Kaleidoscope Eyes With Tootsie Role Tunes

Occasionally we drop in to see something we've recommended in advance to check if it's worthy of the Seattlest Seal of Approval. Sunday night we took in Chris Jeffries' Kaleidoscope Eyes: Songs for Busby Berkeley. We weren't quite sure what to expect when we walked in. What it turns out to be is a pianist and six vocalists performing "alternate" soundtracks to actual Berkeley-choreographed movie clips -- so it really is a celebration of the man's insane drill-sergeant-for-showgirls vision.

The show runs again at the Northwest Film Forum next weekend, July 27-30, at 8pm. Tickets are $15 ($12 for members). As the Stranger's review ("not perfect, but totally worth seeing") mentions, the place has A/C, a popular topic these days.

The six vocalists (four men and two women) are noteworthy for containing among them Wier Harman, the Executive Director of Seattle's Town Hall, and Taylor Ott, a Cornish sophomore with a strong voice that delivers plenty of personality. The men's voices (which together bore a resemblance to the "boys in the chorus" in the old Bugs Bunny cartoon where he recounts breaking into showbiz) were less memorable singularly.

The music is inventive, while the lyrics would bear repeated listening. Songs like Roomful of Girls -- a suave leading man croons to his leading lady about the fact that he'll leave her soon to work his way through all the showgirls in the background -- set the tone for the evening. Sometimes, as in It's Hell for a Dame, the song turns to lively social commentary, an expose of the showgirl's inner life. Yet, The World Was Blue and Born Too Late are both pure, elegant, heart-on-a-sleeve show tunes of the pre-Lloyd Webber era.

For comedy, there's the surreal hopping accompaniment to So Happy It Hurts or the overly multi-faceted Ruby Keeler of That's You All Over. (Both, by the way, seeming indictments of heavy cultural drug dependency.) We can't imagine this kind of thing is for everyone, but if you've ever wondered what Mystery Science Theater 3000 would be like if it were all Busby Berkeley shows instead of schlocky sci-fi, and a variety of show tunes took the place of spoken commentary, this might well be the one show you need to see this year.