The Dramaworks season has ended but on a sad and powerfully
striking note. You’re not in West Palm
Beach, but at Emerson’s Bar and Grill in Philly in 1959, a kind of seedy place,
emblematic of the tail end of Billie Holiday’s life. A lonely table is in front of the bar, her
audience disappearing, along with her cabaret license consigning her to gigs
outside of some of the famous places and large audiences she commanded in her
past. This gig is at Dramaworks, the
stage having been transformed into this south side Philly night club, the
“small house” side of the club, where the locals perform, not the main
stage. Satellite lights hang over the
stage as well as the first few rows of the audience while red velour padded
walls float behind the performers. Perhaps “Mad Men “came here when in Philly on
business, downing a few during those late night performances. Dramaworks
has created the perfect time machine and the only thing missing from the
ambiance of this place are the cocktail waitresses serving the audience and cigarette
smoke heavily hanging in the air.
But we’ve come here to see Billie Holiday, or more
precisely a dramatic impression of her, not an impersonation. Tracey Conyer Lee channels Billie’s story,
pain, and songs during this 80 minute, intermissionless performance. She is an experienced actress, not a cabaret singer,
although one would not know that from this evocative portrayal. She is true to a remark once made by Billie
herself: “If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two
people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't
music.” During this performance we are
convinced it is Billie mournfully singing to us, truthfully talking to us. She follows
what Billie says in the play: “I’ve got to sing what I feel.”
Tracey Conyer Lee’s ability to pull off a legitimate gig must
be credited in part to her highly experienced and extraordinarily talented piano
accompanist, Brian P. Whitted who also plays the role of Billie’s manager,
Jimmy Powers. He is the musical director
of the show, and is ably assisted by Phil McArthur on the bass. There is the easy give and take between Billie
and Jimmy on stage – mostly by eye contact, so typical of the cabaret scene and
perhaps more typical of Billie’s routine at the end of her life. She needed to connect on all levels.
The playwright, Lanie Robertson, opens Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill
with a typical cabaret intro, a jazz piece played just by Whitted (Jimmie
Powers) and McArthur before Powers introduces Billie. You immediately know you are in the hands of
a great jazz pianist and accompanist.
Once introduced, Billy sings a couple of straight up pieces before beginning
to tell her story, addressing the audience, looking back at Powers from time to
time, looking for his approbation as well.
Once she begins her story between songs, she strolls over to the bar for
a drink, or two, then more, until the show, her songs and conversation become
darker, a little more rambling, when suddenly she desperately needs to take a
break backstage, Powers covering for her
with another solo. When she finally
reappears, her left elbow length glove is rolled down, bruises and track marks visible.
At this point she dons her trademark gardenia, but she is
now out of control, her songs disjointed, her accompanists trying to follow and
fill in. It is simply a bravura
performance by Tracey Conyer Lee, holding the audience spellbound. Yet at all times she manages to convey a
dignity that comes from true art. As she
says repeatedly in the show, even as she self destructs on stage, “singing is
living to me.” And then summing up her
life as a singer, “but they won’t let me.”
There are 14 songs in the show, with the dirge like
“Strange Fruit” commanding a hushed sadness.
Her iconic “God Bless the Child” is included, as well as one of my
favorites – one I play on the piano with some frequency – “Don’t Explain,” for
which she wrote the music. (“God Bless the Child” was also written by her but
“Strange Fruit” was not although she adopted it as her own – one does not think
of the song without thinking of Billie Holiday.) But many of the songs are ones I’ve rarely
heard her sing, such as “Crazy He Calls Me” which in part she sings, very
appropriately, to Powers. She gives a
tribute to Bessie Smith singing “Pig Foot (And a Bottle of Beer).” And believe me, Tracy Conyer Lee belts it
out!
Small ensemble plays like this might seem simple to put
together, especially with its reliance on primarily one character. But as J. Barry Lewis, Dramaworks experienced
director explained, to pull off an evening like this requires a subtle “emotional
layering” from the main character which is an extremely challenging job. Each element, the movements, the lighting,
the stage design have to be just about perfect to make the play transparent,
becoming a night back in the 1950s, one in which Billie Holiday reconciles
herself to the consequences of both victimization and poor choices in her
personal life. Jim Crow laws impacted
her ability to perform in the south. And
then there were her own personal tragedies, being raped as a child of 10, obsessed
with her first husband, Jimmy Monroe, known as “Sonny” (sometimes addressing
Powers as “Sonny” as the play devolves) who turned her on to heroin early in her
career. After doing a year of jail time
and losing her cabaret license, she was exiled from the big city night clubs,
and ultimately consigned to gigs at out of the way places. As she says in the
play, “I used to tell everybody when I die I don't care if I go to Heaven or
Hell long's it ain't in Philly.”
We see her grateful to be performing anywhere, just months
before the end of her life, standing there in her trademark white dress, a
vision designed and created by Leslye Menshouse, with her signature gardenia, a light in the darkest
days of her life. Particularly painful
is when she laments about always wanting to have a little home, children, and
to experience the simple joys of cooking.
At the heart of it all she is an artist and the Dramaworks team captures
the moment.
Mr. Lewis is assisted by the rest of his able team of
technicians. The lighting design by Kirk
Bookman is especially important in this play, a spotlight on Lady Day as she
sings, stage lighting changing colors to suit the song such as dappled blue
when she sings the iconic “God Bless the Child.” His focus spot on her and then
diminishing in size to her face and then fade out at the end, the level of her
voice in sync, is the perfect ending. The scenic design by Jeff Cowie captures that
late 50’s lounge feeling inside a large oval construct and the sound design by
Richard Szczublewski completes the illusion.
As Billie once commented, “There's no damn business like
show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up.” However, this is one performance not to be
missed, a fitting end to Dramaworks’ season.
The person sitting next to me said she saw the recent NYC production of
the play with Audra McDonald and Dramaworks exceeded that production in every respect. I believe it.
