pure as sterling silver sings the sorrowful tale of Pirate Jenny. The harsh
edge of Weimar cabaret loses none of the decadence of the time, eerily played
by Amanda Hodder on piano and Alana Dawes on Bass in the shadows of a stage
bathed in a sinister green. The matinee sun streaming through the coloured
windows could not dispel the tantalizing sound of true cabaret in a sadistic rather
than brutal rendition of Pirate Jenny’s song from Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. Slowly and
sensuously, teasing the moment, Smith removes his jacket during his husky homage
to Marlene Dietrich’s Johnny. Nipples peer from beside the
thin leather strap across his chest as the anointed thin white duke of cabaret
launches into Polly Peachum’s You Can’t
Say No.
With whispered tones, Smith
coaxes his audience, drawing forth applause, eliciting praise, entrancing with
his song, beguiling with his body and entertaining with songs from Weil to
Spoliansky (Ich Bin Ein Vamp), from
Friedrich Hollaender’s Eine Kleine
Sehnsucht (A Little Yearning) to Edith Piaf’s Padam Padam. Smith transports us from Berlin cabaret to the smoky
dens of French nightclubs of the twentieth century. Singing in English, French
and German, Smith intersperses song with chat, recounting the story of the man
with little hands and a huge ego and the Donald Trump Concentration resorts. In
the tradition of Kabarett, his harmless swipes incise their sting. Subversive
and seductive with a voice to show his range from a beautiful rendition of Nat
King Cole’s Nature Boys to Dietrich’s Illusion, Smith holds his audience in thrall.
Too soon, Smith saunters from the
stage with a sideways glance and luring smile. His classy, stylish Morphium Kabarett has woven its spell
and carried with ease his audience back to an era of divine decadence. It is a
trip to Euphoria best suited to the smoke-filled, alcohol fumed, seedily lit
clubs of a time gone by. But even at a matinee with daylight streaming through,
Smith’s poised and playful performance is a triumph of style and dangerous
charm. Morphium Kabarett serves up a
relish of pure Weimar cabaret, performed with panache by a master of the genre.