SHADES OF AMBER

Reba McEntire spoon-jamming on a Soundgarden track at an Ethiopian restaurant wouldn’t top most performers’ bucket lists of roles, but Amber Martin is the exception. This bizarro-Reba is one of a collection of insane characters borne from the wild imagination of this uncannily talented singer-comedian. In Amber Alert!, Martin flies ADD-style through her trippy oeuvre, stopping for a few thrilling torch songs, folk ditties, and rock screamers along the way. As thrilling as her voice is, the characters are the main draw. And the less you try to make sense of them, the more meaningful they can be. “Usually my shows have no narrative, really,” she said in a short doc by Casey Spooner, one of the guests in her show. “It’s like flipping the channel—on acid.”

Sat., May 21, 7 p.m., 2011