Christine

Reading about cabaret shows in the arts section of the New York Times, I often feel frustrated in not being able to attend. I would love to see and hear in Manhattan some of the singers that are reviewed. Not a few of them, I have noticed, are highly experienced in show business, not to say no longer young or even middle-aged.

That’s true of Christine Ebersole, a long-established star of Broadway who will be sixty years old on February 21 of this year. That fact adds to the enjoyment I experienced during her show January 26 at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge. Christine displayed a persona full of energy and humor.

She joked a lot about aging, with an approach that the gerontologist in me did not entirely appreciate. For instance, she announced: “At my age, trying to stay young looking isn’t just a full-time job, it’s really expensive.”  And: “All you have to do is click your heels together three times and realize that eternal youth is right inside your heart.”

But she’s a comic and a good one so I can’t complain if she favors youth over age. After all, in her younger years she scored some great successes, as when she played both mother and daughter Beales in “Grey Gardens,” a play I saw her in on Broadway.  I did not see Christine in “42 Street” but can easily imagine the oomph she brought to that great sensation.

At Sanders, the singer was accompanied by three musical performers: a pianist, a reed player, a bassist, and a drummer. To have herd them play jazz brought me way back to my college days when I used to frequent jazz artists in Boston, South End.

Christine’s was a show to remember!