“I think that love is death.  Or at least, love and death are scrambled in my mind…”    

With the titillating title Love or Death?, it’s a safe bet that the audience didn’t quite know what to expect with dynamic actor/singer Bruno Giraldi’s new performance piece, playing for three dates at New York City’s cabaret hotspot Don’t Tell Mama. With his selection of music, Giraldi certainly had his work cut out for him.  His choice of songs was a transgenerational playlist of beloved musical selections. There were classic showtunes as well as gems from relatively newer works like Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Cry Baby, with artists as diverse as Bette Midler and Eric Clapton. However, with Love or Death?, the artist also challenged the audience to… well, THINK! How HARD the audience was challenged to think probably depended on how much of a romantic they considered themselves, on a scale from 1 to 10. Love or Death? is indeed an original cabaret experience, right on from the very beginning.  As the attendees entered the intimate space of Don’t Tell Mama, warmed up by the piano skills of the hardworking John Bowen, the artist was on the small stage curled up underneath a large blanket– with only a few astute viewers close to the stage perhaps noticing that the blanket was rising with his breaths.  Finally, at the right moment, Mr. Bowen pulled the blanket away, revealing the singer dressed in cabaret cabernet-colored silk jammies and a matching robe.  He launched into Queen’s Somebody to Love. How’s THAT for a memorable opener? 

In addition to music, Giraldi’s show also incorporates a lot of philosophy in between the songs and the artist’s occasional personal story. In its official description, Giraldi tells us that his show features the philosophies of “Freud, Unamuno, Derrida, Comte-Sponville, Cioran, Borges, Plato, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Marx”.  Whoa! That’s a lot to squeeze into a show that’s only just over an hour. Mostly, Giraldi uses the philosophies of some of his favorite thinkers to help explain, at least in part, the phenomenon known to every cabaret, cinema, and pop-culture-at-large aficionado as L-O-V-E.  But…

What is love? 

Is it, as Giraldi wonders, a human construct?  Is it a feeling that most accurately, at least for a while, represents a tiny piece of perfection?  Of course, should we even bother spending so much time twisting our brains about the reality of “amor”, or should we just appreciate the feel-good, silly aspects of the emotion?   One only needs to listen to his appropriately sugary take on L-O-V-E, made famous by Nat King Cole, as a reminder to just HOW silly love songs can be.  But even unapologetically hardcore romantics will be forced to T-H-I-N-K about love in a new way with Giraldi’s idiosyncratic takes on the subject.  Giraldi has some fascinating things to say, both through the songs and through spoken word.  This reviewer, for one, was fascinated by the moments when the artist shared moments of his own personal stories– many of which seemed to be the absolute antithesis of those aforementioned proverbial silly love songs.  Put another way: It wasn’t always pretty… 

As a singer, Bruno Giraldi can definitely hit some impressive notes.  He eschews mimicking the artists who made his song choices famous, instead opting for his own interpretations. For Bring on the Men, from Jekyll & Hyde, the singer changes the lyrics to the more gender-neutral “Bring on the FRIENDS”, with “friends” in this case being barely coded as “friends with benefits”. His version of Cabaret later on in the show is also a delightful standout, but I won’t give away too much on just what made it so distinctive!  The singer is also aware of his own range. Given the wide array of musical artists who Bruno honors, it would be a Herculean task for ANY singer, regardless of talent, to expertly capture the essence of such perfection-driven icons ranging from Whitney to Celine in the course of one show.  But again, he makes their songs his own.  Personally, I liked his upbeat, foot-tapping, audience-participation version of Celine’s My Heart Will Go On MUCH better than the sappy original. (Bring on the HATE MAIL…) Giraldi is an energetic, highly animated performer who is very capable of connecting with the audience, particularly in the intimate space of Don’t Tell Mama.  John Bowen is particularly brilliant at the keys.   To restate the obvious, Love or Death? may NOT be for all tastes, particularly when viewed through the lens of so-called “traditional” cabaret.  It’s music, it’s philosophy, and it’s storytelling… but it’s Mr. Giraldi’s own personal creative touches that make it all so unique.

Bruno Giraldi’s Love or Death? continues on Saturday, September 27 and Saturday, November 22 at 7PM, at Don’t Tell Mama, 343 West 46th St., NYC.  Make reservations at http://www.DontTellMamaNYC.com.