Diversions > Theater
Blues in the Night
St. Louis Black Repertory Company
Friday, June 12, 2009 10:43 AM CDT
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Play: Blues in the Night
Group: St. Louis Black Repertory Company
Venue: Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square
Dates: Through June 28
Tickets: From $25.50 to $43; contact 314-534-3810 or HYPERLINK "http://www.theblackrep.org"www.theblackrep.org
Story: In a rundown Chicago hotel in 1938, three women and a man share their joys, trials and tribulations as they describe the good times and the bad in a musical revue of blues tunes that give melodic and lyrical shape to their varied emotions.
Highlights: First conceived by Sidney Epps as an Off-Broadway production in 1980, Blues in the Night later appeared on Broadway in 1982 and in London’s West End in 1987, garnering praise, Tony Award and Olivier Award nominations along the way. The high-energy revue incorporates stylish songs by numerous songwriters of the Great American Songbook, such as Bessie Smith, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, and delivers them with verve, gusto and panache in this handsome Black Rep production directed by Ron Himes.
Between Himes’ smooth guidance of his players, the easy pace of the show and the appealing touch of music director Charles Creath and his tight combo, the production is fluid and appealing throughout. Its two acts offer a veritable smorgasbord of vintage blues tunes that are shaped by a quartet of rousing performers who portray characters aptly named The Lady, The Woman, The Girl and The Man.
Other Info: J. Samuel Davis shines as the lone male singer. His character is a charming ne’er-do-well who never met a job he liked or a woman he didn’t think he could impress. His velvet baritone winningly carries an upbeat tune such as Ellington and Mack David’s I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So or the impish Wild Women Don’t Have The, while his comic abilities present amusing segues between numbers.
The three females offer jaded, bittersweet or naïve approaches to love, marvelously interpreted by Anita Jackson as The Lady, Willena Vaughn as The Woman and Leah Stewart as The Girl. While Stewart displays a fine voice and contributes to the dramatic impact of the lyrics, she can’t compete with the heavyweight blues belted out so artistically by Jackson and Vaughn. Jackson lustily warbles the abundant double entendres in Kitchen Man and wistfully extolls the New Orleans Hop Scop Blues, while Vaughn puts her ingratiating touch on the classic Stompin’ at the Savoy and saltily delivers the Earth Woman mantra for a Rough and Ready Man.
Pianist Creath’s jazzy combo of bassist Theodore Harden, trumpeter Joshua Williams and drummer Molden Picket is tucked neatly off to one side of Regina Garcia’s lush set, which features a trio of bedrooms that rise above a central performing area, handsomely illuminated by Kathy Perkins’s lights. Reggie Ray’s costumes are a panoramic splendor of hues and wild fashions for Jackson and Vaughn along with some spiffy threads for Davis and Stewart.
These characters may be singing the blues, but the Black Rep production is anything but melancholy.
Rating: A 4 on a scale of 1-to-5.
Group: St. Louis Black Repertory Company
Venue: Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square
Dates: Through June 28
Tickets: From $25.50 to $43; contact 314-534-3810 or HYPERLINK "http://www.theblackrep.org"www.theblackrep.org
Story: In a rundown Chicago hotel in 1938, three women and a man share their joys, trials and tribulations as they describe the good times and the bad in a musical revue of blues tunes that give melodic and lyrical shape to their varied emotions.
Highlights: First conceived by Sidney Epps as an Off-Broadway production in 1980, Blues in the Night later appeared on Broadway in 1982 and in London’s West End in 1987, garnering praise, Tony Award and Olivier Award nominations along the way. The high-energy revue incorporates stylish songs by numerous songwriters of the Great American Songbook, such as Bessie Smith, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, and delivers them with verve, gusto and panache in this handsome Black Rep production directed by Ron Himes.
Between Himes’ smooth guidance of his players, the easy pace of the show and the appealing touch of music director Charles Creath and his tight combo, the production is fluid and appealing throughout. Its two acts offer a veritable smorgasbord of vintage blues tunes that are shaped by a quartet of rousing performers who portray characters aptly named The Lady, The Woman, The Girl and The Man.
Other Info: J. Samuel Davis shines as the lone male singer. His character is a charming ne’er-do-well who never met a job he liked or a woman he didn’t think he could impress. His velvet baritone winningly carries an upbeat tune such as Ellington and Mack David’s I’m Just a Lucky So-and-So or the impish Wild Women Don’t Have The, while his comic abilities present amusing segues between numbers.
The three females offer jaded, bittersweet or naïve approaches to love, marvelously interpreted by Anita Jackson as The Lady, Willena Vaughn as The Woman and Leah Stewart as The Girl. While Stewart displays a fine voice and contributes to the dramatic impact of the lyrics, she can’t compete with the heavyweight blues belted out so artistically by Jackson and Vaughn. Jackson lustily warbles the abundant double entendres in Kitchen Man and wistfully extolls the New Orleans Hop Scop Blues, while Vaughn puts her ingratiating touch on the classic Stompin’ at the Savoy and saltily delivers the Earth Woman mantra for a Rough and Ready Man.
Pianist Creath’s jazzy combo of bassist Theodore Harden, trumpeter Joshua Williams and drummer Molden Picket is tucked neatly off to one side of Regina Garcia’s lush set, which features a trio of bedrooms that rise above a central performing area, handsomely illuminated by Kathy Perkins’s lights. Reggie Ray’s costumes are a panoramic splendor of hues and wild fashions for Jackson and Vaughn along with some spiffy threads for Davis and Stewart.
These characters may be singing the blues, but the Black Rep production is anything but melancholy.
Rating: A 4 on a scale of 1-to-5.
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