Ab Fab The Little Theatre is in Full Gallop, and Cabaret is deja vous all over again. by CHRIS DAVIS Let’s talk about a set. Sandwiched between two 14-foot columns, set designer Michael Walker has re-created, a to-die-for Manhattan apartment for Full Gallop. By New York standards, “manor” might well be the more appropriate term. The large walls are dark red, finished to resemble Victorian wallpaper, and the huge, magnificently framed windows are grand, grand, and grand again. Set decorator Bill Short (who should have been named “art-director”) drapes the stage with Oriental rugs, and overstuffs the split-level room with black-and-gold lacquered furnishings, Oriental-leaning with gaudy designs, and leopard-print upholstery. The tables and shelves are laden with yesteryear’s kitsch, 19th-century souvenir paperweights and silly ornamental shells — divine retro-chic from the period when today’s retro-chic was still backed-up on the assembly line. We expect this kind of lush setting from TM’s main stage productions, but the Little Theatre, being a poor relation, has seldom been afforded such fine frippery. This is indeed a rare and wonderful concurrence where space and action overlap and the environment ceases to be a backdrop and becomes a full-fledged player in the event. Full Gallop, like the Black Rep’s recent Man in Room 306 and — to a degree — Playhouse’s current Master Class, falls into the category of “conceptually strained one-person shows.” You know the type: a historical character (in this case, fashion maven Diana Vreeland) shares vivid memories of a vivid life, spewing forth a seemingly inexhaustible supply of readily quotable one-liners. Plopping an oversized set smack dab in the middle of the (aptly named) Little Theatre creates an unlikely illusion — that the audience is just another welcome guest in the home of a genuinely fascinating character. In the role of Vreeland, Vogue magazine’s empress of style, Janie Paris kicks serious tail. She has mastered the toothy, energized ennui of a life-long jet-setter; her every move and utterance graced with the detailed specificity of Walker’s splendid set. Considering the sweat-shop labor that puts shirts on most of our backs these days, Vreeland’s complaints about the exhausting tribulations of “three [nightgown] fittings a day!” quickly become irksome. Boring or not, these submerged politics can’t be ignored entirely. Even judged on its own merits, Full Gallop is hardly a triumph, but it is a successful ultra-light entertainment designed to please those daring few who are absolutely fabulous, and the countless hangers-on who only wish that they were. Full Gallop runs through Febuary 20th at the Little Theatre, Theatre Memphis. Cradle to Tomb Part II My expectations were mighty low for the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret, which closed out its stint at The Orpheum last week. They sank even lower when I settled into my luxurious box and two tiny pieces of paper — each about the size of a receipt for the purchase of bubblegum — came tumbling out of my program. The notes explained that Ms. Joely Fisher, hyped as the show’s main attraction, would not be performing the role of Sally Bowles. Drat. To make matters worse, I noticed that the set was almost identical to the one used in Playhouse on the Square’s god-awful production of the same script last season. Just as in the Playhouse production, actors loitered about the stage stretching, smoking, and looking oh-so sexy. The costumes the actors loitered in were almost identical to those used at Playhouse. It was obvious that Ken Zimmerman (the director for the P.O.T.S. production) had been to New York, seen the show, and set about the business of copying it down to the tiniest detail. My heart sank even lower. Indeed, just as in the Playhouse production, the Emcee’s deliriously perverse song “Two Ladies” is spoiled by the one-joke sight gag of using only one lady and a man dressed in lingerie to illustrate its sexy lyrics. I blamed Zimmerman for the mistake. As it turns out I gave him more credit than he deserved. Nothing (Broadway tours aside, as that is their function) gets my hackles up than a director who affixes his name to a production that is naught but a carbon copy of the New York original. Please, people, if you want to be artists, for the love of Pete be creative. That said, Cabaret blew me away at The Orpheum. Unlike the Playhouse production, the show was well-lit, using sickly purple and green light to isolate important figures in space, making the claustrophobia almost too much to bear and enhancing the desperation of the multitalented actors. The performances were stellar, especially Jon Peterson as the Emcee who looked like Tim Burton, moved like a Viagra-heavy Baryshnikov, and sounded like his celluloid model for the role, Joel Gray. The hoopla surrounding this revival made me nervous, as hoopla always does, but, as it turns out Cabaret is almost everything it is cracked up to be. The staging, with its careful attention to framing devices (whether it be the stomp of a foot or an actual frame) calls to mind Richard Foreman’s amazing 1976 production of Threepenny Opera with Raul Julia. In fact, the whole thing is reminiscent of Foreman’s spectacular achievement. It is a credit to Sam Mendes who staged the revival, that he could borrow these effective techniques without ripping off someone else’s production entirely. You can e-mail Chris Davis at davis@memphisflyer.com.