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Recorded in Hollywood: The Musical
Reviewed by Bill Raden
Lillian Theatre
Through May 17
RECOMMENDED:
Recorded In Hollywood: The Musical isn’t the first book musical to touch on the nexus between the cultural foment of midcentury African-American popular music and the Civil Rights Movement (e.g., 2002’s hit Broadway cartoon, Hairspray). But book writers Matt Donnelly and Jamelle Dolphin’s warm and embracing celebration of Los Angeles’s R&B music scene of the 1950s may be the first to credit music’s catalytic push for desegregation to a visionary black business leader rather than a callow white hipster.
Which is not to say that Lovin’ John Dolphin, the story’s pioneering music producer-promoter-record store owner and impresario/protagonist (and Jamelle’s real-life grandfather), is some sort of Martin Luther King Jr. in a tailored sharkskin suit. In Stu James’s appealing portrayal, he is an all-too human, almost classically flawed figure, driven by the singular insight that there is money to be made in the crossover appeal of the musical renaissance erupting on Central Avenue. And if that means ruffling some racial feathers, so be it.
Powered by composer-lyricist Andy Cooper’s accomplished mix of original, vintagy R&B ballads, pop spirituals and doo-wop numbers (along with several familiar covers, all under arranger Stephan Terry’s capable music direction), Recorded in Hollywood becomes both a knowing musicological evocation of the time as well as a kind of inspirational hymn to black aspiration and self-reliance.
The centerpiece of the show is Dolphins of Hollywood, Lovin’ John’s legendary and innovative, 24-hour record store that gets economically but effectively rendered on Joel Daavid’s rotating-flats set. However, it is the strictly segregated offstage landscape of L.A.’s technically illegal but brutally police-enforced “restrictive covenants” of the day that injects the narrative with much of its gripping tension (the city’s most infamous racial enforcer even makes a cameo in the form of Philip Dean Lightstone as police chief William Parker).
Anchoring the story’s moral center is Jade Johnson as Lovin’ John’s wife Ruth. Johnson makes a creditable stab, but she frankly has little to work with in the book’s too-archetypical and underwritten portrait of nobility and emotional perseverance in the face of vicissitudes of the philandering kind. The point gets made but without the fireworks of a brassier characterization suggested, say, by Aretha Franklin’s immortal cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect.”
For those kinds of sparks, director Denise Dowse’s buoyant production relies on the considerable pleasures of Cooper’s tunesmithing, choreographer Cassie Crump’s rousing company dance numbers and the vocal talents of an impressive supporting ensemble.
The evening’s best pipes award goes to Jenna Gillespie, Katherine Washington, Brooke Brewer and Sha’Leah Nikole Stubblefield on the gospel-inflected sizzler, “Can You Help Me Out.” But Godfrey Moye’s silky impersonation of Sam Cooke on a cover of “You Send Me,” and John Devereaux’s vocals on the Penguins’ classic “Earth Angel” are also superb.
Hair designer Aishah Williams’ period styling and witty wig work deserves special mention, especially when it comes to transforming (with the help of costumer Mylette Nora) Franklin Grace, Nic Hodges, and Matthew Sims Jr. into Dolphin’s brilliantine-slicked doo-wop recording artists The Hollywood Flames.
The show is not without its flaws. The (uncredited) sound design’s microphone mix was all over the place on opening night, which at times swallowed up the more delicate voices. And the perfectly serviceable Donnelly and Dolphin book still feels a draft shy, it’s depiction of the era’s very real cop-on-black too pallid, for the abundant riches of this under-told chapter of L.A. history to truly soar.
Lilian Theatre, 1076 Lillian Way, Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.; through May 17. (323) 960-4443, recordedinhollywood.com.
