Michael & Suz Karchmer
Tracey Conyer Lee as Lady Day.
Capital City Theatre’s production of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill begins with a pause. The piano player, Jimmy Powers, and an unnamed bassist and drummer take their places on the small stage of the bar in Philadelphia, ready to begin a show in March 1959, but nothing happens.
Jimmy, the stalwart straight man for his diva headliner, strolls calmly to the bar and pours a glass of water for the chanteuse, placing it on his piano so it will be in easy reach when she is performing. But when Lady Day enters, it’s clear that Billie Holiday will need more than just water and a confident friend to make it through her performance.
Eyes wide with dread, she stumbles towards her place behind the microphone and gradually talks herself into the confidence she will need to sing the songs that made her famous — “A Little Moonlight,” “God Bless the Child,” “Strange Fruit” and a catalogue of my-man-done-me-wrong songs.
Far from the heady days of her stardom, Holiday is tired. She’s suffering from multiple ailments and addictions that will end her life in just a few months. And she has been through too much — from abusive husbands, to racial humiliations in the unsegregated South, to jail time for possession of heroin, to ridicule from radio DJs who say her singing isn’t what it used to be.
As audience members at the club, we learn about Holiday’s life in stories she relates between her program of standards and gulps of Coleman’s gin. Her mellifluous, textured voice brims with otherworldly emotion, contrasting with her vitriolic rants about all that has broken her down. The combination is captivating and tragic.
Michael & Suz Karchmer
Tracey Conyer Lee as Lady Day.
Tracey Conyer Lee is stunning as the legendary singer who mastered her art by listening to Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong records in a brothel. A seasoned performer with substantial credits off-Broadway, in regional theaters and on television, she easily captures Holiday’s signature sound. True to the moment depicted here, she seems most happy and relaxed when she is lost in the melody of one of her songs. From her first moments on stage, where she is clearly working to put on a happy face for her audience, Lee slowly reveals her character’s panic and pain. She seasons stories of the injustices she has suffered with laughter and profanity at the start, but gradually unwinds until her personal horror — along with fresh needle tracks on her arm — is plainly on display. Her rendition of “Strange Fruit” is chilling. Her two-hour journey, spiraling downwards into silence, is harrowing.
Accomplished pianist Kenney M. Green does his best as Jimmy Powers to keep the show on track, musically. A steadying force in Holidays’ chaotic life, he cajoles her repeatedly to sing after she gets sidetracked, recounting her former successes and current misery. A masterful musician, his calm is a great foil for Holiday’s recklessness.
The only weak point in the show, which runs through April 8 at Overture Center, is the script itself. Written by Lanie Robertson, Holiday’s monologues between songs are occasionally too long, bogged down with straight exposition that makes us anxious to get back to the poetry of her music.
Aside from the asides, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill is successful. This is not only due to its small and terrifically talented cast, but also because it’s presented in an ideal venue: Overture’s Wisconsin Studio. With a small stage at one end of the hall, cabaret tables throughout and an actual bar at the entrance, the room is large enough to fit a decent crowd, but small enough to feel intimate. Even better, the sound in the space is perfectly balanced.
If only Billy Holiday could have found similar balance in her music and her life.
