REVIEW: Reasons To Be Unpretty @CainPark

By Laura Kennelly

Cool, elegant blondes can have a lot on their minds: a fact made clear when Cleveland native Theresa Kloos treated her Cabaret Series Cain Park audience to a few choice (wry and funny) thoughts and delicious songs in “Reasons to be Unpretty.” The Alma Theatre’s intimate space made her comic laments and anecdotes seem like a friend-to-friend exchange and summoned up memories of our own teen disasters as we laughed alongside her. Perspective, she showed, can turn “tragic” adolescent events into rich comedy within a few short years.

Kloos, a 2010 Baldwin Wallace University graduate, combines a keen self-awareness with a gentle sense of humor and a beautiful voice. A classic beauty (she’s definitely NOT unpretty), her personal, funny, and poignant memories of being a little Catholic school girl in Cleveland turn smart and appealing in the telling. I’ve tried to think who to compare her to–Amy Poehler with high notes? Or a perky tall version of Kristin Chenoweth? Her wit also reminds me of that of the late, great Nora Ephron.

But she’s an original. Kloos regaled us with stories about growing up. You know, the ones that are only funny recollected years later, such as the one about a swimsuit she bought at Value City that turned out not to be as cool as she’d hoped once she jumped into the pool, Each memory led naturally into song. One highlight came when the soprano closed the first act with Queen’s “Somebody to Love” as she charmingly twisted it into both a plea and a declaration of independence.

A dynamic quartet composed of Mark Graham (piano), Rob Chase (bass), Adam Bilchik (guitar), Scott Shaughnessy (drums) smoothly accompanied Kloos (and even chatted a bit–usually offering a punch line).

This summer’s Cabaret Series is over, but the Cain Park season is still running. See Cainpark.com. As a far west-side resident, I’m officially a little bit jealous of Cleveland Heights folk who can just stroll over to Cain Park on a lovely summer evening to catch a show.

Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.