By James V. Ruocco
In "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill," jazz legend Billie Holiday takes center stage as playwright Lanie Robertson retraces a night in the singer's life, where, high on booze, Ms. Holiday attempts to wow a Philadelphia audience with songs and stories from her checkered past while falling apart, missing cues, stumbling, nearly collapsing and sometimes, not making any sense, whatsoever.
It's a performance - 90 minutes; no intermission - where Holiday holding a half-lit cigarette, guzzles vodka from a half-filled glass which she refills ten times over and talks about everything from being raped at the age of ten to being denied access to a restroom at a fancy nightclub where she was performing with bandleader Artie Shaw being she "was colored."
No matter. No explanation needed.
She just urinated all over the floor.
A close-up.
A snapshot.
A laugh.
A telling.
A sigh of relief.
But first, some facts about the great Lady Day.
She was born Eleanora Fagan on April 7,1915 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
As a child, she took a job doing chores and running errands for a local madam in exchange for the opportunity to play records on the Victrola.
As a teenager, she worked as a prostitute to survive.
She gave herself the name "Billie" because she adored silent screen film star Billie Dove.
Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith were among Holiday's early music influences.
She was continually plagued by bad relationships.
In the early 1940s, she started using heroin.
She was arrested on drug charges in 1947 and ended up spending several months in jail for possession.
Two years later, she was thrown in prison again after being caught with drugs by the police.
Her addiction continued throughout the 1950s which saw a decline in her career despite concert tours and the release of a few new jazz albums.
In May 1959, Holliday was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver.
She died on July 17, 1959, at the age of 44.
A star vehicle for any actress to inhabit and perform, "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" jump starts Playhouse on Park's brand new 2022-2003 season, which includes August Wilson's "Fences," Paula Vogel's "Indecent" and the 1940's musical "Bandstand."
It's not a great play, but the music, the stories, the banter, the backstage drama and the songs themselves transform Robertson's entertaining musical tale of woe, heartbreak and decline into a grand, applause-worthy telling of spellbound intimacy, nostalgia and emotion.
It's dark.
It's painful.
It's real.
It's raw.
It's smokey.
There's also plenty of drinking and swearing and teetering on edge as Robertson portrays the utterly wrecked, desperate, celebratory life of the late jazz singer with a magnetic voice whose shot to fame was full of despair, tragedy, substance abuse and a whole lot of darkness.
The centerpiece of "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" is, of course, the music - songs made famous by Holiday herself and songs made famous by others that she absolutely loved. Here, there are fifteen in all, in order of performance: "I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone," "When a Woman Loves a Man," "What a Little Moonlight Can Do," "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)," "Baby Doll," "God Bless the Child," "Foolin' Myself," "Somebody's on My Mind," "Easy Livin,' " "Strange Fruit," "T'ain't Nobody's Business If I Do," "What a Little Moonlight Can Do (reprise)" and "Deep Song."
Positioned in between the play's dialogue, stories and recollections, each of these musical numbers brings rhythm, voice and splendid musicality to the piece. They are smooth. They are clever. They are real. They are remarkable. They set the mood for the play and keep it going.
Introduced by band master Jimmy Powers - played here by actor and music director Nygel D. Robinson, Holiday's vocal turns in the spotlight are beautiful, page-turning and persuasive. and well, they should be.
As musical director, Robinson - at the piano - takes hold of the "Lady Day" songbook and does full justice to the singer's song repertoire and its unique blend of power, eloquence, urgency and hushed remembrance. Its sheer theatricality, intimacy and dramatic tension are scarcely dropped for a moment, which, in turn. adds a whooping realness and spirit to the proceedings, its musical flow, its hyperactive outbursts and its numbing, terrifying climax.
There's also a trust and unique bond between Robertson and his leading lady Danielle Herbert that gives "Lady Day" a thrilling, in-the-moment flourish and command that is shared by all. It's a splendid, impassioned touch of assurance, enhanced by the roar and sound of the Holiday music tapestry.
Providing a fixed point of trademark presence, confidence and sting, chock full of mood, swell and volume, director Stephanie Pope Lofgren - a performer herself - treats "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" as something special, making every detail, emotion, rasp and grasp of the Billie Holiday story feel totally natural and effortlessly instinctive.
Holiday didn't have an easy life - make no mistake about that - but here, with Lofgren pulling the strings, the darkness, the abuse, the prejudice and the craziness take a backseat - if only fleetingly - as Lofgren mixes things up with little rays of sunshine, dazzle, sway and charm. It's a directorial conceit that heightens the show's rhythm and pulse, its nostalgic feel, its musical wealth and its one-on-one connection between actor and audience. It also allows the material, in spite of some clunky, overlong passages, to breathe, resonate, grow, roll, entice and tug at the heart. Lofgren masters those feelings and many more as "Lady Day" inches toward its frightening, but entirely justified conclusion.
In the role of jazz songstress Billie Holiday, Danielle Herbert captures the style, the verve, the spirit, the persona and the uniqueness of the legendary performer. It's a star turn on every level, but, nonetheless, it is portrayed by the actress singer with a real rawness and gutsy honesty that captivates, stings and entices. Yes, Holiday was a mess. Yes, Holiday was a trainwreck. Yes, Holiday was damaged. But underneath it all, Herbert offers her audience a chilling portrait of a woman whose musical voice had a had a special sound and individuality of its own, graced with shadings, transformations, phrasings and intonations that were hers - and hers alone.
That distinctiveness, that swoon of a lyric, that sway and swagger, that established bantering - all flawlessly inhabited by Herbert - infuses her characterization with a dignity, an unpredictability and a disturbing underscoring that never once falters.
Photos courtesy of Meredith Longo
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