Previewing Poor Baby Bree’s upcoming shows at Dixon Place (tomorrow and Saturday evening) may look like I’m deviating from the theater beat: After all, she usually appears at the likes of Don’t Tell Mama. But Poor Baby Bree may well be the most theatrical cabaret act in town. Sporting a potato-sack-like dress by Comme des Urchins, Bree Benton impersonates the kind of wide-eyed, sad-sack heroine who used to populate Victorian serials and dimestore novels. Her repertoire is culled from obscure songs (she buys sheet music at sales) that often wallow in tearjerking melodrama, with sidetrips into morbid humor (bad things usually happen to mothers and little girls) and plain silliness. She sings in a shivering voice that sounds as if it’s leaking out of a scratchy hand-cranked phonograph, and never, ever breaks character.

Dixon Place actually feels like a good fit for Poor Baby Bree, who’s too odd for the usual cabaret circuit and borders on performance art anyway. So go check out a true idiosyncratic local this weekend. In the meantime, click here to watch Poor Baby Bree sing a heartwrenching ode to donuts. “Dunk … dunk … dunk …” You won’t be able to get it out your head either.