Blues in the Night

Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
Through May 27

RECOMMENDED:

Blues in the Night was first produced in 1982 and has since been staged several times in New York and Southern California. Initially conceived and directed by Sheldon Epps, who also directs here, this latest production in the Lovelace Studio Theater at the Wallis Annenberg Center is a lush and lovely show. Its visuals — set by John Iacovelli, lighting by Jared A. Sayeg, costumes by Dana Rebecca Woods — serve as an illustrative packaging for Chapman Roberts’s outstanding vocal arrangements and musical direction, and Sy Johnson’s mellifluous orchestrations. The female vocalists — Yvette Cason, Paulette Ivory, Bryce Charles, three of the four featured performers — take you down and deep with their rich expressive voices. And the songs aren’t all about weeping and broken hearts – they are also funny and ironical. It’s an evocative, entertaining show.

The set conjures a 1930s rundown hotel with a flickering neon sign, emblematic of the moods of its down-and-out residents. Three blues-laden women abide there: the seasoned, cynical Lady from the Road (Cason) still able to laugh at herself and at life; the Girl with a Date (Charles), a younger gal who’s melancholy but not yet jaded; and the Woman of the World (Ivory), sultry and sexy and fond of her whisky.

The fourth character, Chester Gregory’s sly, toe-tapping Man in the Saloon, is a composite scoundrel, a stand-in for every double-talking ladies’ man to ever park his shoes under a vulnerable woman’s bed., although he too has his longings and his woes and (in Baby Doll by Bessie Smith) sings about wanting loving for himself.

Blues in the Night doesn’t have a book or a conventional plot: it relies, successfully, on the emotionally resonant songs and their accompanying visuals to craft portraits of these various people and shape their stories. There are so many terrific songs, some solo, some rendered in harmony, that it’s hard to laud one above the others. Bessie Smith’s “Blue Blues” is the opening group number (“When your man is gone, the rent is all due”); it segues to Willard Robinson’s “Four Walls and One Dirty Window Blues” intercut with the upbeat “I’ve Got a Date with a Dream,” as the ladies’ bustle in preparation for a big night. Later, Smith’s “Dirty No-Gooder’s Blues,” is half sung, half confidingly spoken by the jaunty Lady, who reflects on a man that got away (and she might be better for it after all).

Jimmy Cox’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” stands out for its extraordinary harmonies and unusual and splendid arrangement. Leola and Wesley Wilson’s “Take Me for a Buggy Ride,” also sung by Cason as the Lady” is a buoyant celebration of physical affection at its finest. What makes all these numbers so effective is the finely hewn subtext each of these for talents bring to the lyrics.

Kudos to the band, who perform under the direction   of Abdul Hamid Royal. They include Lanny Hartley on piano, Kevin O’Neal on bass, Randall Willis and Louis Van Taylor on reeds, Lance Lee on percussion and Fernando Pullum on trumpet.

Lovelace Studio Theatre at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills; Tues.-Sun., 8 p.m.; Sat.- Sun., 2:30 p.m.; through May 27. Thewallis.org/Blues or 310-746-4000310-746-4000. Running time: Two hours and 15 minutes, with intermission.