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THEATER Jammin' With Pops
by MARY SHEN BARNIDGE
2003-12-17
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This article shared 4086 times since Wed Dec 17, 2003
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The play's setting is a shabby warm-up room at a club somewhere on 'the road' sometime around 1965, where the great Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong—now affectionately known as 'Pops'—is touring with his band. Their line-up tonight includes a new guitar player, a 'progressive' hipster disdainful of the headliner's old-fashioned image. They are finished for the night, when who should drop in but Ella Fitzgerald? Her ostensible purpose is a friendly visit, but wouldn't you know that the diva has something on her mind, the discovery of which requires two hours of making music and looking back on the events that transformed both these humbly born artists into superstars of their genre? The stage is too small for this to be the Beacon Street Hull House, and the audience too subdued for us to be attending one of Jackie Taylor and Jimmy Tillman's musical biodramas for Black Ensemble Theatre. But once the déjà vu passes, Barry Harman's cabaret-sized revue gets down to the business of cueing up a retrospective of its stars' greatest hits, rescued from simple inventory by a clumsily contrived string of personal recollections, discussions of the changing status of Colored/Negro/Black entertainers, and some ribald humor involving an overdose of laxatives. Redeeming the drollery of Harman's script is a stellar company assembled by director Chuck Smith, starting with Felicia P. Fields, whose vitality and charisma amplify Fitzgerald's mannerisms to transcend simple mimicry. In the role of Pops himself, Joseph Plummer replicates his persona's gravel-bottomed voice and blurred delivery with uncanny accuracy, even when the icons join in a medley from George Gershwin's American opera, Porgy And Bess ( written for baritone and soprano, but who's quibbling? ) Providing textual harmony are Don Shell as fussy sidekick Smiley and the protean Kenn E. Head as swaggering guitarman Johnny G. Add a salt-and-pepper trio of accompanists —Malcolm Ruhl on bass, Walter Kindred on drums, and musical director Francesco Milioto on piano—dress it up in Keith Pitts' museum-accurate scenery and costumes, with Marla Lampert on hand to keep the joint jumping, and what you get is an invigorating survey course for geographically deprived jazz fans in the north suburbs. |
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This article shared 4086 times since Wed Dec 17, 2003
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