THE NEW YORKER
MAY 26, 2003

KIKI AND HERB: COUP DE THEATRE

The invention of the writer-performer Justin Bond and the pianist Kenny Mellman, Kiki and Herb have long been fixtures at downtown venues like Flamingo East, P.S. 122, and Fez. In a scorched-earth advance across decades of pop music, from Bob Merrill's "Make Yourself Comfortable" to Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head," they have refined their act into a slashingly funny, psychically unsettling entertainment-part cabaret, part rock and roll, part Victorian melodrama-to which the category of camp does not apply. The opulently dissipated Kiki DuRane-a sixty-something lounge singer who tours ad nauseam with a doleful accompanist named Herb, is a beacon of insanity in a world that may finally be coming around to her point of view. Directed by Scott Elliott.

(Cherry Lane, 38 Commerce St. between Bedford and Hudson Sts. 212-239-6200.)