Kim David Smith is known for highly stylized Weimar-era performance. I first saw him on stage at the annual Cabaret Convention. From afar, knife-like enunciation, vocal authority and balletic hands create a theatrical aura appropriate to the genre he emulates. Up close, the persona Smith’s developed is decidedly inhuman. He seems to have no relationship to lyrics and eschews eye contact even in this intimate space. Were his gaze as fiery as vocal delivery, he’d rivet the audience instead of just entertaining. At one point, looking up, the artist declares “a lot of my acting is ceiling based.”
Material is strong, with relationship gallows humor more evident than the political satire also omnipresent at the time. Songs are skillfully strung together. “I Should Be So Lucky”, “Illusions” and “A Little Yearning” take us from …Want to buy my illusions/Very warm and never new/They were lovely illusions/They were all about you…to…A little yearning to fill the emptiness…as if the protagonist is drowning in decadent despair.
A tandem “Ich Bin Ein Vamp” and “Dracula’s Tango” is a hoot…Dracu-la, la ,la/ I’m a sucker for your love…Prince of darkness I’m yours/Even though you have a cross to bear…Because these songs are all surface, Smith more easily gives them their due. He even has fun.
Arrangements, attributable, one assumes, to MD Tracy Stark, are excellent. Smith occasionally inserts a relatively contemporary song in his shows as if origin were back then. In this vein, we hear, in part, 1966’s “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” which suddenly sounds harsh, starting like a slow march with a game leg then swelling; 1979’s “Song of Black Max” which emerges so sinister Freddy Krueger would blanch*; and 1948’s “Nature Boy” missing its innately haunting quality, delivered with ambiguous intention.
Numbers in German ring authentic, while a rendition of “Padam” in lesser French arrives as if the performer has not a clue about what he’s singing. Translation of the end of this song is: You need to keep some sorrow for later/I’ve got scores full in this tune which beats./Which beats like a wooden heart..yet we hear neither resignation, exhaustion, nor wrenching pain. “Shooting Star” is also musically adroit, but its melancholy lyric contains no discernible emotion.
There’s no doubt Kim David Smith is a showman. He’s talented and very attractive. Costume is superb, original right down to its stilettos. His withholding connection – implicit sexual innuendo, savage glee, and emotional torment, however, leaves me frustrated.
* Freddy Krueger is the grisly character from the Nightmare on Elm Street films.
NOTE: Pangea is an intimate performance room with discreet service and an excellent kitchen
Kim David Smith’s Morphium Kabarett
MD/Piano- Tracy Stark
Pangea Restaurant and Bar
178 Second Avenue at 11th Street
