03/23/2014
Satchmo
at the Waldorf
By: Deirdre Donovan
John
Douglas Thompson as Louis Armstrong
in a
scene from Satchmo at the Waldorf
(Photo
credit: T. Charles Erickson)
Terry
Teachout is changing hats from theater critic to playwright with his one-man
play Satchmo at the Waldorf which stars John Douglas Thompson as
the jazz legend. Both Teachout and Thompson deliver in this Lion-in-Winter
portrait of Satchmo at the end of his life.
Okay,
this play is a bit of a teaser. You get a dramatization of the ageing Armstrong
but little of the astonishing jazz music (sound design by John Gromada) that
changed the musical world and cultural landscape of America. In all fairness,
Teachout does spritz the soliloquy with snatches of the reel-to-reel music
(expect some melancholy beats from “West End Blues” and other Armstrong hits)
that the trumpeter toted with him from gig to gig. But these only pepper a show
that is generously salted with a raft of anecdotes that Armstrong is supposedly
recording for posterity in his Waldorf Astoria dressing room backstage.
Set in
March 1971, Teachout’s play is fictive but spun out of a real event in
Armstrong’s life. Armstrong surely did perform at the Waldorf Astoria months
before he died in Corona, New York, on July 6th of the same year. Teachout
plays fast and loose with the facts in this 90-minute riff. However, if it is a
conspicuous telescoping for theatrical purposes, Teachout uses a legitimate
technique that gorgeously pays off.
The
show doesn’t stint on realism either. Its opening scene shows Armstrong,
following his stage performance, near physical collapse and inhaling oxygen
from a medical contraption that would look more in synch at the intensive care
unit of a hospital than a dressing room backstage. The effect that strongly
registers, however, is Armstrong as an old warhorse with a show-must-go-on
attitude.
While
the piece embraces Armstrong’s entire life, Teachout has greatly flavored it
with the icon’s deep humanity threaded throughout the narrative. To borrow from
the Louis Armstrong timeline in the program and the play itself: he was born in
1901 in New Orleans with no silver spoon. His father William (“Willie”)
Armstrong deserted his mother Mary Ann (“Maryann”) Albert when he learned she
was pregnant and the young Louis never knew his dad. Though a loving mother to
her son, Albert fell on hard times and turned to prostitution. As a boy, he
mostly had to fend for himself and would wander through New Orleans’
“Storyville” section. He landed in the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys in 1913—and
there took up the cornet. Six years later, he was playing his music in
barrelhouses and on riverboat cruises. Ever-adventurous, he migrated to Chicago
to play with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, and made his first foray into New
York in 1924. Strapped for money, he returned to Chicago, and put down his
cornet for a trumpet. He played up a storm at Al Capone’s Sunset Café, met his
future manager Joe Glaser, and returned to the Big Apple in 1929. And the rest
is history.
Thompson
is well-suited to playing the larger-than-life Armstrong. From his first
entrance when he half-staggers into the dressing room, he is a presence to
behold. In spite of the fact that he is portraying Armstrong in a fragile
physical condition, Thompson’s natural physique is imposing. Though one would
be justified in saying that he outbrawns the legend with his broad biceps, he
still conveys the spirit of Armstrong through and through. In fact, Thompson’s
energy as Armstrong never once flags during the performance. He will
occasionally shift personas from “Satchmo” to Glaser, to Miles Davis, to Bing
Crosby, and others, but the subject of the soliloquy revolves totally around
the one-and-only Armstrong.
There’s
a whole tapestry of tales woven into Teachout’s play. One of the best is when
the trumpeter relates how he beat out the Beatles to Number One on the pop
charts with his recording of “Hello, Dolly” in 1964. If that is a fascinating
fact, so is the more disturbing one that Armstrong was often looked down upon
as a white-man’s jazz musician, and an “Uncle Tom” figure. Never completely
accepted by the Blacks who resented his “crossover” success or by white society
(Joe Glaser and Bing Crosby never invited Armstrong to their homes, and Glaser
overlooked him in his will), Armstrong remains a lonely figure in this
bittersweet play.
Teachout,
who has written a biography of Armstrong (Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong)
is clearly at home with his subject. If there is a flaw in his play, it is
simply that it focuses on the legend’s life story and skimps on the music.
Lee
Savage’s set design is awash with posh furniture and the accouterments of a
dressing room backstage right down to its bare-bulbed lights (lighting by Kevin
Adams). It neatly captures the ambience of that historic event at the Waldorf
Astoria. Ilona Somogyi’s costumes are handsomely tailored to fit Thompson’s
large frame. Thompson wears a traditional tuxedo, with a cummerbund and all the
rest. If Somogyi’s costumes are one-note, it is only to serve the play’s
compression of time and place.
Satchmo
at the Waldorf has
already been produced by the Long Wharf Theatre and Shakespeare and Company in
the Berkshires. With its arrival in New York (at the Westside
Theatre/Upstairs), it gives New Yorkers a wonderful opportunity to get on more
intimate terms with the legendary musician. Admittedly, one doesn’t get much of
the music in this talkative mosaic of the jazz great. However, if you want an
honest interpretation of this seminal artist, look no further than this show.
Satchmo
at the Waldorf (tickets
now on sale through August 3, 2014)
Westside
Theatre (Upstairs), 407 West 43rd Street, west of Ninth Avenue, in
Manhattan
For
tickets, call 212-239-6200, or visit http://www.telecharge.com
Running
time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
