(Craig Schwartz Photography)
Holy Toledo. I just saw Karole Foreman as jazz singer Billie Holiday in Cygnet Theatre’s “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.”
Playwright Lanie Robertson’s script takes us with Billie as she performs her way through a typical show at Emerson’s Bar and Grill (or maybe it was several parts of several shows there).
“Typical” isn’t a term I’d use to describe anything she does other than sing, because Lady Day’s life was atypical, to say the least. But director Wren T. Brown packs a lot of life and many of her problems into Billie’s comments in between songs, so we get a little bio, some history and a lot of song into the whole.
She wanted to sing everywhere, anywhere, but found jobs difficult to find, largely (we assume) because of her race. She was from Philadelphia, and that’s where we see her working. She wanted to broaden her appeal in, say, New York but was never able to get work there.
She had plenty of fame based on her talent, but as time went on, she started using drugs, many of them illegal such as marijuana, opium, cocaine and heroin, making her a target for the federal government’s Bureau of Narcotics. She served almost a year in Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia on a possession of narcotics charge.
Some suspect that she may have been bisexual or omnisexual; she did speak of sleeping with women during her time(s) in prison.
This is the fifth time Foreman is portraying Lady Day in this 1986 musical, and she does it with grace, style and emotion. I’ve never seen anyone else do it, and after seeing Foreman I don’t want to.
This is a show seldom seen onstage. It’s not a cheery topic, nor a happy outcome, but it’s a fine portrayal.
The details
“Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” plays through Feb. 18, 2024 at Cygnet Theatre, 4040 Twiggs Street in the Old Town State Historic Park.
Shows at 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; matinees at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.
Tickets ($39 and up) at cygnettheatre.com or (619) 337-1525
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