A lighter side of politics

Mayor Thomas M. Menino began, delivering a series of couplets poking fun at his opponent and amazing the M.C. by rhyming ''got" with ''heart."

Then at-large city council candidate Kevin McCrea twirled a baton under the stern direction of his wife of one day, who was dressed in full veil and bridal gown.

By the time Gregory Joseph O'Connell, a first-time at-large candidate, began teasing the city council president to the tune of Billy Joel's ''Piano Man," the crowd was going wild.

Few who witnessed it are likely to forget Boston's first political talent show in recent memory, delivered before a packed house at the Riverside Theatre in Hyde Park last night. The roughly two-hour program, ''Spotlight on the Candidates," featured 16 city council and mayoral candidates singing, reading poetry, and telling jokes.

Sam Yoon, another at-large contender, even played jazz piano.

''I thought it was great," said Claudia De Pass, 39, of Hyde Park. ''I didn't know we had so much talent on the city council."

The show capped the last weekend before the preliminary election. Tomorrow, voters will winnow a field of 15 at-large council candidates to eight finalists who will square off for four citywide council seats in November.

The competition is particularly fierce this year because Councilor Maura Hennigan is vacating her seat to run for mayor.

If some of the candidates were more good sports than rock stars, the enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd, filled as it was with political volunteers and community theater fans, didn't seem to mind. They stomped along with Councilor Rob Consalvo and Flaherty's rendition of the Irish tune ''The Wild Rover."

They clapped along with at-large candidate Ed Flynn's steely eyed ''Anchors Away" and cried ''Oh! Oh! Oh!" in all the right places during at-large candidate Matt O'Malley's ''Sweet Caroline." They even sang along with Murphy's homemade campaign song, ''It's Going To Be Murphy."

Amid the good-natured warbling, a couple of show-stoppers stood out. Crashing applause followed Yoon's performance of the Miles Davis song ''All Blues." And the standing ovation for at-large Councilor Felix Arroyo's rich baritone began long before he finished the last stanza of ''My Way."

''Felix was unbelievable," said City Councilor John Tobin.

Many candidates used their time to rib each other, or poke fun at themselves. At-large candidate Patricia White read a poem she wrote called ''White and the Seven Dwarfs," in which she teased Arroyo about his biodiesel car: ''Why is he Sneezy? I don't know why, but there's no dwarf for a guy whose car runs on french fries."

At-large candidate John Connolly modeled his verse on '''Twas the Night Before Christmas": ''My name is John Connolly and if you give me one of your four, I promise to stop calling and knocking on your door."

O'Connell had the crowd howling with his riff on ''Piano Man": ''It's 9 o'clock on Election Day, Flaherty's crowd shuffles in. It doesn't matter what name they give, 'cause they'll give another at 10."

Other candidates used their five minutes in the spotlight to deliver a serious message. In a tribute to this year's 85th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, Hennigan led a parade of flag-waving girls into the theater, and, wearing a straw hat and white gloves, delivered a portion of suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt's 1916 speech ''The Crisis."

Socialist at-large candidate Laura Garza read Langston Hughes's poem ''In Explanation of Our Times," which she dedicated to picketing airline workers and Cuban doctors working in Venezuela. And Gibran Rivera of Jamaica Plain, who is challenging Tobin for the District 6 council seat, read a poem he wrote for the occasion called ''Awakenings" about how the creative spirit of engaged citizens makes democracy flourish.

Organizers pronounced the evening a smashing success and vowed to do it again.

''A good politician is a good sport," said Marietta Phinney, one of the event's producers. ''And you're all good sports."