New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Strong design, acting in flawed play
Perhaps the most intriguing element of Dominique Morisseau’s wistfully tragic “Paradise Blue,” now at Long Wharf Theatre through Dec. 16, is the play’s title. In naming her play “Paradise Blue,” Morisseau fashions as tidy a piece of irony as one could desire.
Directed by Awoye Timpo, “Paradise Blue” is a story set in 1949 about a handful of denizens of The Paradise Club, a popular jazz hangout in a black neighborhood of Detroit called Black Bottom. It is one of roughly 400 thriving businesses owned, operated, and serving African Americans on the verge of extinction due to urban renewal.
The club’s owner, Blue (Stephen Tyrone Williams), also the trumpeter in his own house band, should be happy as a clam to run his own place and call his own tunes. His lover, Pumpkin (Margaret Odette), does everything for him, from cleaning the club and cooking to brightening up the place with her nurturing good cheer. Yet, as one readily surmises from his name, Blue is rather a sad figure. He’s haunted by his parents and his memory of their ruinous relationship, as well as his own self-doubt about
his musical talent. When the city offers to buy him out for $10,000, Blue sees a way to exorcise his demons and stake himself to a new life of genuine freedom.
Just as Blue set his plan into action, a stranger named Silver (Carolyn Michelle Smith) enters the scene with bold plans of her own. Silver is a siren who beguiles Blue’s bandmates Corn (Leon Addison Brown) and P-Sam (Freddie Fulton) with her walk, talk and penetrating eyes. She appears self-possessed, resourceful and street smart. Blue, however, will have none of it. He sees her as nothing but trouble, and his instincts may be right.
Soon enough we learn that all of these characters seek a “love supreme,” or something to free one’s soul. While Morisseau clearly reveals Blue’s aspirations early in the play, she leaks the other characters’ desires on a need-to-know basis. By the time all cards lay face up on the table, everyone is desperate to get what they need by any means necessary.
“Paradise Blue,” along with “Skeleton Crew” and “Detroit ’67,” is one third of Morisseau’s three-play cycle called “The Detroit Project,” inspired by August Wilson’s American Century Cycle. One perceives its debt to Wilson, whose style was naturalistic with elements of superstition, mysticism and haunting ghosts. Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” is foremost in mind as the club represents monetary advantage to Blue while Silver sees it as a crucial, historical necessity to preserving a culture on the cusp of elimination.
Like Wilson, Morisseau takes her time with small talk and leisurely pacing. What’s missing here, however, is careful construction leading to a conclusion that seems surprising yet inevitable. “Paradise Blue” lacks the genuine tension (whenever Silver exits the scene) and depth of characterization and subtlety replete in Wilson’s work. It’s ending seems rushed. The play offers less than what meets the eye.
The performances are nonetheless persuasive and the design team aptly transports the audience to a long ago and faraway world nearly forgotten by now. YuHsuan Chen’s set design stands out as one of the production’s strongest elements.
“Paradise Blue” is interesting in part, but somewhat listless overall. Enjoy the performances and design even if the play fails to palpably move you.