“Delusion is a great survival technique,” Chicago cabaret singer Colleen McHugh cheerfully tells her audience at the outset of her intriguing new show at Davenport’s.
She then sets about proving the point, launching into an evening’s worth of songs about troubled souls who revel in their self-deceptions.
By turns emotionally stark and wickedly satirical, McHugh’s “Songs of Self-Delusion” proves that a night at the cabaret need not be an entirely light-hearted affair. For though McHugh shrewdly punctuates the proceedings with comic songs and casual patter, she also probes into the darker sides of the psyche.
Better yet, she does so by drawing upon a remarkably far-flung songbook, which spans material by everyone from Broadway veteran Jerry Herman to modern-day Chicago troubadour Robbie Fulks. The ingenuity with which McHugh interweaves these vignettes helps gives this show its dramatic heft.
McHugh opens her homage to self-delusion, for instance, with not one song but two, merging sections of Herman’s “I Don’t Want to Know” with Amanda McBroom’s “Dreaming.” In this haunting introduction, McHugh hints at both the comic and tragic sides of the set pieces yet to come.
Somehow, she switches easily from the absurd, black humor of Jill Sobule’s “Mexican Wrestler” to the dripping irony of Jim DeWan’s “You Wouldn’t Do That to Me,” from the clever wordplay of Phillip Namanworth’s “Avoid” to the self-loathing laments of Francesca Blumenthal’s “The Lies of Handsome Men.”
Every song makes a point, though few more searingly than Fulks’ “I’ve Got To Tell Myself the Truth.” which McHugh sings to the accompaniment of a lone guitar.
To her credit, McHugh also brings some beguiling bits of stage business to the proceedings, particularly in Herman’s “A Little More Mascara” (from “La Cage Aux Folles”). As the protagonist sings of the glories of heavy makeup, two attendants hand her a tiara, white gloves and other ornaments with which to mask her insecurities.
With evocative musical direction from pianist Andrew Blenderman and expert backup vocals from Allison Bazarko and Ryan Dunkin, McHugh has conceived a bittersweet cabaret show as original as it is meaningful.
And that doesn’t happen very often.
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Colleen McHugh’s “Songs of Self-Delusion” plays at 8 p.m. Saturdays at Davenport’s, 1383 N. Milwaukee Ave. Call 773-278-1830.
