‘LADY DAY’ A POIGNANT, HEARTBREAKING PLAY
Karole Foreman doesn’t just play Billie Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” she slips into the late, great jazz singer’s skin and lives a lifetime during the 90-minute musical.
“Lady Day” opened Friday at Cygnet Theatre in Old Town San Diego, in a co-production with Ebony Repertory Theatre of Los Angeles. Ebony founder Wren T. Brown directed the production, which is gripping, beautifully performed and heartbreaking.
Foreman, who grew up in San Diego and has appeared many times on local stages, has starred in “Lady Day” five times, so her absorption into the role is seamless.
She beautifully captures Holiday’s spontaneity and saucy tongue, her unique vocal phrasing and, most achingly, her pain. Almost from the beginning of the show to the end, Foreman is steadily wiping tears from her face as she weaves stories of heartbreak, humiliation and too-brief moments of happiness between 13 of Holiday’s most famous songs.
Lanie Robertson’s jukebox musical is set in March 1959, four months before Holiday would die from a heart attack at 44. Holiday’s body was worn down by her struggles with alcohol and heroin addiction, both of which she consumes during
this show, which is a set at the former Emerson’s restaurant in her hometown of Philadelphia.
In the story, Holiday has been booked for a concert, but she’s easily distracted. Her pianist — played by the fleet-fingered and responsive Damon Carter, who is also the show’s music director — has to work doubly hard to keep her from rambling on too much and wandering into the audience, consuming too much liquor or sneaking off to shoot up some “moonlight” in her dressing room.
Addiction may have been Holiday’s affliction, but her greatest struggles were with the psychological damage she suffered due to childhood neglect, domestic abuse, predatory men and, most significantly,
overt racism. By the time she takes the stage at Emerson’s, Holiday is at loose ends. She longs to make a fresh start as the “new” Billie, who doesn’t wear gardenias in her hair anymore and no longer sings her two most famous songs, “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit,” because of the painful memories they invoke. But old habits die hard.
Standout numbers in the show are the smoothly delivered “Crazy He Calls Me”; the bluesy “Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer,” written by Holiday’s idol Bessie Smith; “God Bless the Child,” which Holiday wrote about her mother; “T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do”; and the deeply haunting lynching dirge “Strange Fruit.”
It’s not necessary to know anything about Holiday before seeing “Lady Day.” Through the script, Foreman covers all of the highs and lows of Holiday’s life. But knowing Holiday’s sound and performance style in advance will certainly leave you more impressed by how Foreman embraces the role.
The production features nightclub scenic design by Edward E. Haynes Jr., lighting by Donna Ruzika, costumes by Kimberly DeShazo and sound by Evan Eason.
In “Lady Day,” Billie Holiday is at the nadir of her life, but in Foreman’s sure hands, she’s still at the peak of her musicality. Her performance is one of the best I’ve seen so far this year.