LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL. To 8 September.
London
LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL
by Lanie Robertson
New End Theatre To 8 September 2002
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat Sat & Sun 5pm
Runs 1hr 35min No interval
TICKETS 020 7794 0022
Review Timothy Ramsden 23 July
Simply staged, convincingly acted and sung, this is a production to show the personal pain and social pressures behind great singing.Lady Day was born Eleanora Fagan, but became known as Billie Holiday. There was a playfulness in the name-giving among family and friends, but it echoed too the distortions – amazing for the Land of the supposedly Free less than a century ago – social attitudes cast over the singer's career. Both aspects are caught in a vivid performance of Robertson's musical examination of Billie's life and personality.
Here's a singer who, being black, had to wait on a coach during concerts till her numbers came up: no dressing accommodation for her. Nor was it only racism: as a mere singer she was expected, through much of her career, to wait till the band had had a good blow through verse and chorus before she could start her contribution.
But there was racism, most sharply depicted in the story of a stop-off in a whites-only southern state diner. When, aching in the kidneys, she was denied use of a whites-only women's bathroom, Billie exploded in liquid glory across the smarmy female owner's shoes.
It recalls the defiant urinary cry of Pam Gems' Piaf. And, like Piaf, Billie became drug dependent, though she claims her imprisonment for drug-possession was taking the rap for her first husband. Everyone warned her against him, but she decided no-one would stop her loving whoever she wanted. Such inner assertiveness kept her alive When her mother, unwittingly, sent her to work in a brothel, Billie submitted (she'd been raped aged ten, so what the hell?). But when things grew too bad, she tramped New York's streets till she walked herself into a singing job.
This is Billie's story, accompanied by just an occasional grunt from keyboard wizard Wills as pianist, and dope supplier, Jimmy. There's no contrasting voice to challenge her account – we have to trust Robertson's offering us a character not merely a biographical mouthpiece.
The best reality check comes with the music, supposedly sung to an audience of four in Emerson's downbeat Philadelphia diner. Hope shows Billie's soul through her songs: often other people's words and tunes, but always made her own, from the autobiography of God bless the Child to the anti-lynching anthem Strange Fruit.
Billie Holiday: Dawn Hope
Jimmy Powers: Warren Wills
Director: Mark Clements
Designer: Chris Crosswell
Lighting: Alexandra Stafford
Sound: Nick Greenhill
Costume: Colin Mayes
Musical Director/Arranger: Warren Wills
2002-07-26 00:46:53