Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Nightlife roundup: LAURA & LINDA BENANTI team up at 54 Below, and JACKIE BEAT rings in another year at the Cutting Room

• By drediman
• July 22, 2025
• No Comments

Even in the midst of New York’s scorching summers, the city’s iconic cabaret and nightlife scene remains by and large unfazed, as exemplified by a pair of highly entertaining shows I caught this past weekend. As per usual, read on for my thoughts.

LAURA AND LINDA BENANTI: MOTHERS KNOW BEST
54 Below

First up at 54 Below was the lovely daughter/mother duo of Laura and Linda Benanti in their cabaret act Mothers Know Best (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED). I had missed their previous appearances together at the indispensable Theater District supper club and was hence determined to catch them this time around. As its title suggests, the show is an homage to motherhood, and it was a heartwarming thing to see Laura Benanti — a beloved Broadway star (a Tony-winner as Gypsy Rose Lee in the “Patti LuPone” revival of Gypsy) and herself a mother of two daughters — generously share the stage with her mother Linda Benanti, an accomplished voice teacher whose own aspirations to pursue a life on the stage were thwarted by life events. Both looked and sounded absolutely gorgeous, and each gave the other the respect and space to flourish in the spotlight on their own terms. Notably, Laura did a wonderful job of not letting her star power wicked sense of humor overpower the evening. She particularly shined in her inspired character work, namely as First Lady Melania Trump singing “Send in the Clowns” and in a clever segment that truncated My Fair Lady into 15 minutes (refreshingly, all from the vantage point of Eliza), in addition to an absolutely exquisite rendition of “Unusual Way” from Nine. Linda, however, was not to be outdone, showing off her still-pristine voice in classic standards such as “The Man that Got Away” from A Star Is Born and “Just in Time” from the musical Bells Are Ringing. Suffice to say, it was a classy, heartfelt night that illuminated with an affectionate glow, leaving the audience with a warm feeling that lingered well after the show had floated into the ether.

JACKIE BEAT: THE BIRTHDAY CLOWN
Cutting Room

Far less classy was Jackie Beat’s New York return to celebrate, for one-night-only, her birthday at the Cutting Room. Aptly titled The Birthday Clown (RECOMMENDED), the performance was the latest in a long line of shows that rely on the iconic drag queen’s distinctively aggressive brand of humor — invariably, she aims to invoke hilarity through shock and awe tactics — and her singular penchant for turning the popular songbook into a wittily parodic wonderland of inappropriateness (its a unique talent that has led to professional writing gigs beyond performing drag). But if you are easily rattled or find such shenanigans distasteful, you’re probably at the wrong show to begin with — the ingredients of this latest creation haven’t changed a bit, and I’m sure many of her longtime fans wouldn’t have it any other way. Indeed, those in the audience who have attended Jackie Beat shows in the past fully knew what they were in for, including getting smothered by her frustrated, curmudgeonly embittered persona and worldview (after what Jackie’s probably seen over the course of her life, she’s earned the right to be the way she is). If anything, this “birthday show” is one of her least themed show in a while; previous appearances have had more discipline locking script to certain theme, for example the holidays or the farewell to the Laurie Beechman Theatre (which, by the way, thankfully looks to have a new lease on life). On the contrary, this one seems intentionally fractured and haphazard — which is not necessarily a bad thing — a throwback to more casual, less curated times and a summertime excuse for Jackie Beat to merely wield her sadistic, truth saying tongue.