"Lady
Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill" is a stunning jazz cabaret
by Audra McDonald
"Lady Day at Emerson's
Bar & Grill."
Written by Lanie Robertson; directed by Lonny Price.
Circle in the Square, 50th Street between Bway & 8th Avenue, New
York City.
212-239-6200 or 800-432-7250.
http://ladydayonbroadway.com/.
Opened April 13, 2014; closes Oct 5, 2014.
Reviewed by Lucy Komisar April 18, 3014.
 |
| Audra
McDonald as Billie Holiday. Photo by Evgenia Eliseeva. |
Wrapped in a white gown, an iconic white gardenia in
her hair, Audra McDonald channels Billie Holiday — her voice,
her accent, her manner — till you believe you are sitting in
the slightly tacky Philadelphia dive where Holiday sang her last songs.
"What a little moonlight can do" becomes a magical mood
changer. It's helped by the dreamlike direction of Lonny Price.
One great –McDonald — sings another great, Lady Day. Her
imitation is brilliant. She has mastered Holiday's accent, a slight
trill, a broad vowel. Lady Day did blues with a jazz beat, following
mentors Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong.
McDonald sings Holiday's well-known songs as if they were dramas.
Her phrasing in "Strange Fruit" is a distinctive intense
call of pain.
The back story of her "God Bless the Child" is a parent
refusing to help a child. The projection on the wall is of Arthur
Herzog Jr., who wrote the song with Holiday. Herzog's father preferred
his sister, who ended up with most of the family money, so the song-writer
wrote, "God Bless the Child, who's got his own… [money]!"
Holiday's mother also refused the generosity her needy daughter required.
 |
| Audra
McDonald as Billie Holiday with bass player. Photo by Evgenia
Eliseeva. |
As an actress, McDonald movingly interprets the story
of Lady Day – arrested on a drug charge after her lover put
drugs in her suitcase. As a result, she couldn't get a cabaret card
to work in New York City, which destroyed her career. The play shows
her harassed by a parole officer.
The story is not only the tragic drama of one of America's greatest
artists, but a commentary about America's repressive drug laws, which
destroy people — black users jailed, white upper class Wall
Street/Hollywood users given a pass — while more harmful cigarettes
and alcohol remained legal because of the powerful corporations that
market them.
Holiday would have had an appropriately dark musical comment about
this happening in a country with a black president.
Visit Lucy Komisar’s website
http://thekomisarscoop.com |
