"Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" at the Circle in the Square

 

Audra McDonald

(photo by Evgenia Eliseeva)

"Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" at the Circle in the Square

The Billie Holiday that multi award-winning Audra McDonald brings us is the tragic singer at the end of the line. The place is Emerson's Bar & Grill in Philadelphia at midnight on a Friday in March 1959 four months before Holiday's death. "They won't let me sing in New York" announces the proud but defeated singer. But, it is the triumph of Holiday's incomparable talent and persona that becomes apparent as McDonald uses the jazz rhythms, the penetrating lyrics and the evocative milieu to tell Holiday's story.

Certainly the large space that has been impressively created within the Circle in the Square Theatre is far from being an intimate bar & grill as the numerous cocktail tables and chairs on the ground level of the theater are able to accommodate patrons who may order drinks and/ or champagne etc. Notwithstanding the classier environment designed by James Noone, McDonald's performance, under the attentive direction of Lonny Price, is one that puts everything into perspective.

Up front and out there is Holiday's pain, rage and the indomitable of a woman who only wanted to keep on singing. Not holding back, McDonald's performance is all about Holiday's brave defiance, justifiable  arrogance, and the unavoidable suffering that would help make her a legend. She brings all those qualities, call it baggage, into the songs and it is quite an accomplishment. Not even Holiday could play Philadelphia without a few jokes. "I've been arrested all over the country, but Philly's the only place that's made me a candidate for federal housing."

McDonald makes us feel close to Holiday rather than to her ghost. And it's amazing how this singer with a glorious operatic voice  has been able to alter and adjust her tone and timbre. A rich drama unfolds in songs such as "When a Woman Loves A Man," "Them There Eyes," "God Bless the Child," "Livin' for You," and the others.

There is a bit of controversy over whether "Lady Day" is a musical or a play with music. I really don't care what the final vote proclaims, but Lanie Robertson's text (heard for the first by me Off Broadway in 1986 with Lonette McKee, as Holiday) surrounding the songs has a dramatic structure that allows us, through the device of a monologue, to gain some insight into Holiday's life, her childhood, and her debilitating marriage.

But there is lots of trenchant humor surrounding the songs, especially shocking but true is a long anecdote about the tour with the Artie Shaw Band. McDonald, who looks smashing in two gowns designed by Esosa, gets splendid backup by a terrific jazz band under the direction of Shelton Becton, playing long-time Holiday accompanist Jimmy Powers. A small role is played by Roxy, a very cute stray turned pro known in the play as Pepi, who doesn't seem to care that he steals his scene paws down. 

"Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" (through August 10 2014)

For tickets ($97.00 - $250.00) call 239 - 6200

"Of Mice and Men" at the Longacre Theatre

“Of Mice and Men” opened April 16, 2014 at the Longacre Theatre.

  

Chris O'Dowd and James Franco (Photo by Richard Phibbs)

 

It’s nighttime and George and Lennie have stopped to rest on a sandy bank of the Salina River. They are heading for a job for migrant agricultural workers. The scene shifts to a bunk house where the migrants sleep and mingle.  It is here that George hopes to earn enough money to secure his dream of buying his own farm and where he and his mentally-challenged side-kick Lennie’s dream can be summed up with the immortal line, “We’ll live off the fat of the land.”

John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” is not meant to represent a timeless microcosm of life among American migrant workers during the 1930s, as does his later novel “The Grapes of Wrath.” It does, however, create its own small world with a highly stylized vision of truth. In some ways, it is as far removed from reality as the screwball film comedies from the same era. This doesn’t mean that this tale of two drifters adrift between reality and fantasy has become a fossilized relic.

Director Anna D. Shapiro has staged an unhurried but sturdily humanized production that is buoyed by the presence of two actors of note James Franco as George and Chris O’Dowd as Lennie. Although I take exception to some of her directorial decisions,  particularly the way that the final scene is staged, she succeeds in highlighting the central meaningful relationship within the play. Certainly the fraternal love between George and Lennie is even more to the point in 2014. This is the dimension of the plot that remains universal rather than the predictably tragic plot or the one dimensional supporting characters.

It is also fortunate that Franco and O’Dowd have sought to go one step beyond the more obvious and stereotypical models for their characters. Because of this, the core of the play – the strange but symbiotic relationship of two unwitting victims of the times – is able to support the weaker circumference, the vision of a social system empowered by greed and materialism.

 

Steinbeck’s play version of his novel is tied to the novel’s structure as dramatic literature, with each chapter a different scene. A few months after publication, Steinbeck began work on the stage adaptation with playwright George S. Kaufman, who would also direct the original production. This opened on Broadway less than a year after the novel’s publication on November 23, 1937 with Broderick Crawford, as Lennie and Wallace Ford, as George. Taking its title inspiration from Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse” (that “the best-laid schemes of mice and men” often go awry), the play takes place over a three-day period on a ranch in an  agricultural valley in Northern California during the Depression.

Whether Lennie may have actually been kicked in the head by a horse as a child (used by George as an excuse for Lennie), or was just born that way, O’Dowd’s performance as the tall, husky oaf with an obsession for petting small furry animals and soft sensual fabrics is deeply moving. Best known for starring in the film “Bridesmaids,” O’Dowd holds our attention by the sheer poignancy of his portrayal. Whether becoming agitated by the goading of the black stable hand or becoming sexually aroused by the insinuating moves of Curley’s wife, he makes it easy for us to respond empathetically to the simplicity of Lennie’s basic needs.

As keeper of the flame and Lennie’s fraternal protector, the multi-talented Franco (actor, director, screenwriter, producer teacher and author) commendably conveys the inner tenderness and outward strength that gives this pivotal character its principal resonance. The scenes, in which Lennie and George talk and dream of owning a farm together, are touching indeed and easily validate their friendship and the support they bring to each other. I liked the more emotionally disconnected migrant workers around them exist as distinct and illuminating worlds unto themselves.

The play reaches its most dramatic detour when a series of tragic accidents occur involving the combustible, bad-tempered Curley (Alex Morf), the farm’s bullying foreman and Curley’s manipulative, skittish wife (Leighton Meester). Jim Parrack fuels his role as Slim, the mule team foreman, with an appealing mix of compassion and virility. Notwithstanding the dying old dog and companion he drags along with him, Jim Norton targets our hearts, as the physically handicapped Candy, who regales us with a memory of his visit to a swank cat house twenty years ago. Jim Ortlieb, as The Boss, Joel Marsh Garland, as the feisty Carlson, James McMenamin, as the youthful Whit, and Ron Cephas Jones, as the embittered Crooks, contribute mightily to the reality.

Written one year before his masterpiece “The Grapes of Wrath,” but acknowledged as a stunning testament to the migrant workers who work with the dream of a better life “Of Mice and Men” is all about what Steinbeck saw first hand as a young man. What he brought to light remains true to this day only more global in its reach in light of the rampant and greedy exploitation by US companies of native workers in foreign countries.

"Of  Mice and Men"  (through July 27,2014)

For tickets ($42.00 - $135.00) call 212 - 239 - 6200

"A Raisin in the Sun" (opened April 3, 2014 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre)

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Sophie Okonedo and Denzel Washington with David Cromer, Bryce Clyde Jenkins, LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and Anika Noni Rose (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe) 

 Why is it that I can remember the night in 1959 that I first saw “A Raisin in the Sun.” The answer is simple. The late Lorraine Hansberry’s first play was wonderful, dramatic and emotionally stirring, but it was mainly the collectively electrifying performances of Sidney Poitier, Diana Sands, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, and Louis Gossett that really inspired the audience to stand (an unusual thing to happen at that time), applaud and cheer for what seemed like forever when the play ended.

A major revival in 2004, under the direction of Kenny Leon, introduced this terrific drama to a new audience. The draw wasn’t the play but the presence of rap raconteur/contemporary icon (P. Diddy) Sean Comb in the pivotal role of Walter Lee Younger, the young Chicago man whose dreams of becoming a success are continually being crushed by a lack of economic opportunity. His performance was commendable as was the production, but far from what might have been. Now ten years later and Leon has returned to direct a slightly more focused, yet undernourished, production but now with a very fine actor Denzel Washington playing Walter.

Acting a role that requires great virtuosity and formidable emotional fluctuations from desolation to exaltation, from despondency to joy are certainly within Washington’s reach, if he still, at the performance I saw, seemed a bit tentative with the dramatic highs and lows. The same could be said for the rest of cast as they appeared to also struggle, although rather valiantly, to take charge of the play’s incontestable dynamics.

As for play, whose title comes from a poem by Langston Hughes (“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a rain in the sun?), it is about an African-American family that attempts to reconcile the purchase of a house in a white neighborhood, cope with racism and resolve family problems. It was and remains a classic forerunner of its socially conscious genre. Credit the artistry of Hansberry for her plot which is pure honest family drama without any polemics or stereotypical posturing.

When a recent widow Lena Younger (a softly assertive performance by Latanya Richardson Jackson) receives $10,000 from her late husband’s insurance company, she becomes determined to move her family out of the dangerous south side of Chicago to the suburbs. Inevitably, Lena’s plan conflicts with the plans and wishes of the others. The desperate and reckless Walter Lee’s wants the money to open a Liquor store and the eldest daughter Beneatha (Anika Noni Rose) has her sights on attending medical school. Dragged into these conflicted priorities are Walter Lee’s wife Ruth (Sophie Okonedo) who works as a domestic, and their daughter Beneatha’s two suitors, the rich and stuffy Americanized George Murchison (Jason Dirden) and the Nigerian student Asagai (Sean Patrick Thomas), who wants to return to his roots with Beneatha. More seen than heard but with an obviously open eye and ear is Walter Lee and Ruth’s young son Travis (Bryce Clyde Jenkins). The only white provocateur is Karl Lindner (David Cromer), who, as a representative of the “neighborhood association” attempts to sweet talk the family from making a rash move.

The beauty of the play is not that it lacks archetypal types but that the characters are so authentically conceptualized and so completely convincing that they exist beyond whatever social or ideological tract is in Hansbury’s text by implication. Of course, I would have preferred if director Leon had pushed his actors a little farther. It is fortunate that both Washington and the luminous Rose ratchet up the dramatics at key moments.

Also excellent was Okonedo, whose unwavering performance conveys Ruth’s unflappable inner strength. Thomas gets his well-earned laughs as the Nigerian student Asagai. While it is good to see the sixty year old Washington play a character he should and could have played twenty years ago, one can only hope that the next time he looks for a vehicle it will be one of the great plays in the August Wilson canon. 

"A Raisin in the Sun" (through June 15, 2014)

Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street

South Pacific at the Paper Mill Playhouse

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Erin Macky and Mike McGowan (photo: Jerry Dalia)

I wasn't initially thrilled at the prospect of seeing South Pacific at the Paper Mill Playhouse so soon after basking in its glow during its acclaimed and extended run at Lincoln Center in 2008. But it only took the first few notes of the overture to have me once again under its spell. To read the entire review please go to http://curtainup.com/southpacificnj14.html