The Good Time Girls Present: An Old West Variety Show - Blue Horse Gallery - Friday, February 17th, 2012

The Good Time Girls Present: An Old West Variety Show - Blue Horse Gallery

Friday, February 17th, 2012

Count on the irrepressible Good Time Girls, Marissa McGrath and Sara Holodnick, to stage a variety show in the manner it might have been performed in an Old Western town. Regardless of whether or not they are talking about brothels, serial killers or Bellingham's Historical Identity, the Good Time Girls consistently manage to educate and entertain in best ways possible.

The tables at the Blue Horse are littered with cards and gold coins. An old piano sways drunkenly just off stage. After a short welcoming introduction by Sara and Marissa, the evening gets off to a nice start with a beautiful woman singing a jazzy song about all the clothes her man bought her before he abandoned her. As the song progresses, off goes the clothes down to a tasteful peignoir. Everybody seemed to stop talking around then.

Next up Liz Jennings performed a dramatic reading of a Robert Service poem. “O haggard, haunted, hidden One / What see you in the dying year?” Absolutely beautiful. Following her is a haunting fiddle piece by Eric Chabot that seems to transform all the lights to lambent flame and fill the outer dark with a lonely apprehension. It put a stillness in the room that lent considerable authenticity to the notion that you might actually be sitting in an Old West Saloon. Then the beautiful, bountiful Dirty Bird Cabaret appeared out the wings like a flamboyance of flamingos, taking over the Blue Horse, frolicking amidst the crowd and shaking it all over the stage. After that, what more could anyone do that take a quick break.

Liz Jennings returned to humorously explain melodrama with ample crowd participation. She had the crowd in the palm of her hand. Marvin kept up a beautiful sonic atmosphere on the piano working through several ragtime pieces with grace and ease. At one point, a drunk man, a Gen. S. Casey, from backwoods East Texas stumbled on to the stage and attempted to recite a tedious poem by Charles "Bonesy" Jones about moral luck and stricken jack rabbits. Thankfully, he was shot and kicked off stage by one of the Good Time Girls.

The Dirty Birds seemed to appear from nowhere at regular intervals, lighting the crowd on fire and being generally appropriately inappropriate. After Eric Chabot returned to the stage and played another sublime piece, Anneka Morgan took the stage to sing an opera piece that had Arthur, the owner of the Blue Horse, considering making one night of the week an opera night. Anneka’s singing was terribly beautiful and happily sad, executed with elegant talent. Marvin’s accompaniment was subtle and perfect. The evening seemed to gather around the moment, time fading, as a beautiful woman poured out her soul through a song on a stage some Old Western town.