Stage Review: Personalities jell in J & K Cabaret
Jenny Madden and Kim Justis, the "J" and the "K" in the "J & K Self-Rising Cabaret" now running at TheatreSouth, already have something of a cult following in Memphis, together and separately.
You can catch J playing the spinster sidekick to actor Steve Swift in the Sister Myotis productions put on by Voices of the South, while K sporadically shows off her acting chops in coveted roles, like her cockney Mrs. Lovett in Theatre Memphis' "Sweeney Todd."
Christopher Blank/Special to The Commercial Appeal
Jenny Madden and Kim Justis perform in "The J & K Self-Rising Cabaret" at TheatreSouth.
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J and K go together like rama-lama-ding-dong, as they say -- complementary personalities who bounce quips off of each other with a silly, Laverne & Shirley rapport. Whether creating new characters, as they have in comedies such as "Parallel Lives" or playing kookier versions of themselves in their cabaret act, the chemistry makes whatever material they do click.
"I shaved my legs above the knees for this," announces hostess K before the duo sends a few baskets of Martha White biscuits through the audience, a little Southern snack to go with the wine on tap.
In this show, scripted by Flip Eikner, the ladies explore what it means to be Southern, from appreciating Andy Griffith to keeping traditions.
"I always keep a death casserole in the freezer just in case somebody suddenly passes," admits J.
The songs, a hodgepodge of tunes from David Allen Coe to Mary Chapin Carpenter and performed with a four-piece band, range from silly to sentimental. Given that so much of the humor comes from the actresses not taking themselves too seriously, their contemplative bits about what it means to be southern don't quite fit the format.
After one song about falling in love with a Starbucks barista, they haul out a stack of books and give a brief lecture on the Fugitive Poets out of Vanderbilt -- John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, et al. Sure, it doesn't hurt to know that the foundation of Southern lit is a "dialectic of opposites." But it's funnier and more in character when they later describe the same thing as "fluffy goodness."
Some of their improvisations got the biggest laughs. When an audience member admitted calling a relative by the nickname "Farfar," J worked the reference into a song and had the crowd rolling with laughter.
J & K fans will likely enjoy their latest cabaret, though more for the personalities than the subject matter, which, if you are Southern, doesn't need that much explainin'.
"J & K Self-Rising Cabaret"
8 tonight and Saturday at TheatreSouth, 1000 South Cooper. Tickets are $15 students, $20 adults. Call 726-0800.
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