Lady Day Sings and Laments at Dramaworks

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.

 

Thursday Morning “Scouting Report”

Last night there was lots of hubbub at the Class A+ ballgame in Jupiter, the Hammerheads playing the Charlotte Stone Crabs, as Christian Yelich from the Miami Marlins who’s been on their DL was making a rehab appearance.  As an established major league player he drew much attention, some of the crowd not remembering he played for the Hammerheads only a few years.  When I saw him as a minor leaguer one could see the potential.  He reminded me of Jacoby Ellsbury, then with the Red Sox and now with the Yankees.  He has that lanky look, a quick left-handed bat, and speed around the bases.  He went 2 for 4 in the Hammerheads 3-2 loss to the Crabs, a double and a single – stealing 2^nd base and going around to 3^rd on a throwing error.  He flew.  I guess he’s ready to go off the DL

A couple of other interesting items  The Hammerheads started a lefty, Alex Burgos who seemed to have ordinary stuff, went three innings, gave up four hits but no runs and had no BB or SOs.  What I found interesting is that he was born in Regensburg, Germany, a beautiful city that we’ve been to on the Rhine. (Not many BB players can claim that distinction.) He played his college baseball here in Florida though. He’s knocked around the minors for five years now, and he’s going to have to develop some finesse pitches with pinpoint placement to make up for his lack of an overpowering fast ball.

 

On the other side of the coin, Esmerling De La Rosa, the losing pitcher (gave up one run in two innings, but with two SOs), was bringing heat at 95 mph, and although he has had control issues in the minors, he seems to be improving.  It helps to be able to throw in the mid 90s.  So, who knows, maybe one of these guys will make it to the majors, but there is work to be done!

I should add that Buddy Borden, who pitched for the Crabs (Tampa Bay affiliate), threw like a mature pitcher although only 23 years old, fast ball in the low 90s, a good curve ball, moving the ball around.  He gave up one run in five innings and thus far this year has shown great control with only 5 walks and 21 strikeouts in 21 innings.  Looks like Tampa might have a future starter.

Beautiful night last night for BB!

 

How “Terribly Strange” To Be 70

The always erudite investment manager, Bill Gross, has turned the Big Seven Zero.  As he now observes in his recent missive, A Sense of an Ending, “a 70-year-old reads the obituaries with a self-awareness as opposed to an item of interest.”  He conflates his own end of life angst with the end of a market propped up by unsustainable central bank machinations.  He also cites Julian Barnes’ novel, The Sense of an Ending, which similarly caught my attention, perhaps because Bill and I are about the same age, although I reached the magic 70 mark a couple of years ago, sharing the occasion with my family on a cruise.

Barnes should be the spokesperson for our generation with his non-fiction work Nothing to be Frightened Of required reading.  I’ve already quoted one of the brilliant passages from that book in a previous entry, but it bears repeating: “It is not just pit-gazing that is hard work, but life-grazing.  It is difficult for us to contemplate, fixedly, the possibility, let alone the certainty, that life is a matter of cosmic hazard, its fundamental purpose mere self-perpetuation, that it unfolds in emptiness, that our planet will one day drift in frozen silence, and that the human species, as it has developed in all its frenzied and over-engineered complexity will completely disappear and not be missed, because there is nobody and nothing out there to miss us.  This is what growing up means.  And it is a frightening prospect for a race which has for so long relied upon its own invented gods for explanation and consolation.”

I’ve now had a couple of years to “look back” at the consequences of turning 70.  While philosophically I agree with Barnes, it is the avoidance of despair during the remaining years which is the challenge.  It’s probably why us herd of the retired “keep busy.”  But as much as we try not to think about it, for many of us turning 70 is like throwing on a light switch (or maybe, more aptly, turning it off).  Suddenly, the body rebels at being kept going beyond its normal shelf expiration date.  More parts wear out and medical technology is more than happy to figure out a way to keep us going.  As a friend of ours puts it, “I have body parts on order.”

Unquestionably the worst part of the whole process is watching friends battle unspeakable illnesses or going through invasive surgery to keep the body going, with the attendant weeks or even months of rehabilitation.  As we all joke, it’s better than the alternative. Hey, we're on the right side of the grass!  But with increasing frequency we hear about another friend, a relative, or a high school / college alumnus who has succumbed to the inevitable.

As readers of this blog know, one of the activities I’ve steeped myself in since retiring (and therefore, “keeping busy”) is playing the piano, mostly The Great American Songbook pieces.  I recently came across -- buried in my sheet music – some of the music of Paul Simon written in the 1960s.  During those days, that was the type of music I played, but have long abandoned.  So I found myself playing some again, particularly Old Friends which opens with two beautiful Major 7^th chords, A-major-7 (“Old”) and then E-Major-7 (“friends”).

I’m a "serial piano player" and once I attach myself to a song, I play it over and over again, trying different adaptations.  My mind wanders sometimes and, in the case of this song, remembering my thoughts of the lyrics when I used to play it nearly 50 years ago. Today they have a significance quite different than when I was younger, particularly the phrase from the B section of the song, “Can you imagine us/Years from today/Sharing a park bench quietly?/How terribly strange/To be seventy/Old Friends “

The true meaning of lyrics when I played the song back in the 1960s seemed foreign, unthinkable.  My being 70 at the time seemed to be in a one-to-one relationship with eternity.  Eternity has arrived.

So, Bill, welcome to the club!

Fifty Years in a Flash

By George!

It always amazes me how many creative people labor away anonymously, eclipsed by what passes as “artistry” in our world of popular culture.  Their stories need to be told.

One such person is George Moffett.  We befriended George and his wife Suzanne quite by accident.  They were strolling down the dock where we kept our boat late on a summer afternoon in Connecticut.  At the time we had just purchased a 40’ Hatteras to live on during the summer months after having recently moved to Florida and we were working away, thoroughly cleaning the boat, I on the outside and Ann in the galley when a couple around our age stopped to chat. 

They had a smaller boat on another dock but said the life we were living was their dream, especially on a boat of this nature.  So I said, would you like to see it even though it’s not exactly ship shape right now, we just bought it.  We would love to, was their immediate reply.  I ducked my head into the boat to tell Ann we have some visitors.  What, she replied, the boat’s a mess!  They know, don’t worry!  So they came aboard for a tour and before we knew it we ended up sitting on the back deck for hours, Ann having whipped up some impromptu appetizers, drinking wine, watching the sunset and talking.  It felt like we had known them forever.  That was thirteen years ago and over this time, we forged a meaningful friendship.

While still living in Connecticut they planned a road trip to Florida primarily to see their daughter who lived in Ft. Lauderdale at the time as well as a first-time brief visit to our home.  On their way down they received terrible news, their beloved only child, Kelly, had suddenly died from an interaction of her medications and they were asked to pick up her remains.  

When Suzanne called us with that shocking news she told us they were then heading back to Connecticut.   Ann insisted that they at least come for lunch.  They agreed and finally decided to just stay the night as we would not hear of their driving any further that day.  But as they grieved and we lent emotional support to the best of our ability, we persuaded them to stay several more days, needing to recuperate from such an overwhelming trauma.  During that time we became even closer as we talked and shared our histories.  It was then that we learned some surprising things about George, who we discovered was a talented artist as well as a musician, picking up both creative endeavors later in his life.

Before this tragic event they had sold their home in Westport, bought a condo in Milford as well as the boat of their dreams, a 43’ Hatteras.  Only three days after holding a memorial service for Kelly, George had a life-threatening stroke and was hospitalized in St. Vincent's Hospital in Bridgeport and spent more than three weeks there undergoing daily therapy.  

The prognosis was poor – he may never walk again unaided and he might have difficulty expressing himself. He was seen by the traditional medical community and an acupuncturist and although they were very instrumental in his recovery, equal credit goes to George for his determination to regain his cognitive and physical abilities, even when the medical community had its doubts.  Each day he wrote in a journal and although initially it was all gibberish due to the stroke, slowly it began to make sense.  He forced his mind to work again and to this day he writes in a journal, like a runner would run miles to stay in shape.  Almost all of his physical abilities returned as well. It was at that time they decided to move to Savannah and to sell the boat. 

George worked as a house painter most of his life.  He had his own business.  That morphed into faux painting skills with his work in large demand by owners of some very beautiful Fairfield County estates.  His creative energy was expressed in that form as well.

As a younger man it also came out in music.  George and Suzanne had several musician friends such as the baritone sax player, Jon Lanni, who played with musical great Maynard Ferguson as well as a bass player, Walter Urban, and many others.   Walter was in the market for a new bass and Suzanne approached him to purchase his "older" bass for George who always wanted to learn how to play an instrument but was discouraged to do so since his two brothers before him failed at their own musical efforts.   Suzanne wrapped up this gift in some pretty white paper and a big red bow and placed it right in the middle of the living room as a big “surprise” for George……like an old friend who just happened along.  "Hurry home, George," it called out to him, as Suzanne fondly remembers.  So you could say that she was very instrumental in creating George, the musician, while having to listen to the screeching sounds as he practiced and eventually learned how to play.

George then began to study with a number of teachers including Clyde Lombardi, a well known American jazz bassist who had extensive classical training.  Before long – and this is while he worked as a house/faux painter, George became a keen student of jazz and started a second career playing gigs in Fairfield County, and New York City, including accompanying the piano great, John Mehegan as well as many other fine musicians in the area.  Can you imagine picking up this incredible skill in mid life and playing at a professional level?

But then on to his discovery of the inner artist. One day George came across several oil paintings that so inspired him that he decided to contact the artist, Frank Covino, who had an art academy in Fairfield, Ct.  George enrolled and a whole new expression of art came to life. You might say an artist was discovered.  Many of the paintings depicted here are from those early days, particularly the portraits.  He sometimes worked from photographs, but frequently just as he imagined the person. His portrait of Rembrandt was painted during one long day and strictly from memory.

After the stroke, his musical days were behind him, and he had given up on art as well while he worked at his recovery.  But two years later he said it was time.  His first post-stroke attempt was of a woodpecker, but he was discouraged by it and again put his painting aside for awhile.  Eventually he went back to it, deciding he would let the painting “do him” rather than his attempting to “do the painting” so it was at this time he began to do abstracts and to this day his art has sustained him. 

So when Ann visited Suzanne in Savannah recently – a “girl’s weekend” – I gave her a camera and asked her to take some photographs of his paintings.  Unfortunately a few were unavoidably photographed at an angle and others taken with a flash, both of which distort the painting.  But she did the best she could and with some editing I’ve managed to use as many as possible.  They tell the story of a man who found recovery through art, as well as showcasing a remarkably creative person.  Hopefully, this blog entry preserves some of his work.

Using most software, you can click onto the first photograph and create a slide show.  The paintings are labeled as part of the JPEG title.  George has successfully worked in portrait, animal, and abstract painting, all in oil and all truly remarkable.