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Regional Reviews: Washington, D.C. Bessie's Blues Also see Susan's reviews of Gigi and The Widow Lincoln
MetroStage has presented numerous bio-musicals recounting the lives and hit songs of bygone performers, but Bessie's Blues paints on a larger canvas than that. Thomas W. Jones II—author, director, and choreographer—allows speech to flow into song (both Bessie Smith originals and newer ones) in his impressionistic view of Bessie's role as a creative force and ambassador of the blues. He also shows how the music has continued and grown in new directions long after Bessie's death in 1937. The central conceit is that Mitchell starts out playing herself ("Bern"), looking back at Bessie's life, before taking on the character of Bessie. The surrounding performers each play numerous roles but are identified with allegorical names: Rhythm (Roz White, who received a Helen Hayes Award for the Studio Theatre production), Passion (Lori Williams), Lover (TC Carson), Blood (Stephawn P. Stephens), Midnight (Djob Lyons), and Bluesman (LC Harden Jr.). Nia Harris is the Dancer, who expresses the joys and depths of Bessie's life through fluid, expressive movement. Mitchell dominates the stage whenever she sings, earning the greatest response for Bessie's classics "Gimme a Pigfoot" and "Ain't Gonna Play Second Fiddle." The other cast members sparkle and shimmer in their scenes and shift from close harmony and scatting to doo-wop and even a bit of hip-hop. The imagination Jones brings to the staging sometimes verges on the surrealistic, such as his introduction of three mannequins and the symbolic significance of long streamers attached to costumes. The primary component of Robbie Hayes' scenic design is the word "BLUES" in eight-foot-high letters that shimmer with color-shifting LED lights and at times show newsreel footage. Conductor and pianist William Knowles fronts a swinging combo that includes saxophonist Ron Oshima, trumpeter DeAndre Shaifer, guitarist David Cole, and drummer Greg Holloway, whose final solo is a stunner. MetroStage
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