4th Annual Sydney Cabaret Convention
Masterclass - Sunday, July 1, 2000
Sydney Town Hall: Sydney, Australia

For the past three years of the Sydney Cabaret Convention, a Masterclass has been conducted by Ms. Kerrie Biddell, one of Australia's most distinguished teacher/performers. Though now retired from professional activities, she has made herself available to the organizers of this event in order to provide her considerable skills to the task of taking talented young singers through their paces. With a long background in jazz and cabaret performance, she is eminently suited to carry out this task.

As in previous years, Kerrie Biddell, assisted by her colleague/pianist Michael Bartolomei, worked with four young performers. At the start she made it clear that she would not be working with the mechanics of singing technique during the session; it was a "given" that these artists could sing. The subject would be confined to the nuances of performance interpretation.

It would not be appropriate for me to review the performers on this occasion. These young artists were here to seek assistance, while we in the audience (which consisted of many of the young performers appearing in the Convention) were here to learn and reflect on our own knowledge of cabaret performance. In my case, I was here in order to clarify a number of unanswered questions that had been raised by the quality of various performances in this and previous conventions.

Chief among my concerns was what the artists thought cabaret was. In my first review of this convention, I spoke of the difference between Australian and American cabaret histories and how that might influence what sorts of acts had been shown at this and previous conventions. In the Masterclass, Kerrie Biddell, prior to listening to the song that had been prepared, asked each of the performers what his or her definition of cabaret was. Without exception, each of them said that it was a uniquely personal statement, part of a "journey" using text and music, that the artist was sharing with the audience. Had I been wrong in asserting this distinction between Australian and American cabaret? Alternatively, was there a growing sensibility among these performers that variety-style performance was not as effective in reaching out to an audience? It appeared as if all of us had a clear idea of what cabaret was meant to be.

Why, then, was there such disparity in the many performances I had been watching during the Convention? Why did so many artists appear to be so unaware of the critical need in cabaret to connect with their audiences through material that was heartfelt? This year, among the many acts that I did not mention in these reviews, were a large number that did not fit this definition for one reason or another. Far too many of the artists seemed to be "performing" and not "connecting." Assuming that the four young singers in this Masterclass were representative of most of the Convention performers, I was at a loss as to why other artists here had difficulty in putting together an effective program.

During this Masterclass, I was pleased to see Kerrie Biddell highlighting so many of the concerns in my mind, as well as a few others relating to the specifics of performance. I would like to highlight a few of these issues as much for their importance as to stimulate some discussion in the cabaret community.

Choice of material was problematic for the vast majority of performers at this year's Convention. It was no surprise that one of the key questions Ms. Biddell asked each performer was "Why did you choose this song?" Too often during the Convention showcases, it appeared as if singers had no emotional connection with their material and had selected particular songs because they made the performers "look good" or had proved successful in the past. As Biddell said, "Cabaret is taking an ordinary song and putting it into your context, imbuing it with your own special meaning."

This need to choose meaningful material seemed to be a critical issue during the previous four nights. Ron Craeger, the musical director for the Sydney Cabaret Convention (whose job entailed playing for artists who did not have their own accompanists), told me that any number of singers he had worked with during the time before the Convention told him that they had chosen particular material because "they liked the song." We both agreed that this was not satisfactory for the unique demands of cabaret. Both Biddell and Craeger indicated that the singer had to have a "heart connection" with the song if he or she was to succeed in making it meaningful to the audience.

Kerrie Biddell spoke at some length about how to perform the selected material so that listeners could relate to it without making too much effort. She asked each of the four singers about his or her point of view in presenting their songs, noting that if the performer was unclear, the audience would lose interest. In this light, Biddell stressed the importance of singing the lyric honestly and conversationally, with the same sort of inflection that one would speak it, so there is no confusion for the audience as they relate to what is being sung. To do this, Biddell suggested that an emphasis on making a "beautiful sound" could hinder a performance. If the listeners started to listen to tonal beauty, they lost sight of the lyric, the basic message of the text. Good advice! Too often during the Convention, singers seemed more intent on giving a vocal concert than in singing cabaret.

During the Masterclass, Ms. Biddell emphasized the need for performers to pare down to essentials when working in cabaret and present themselves as honestly as possible. For her, "Cabaret is more than musical theater." This was a very pithy comment; it covered the whole way in which performers meet the audience through the material. Simplicity was stressed.

Though Ms. Biddell did not deal at any length with how artists complicate their connection with the public, there were certainly many examples of this during the four showcases. Let me list three aspects of performance choice that occurred during the week and seemed to alienate performers from their audiences: selection of comedy material, use of "specialty" material (often created for previously performed shows or copied from other performers) and performing as a "character" and not as oneself. A very large number of performers made one or more of these problematic choices and, as a result, did not connect. Let's look at some of these issues.

Performances of comedy material take great concentration and economy of gesture to succeed well. They often require "set up" time that is unavailable in a 7- minute act. More importantly, this form of performance usually relates to situation and not the innate character of the performer. Comedy might work in a longer act, but its complexity only serves to confuse an audience. It takes a very gifted and experienced performer with a unique personality to create laughter in such a short period of time.

Further to that, there is the use of "specialty" material (parodies of well-known tunes, medleys they had lifted from another show or totally original and sometimes very eccentric songs) in the context of this Convention. Unfortunately, these sorts of decisions often left me (and others) confused as to what the singers had set out to say about themselves and why they had not chosen something more straightforward and simple. In addition, I was also left with the niggling worry that performers chose such unusual material because it somehow allowed them to "hide" behind it and camouflage performance problems they had.

In terms of poor decisions, a number of artists performed part or all of their act as a "character" (drunks and transvestites were but two examples of this) and not as themselves. What was the point? What were they trying to communicate to us? In Kerrie Biddell's terms, this was not a means for the performer to meet the audience as simply as possible through the material, a point she stressed a number of times throughout her Masterclass.

Biddell also touched upon a number of technical matters (quality of diction, use of movement and gesture to highlight the text, how to best work with a microphone, eye contact and level of volume) to lift the level of performance as she gently illustrated difficulties that each of the four singers in the session was encountering. But it was in her closing remarks that this master teacher touched upon some of the larger matters of how to work with technicians (such as those responsible for sound) and musical directors/backing musicians ("These people want to know what your exact intentions are so they can do what they do best ù most musicians dislike singers because they don't communicate their musical decisions very well. Be specific and be responsible for your act. When you perform, you must sing the "feel" of the song AND be the time keeper!").

In the all important matter of structuring a set, Biddell offered three golden rules for keeping the audience interested in what the performer is doing: vary the keys of your material, change the tempo of various pieces of music within a set and avoid maintaining the same mood within a group of songs you are performing. Finally, she advised singers to focus on the positive attributes of their voices and avoid songs that did not present them in the best fashion. All of this advice was incredibly valuable.

After this Masterclass, I was left wishing more of the performers at this Cabaret Convention had been present to work with Kerrie Biddell or some other wise practitioner of cabaret performance art before exposing themselves to public scrutiny. Had this been the case, all of us would have gained. I will return to this matter in my final review when discussing the development of future talent.

David M Schwartz

Daily Reports on the 2000 Sydney Cabaret Convention

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