By Eugene Paul
Audra McDonald Photos by Evgenia Eliseeva
Beg. Borrow. Steal. In a breathtaking leap, famed
Audra McDonald has vaulted past anything she’s ever done to this pinnacle of
performance art, her portrait of Billie Holiday, the mesmerizing, tragic figure
who haunts us still with the beauty and wreckage of her life, and if you don’t
go to see her, you’ll be poorer for it. Because this is not only Billie
Holiday, this is Audra McDonald at her consummate best.
I confess I was clutching my elbows awaiting her
entrance. Would she be, could she be? There before us was the Emerson Bar and
Grill, filled with drinking, anticipatory people at their crowded tables.
Extras who paid for the privilege. They were far more civilized, far less smoky
than the folks I remembered in the last place I saw Lady Day. There was the
band vamping, silken jazz, far smoother than the band I remembered; here are
Sheldon Becton at the piano, George Farmer on bass, Clayton Craddock at the
drums, not the tired, frustrated, bored, resentful band men waiting for Billie
to get it together for at least some of her stint. I was squeezed in, a
standee, not even able to get to the bar. The smoke, the half light, heart
pounding. And then, she was there. All in white. Hollow. Nothing behind the
eyes, nothing behind the voice. Mesmerizing.
And suddenly, now, in designer Esosa’s slashing
white gown, weaving past the bar, carefully upright, she is here. And the
electricity is as if the years and the memories were one. It’s Billie Holiday.
It’s more than Billie Holiday, it’s Billie Holiday at her captivating,
effortlessly empathic best. How could it be? She was so close to her death, she
is so alive. And the voice, her voice, but with her behind it, singing far more
than the words, the melodies she made her own. Reaching out to people who were
all there for her. As they always were. How could it be? How can rich, strong,
vibrant Audra McDonald be herself and the wraith that was Billie Holiday?
Because she became rich, strong, vibrant Billie
Holiday, the Billie Holiday that everyone remembered from Billie’s early,
hopeful days, that no one really could remember at all, just wished they did.
And the joy of that! “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” - a complete kick in the
ass! “Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer.” Alive!
It isn’t all the songs. Lanie Robertson has
written an award-winning, chronicle-filled, bar patter of her life that Billie
spills, even though she never spills a drink, not a drop, incidents, anecdotes
filled with pain that she laughs away, jokes away, happily in her haze that
keeps the wrath tamped down but now and then, it breaks out and the stories
become too sharp and too long and Jimmy Powers, her man at the piano, who holds
her together (that same marvelous Shelton Becton) pulls her into the music and
gets her past her memories letting her drive her songs with the same thoughts,
the same feelings. It’s so head shaking good. Of course, she has to perform her
signature songs, a soul-drubbing “God Bless the Child,” a soul-searing “Strange
Fruit,” half-unwilling, half-driven.
How much of it is director Lonny Price’s brand
new production, how much the keenly sensitive lighting by Robert Wierzel, the
ingenious sound design of Steve Canyon Kennedy? Lonny Price’s direction is so
intuitive, so embedded it belongs to the star, the amazing star, who lives
these last moments of Lady Day’s life, throwing in her jokes at Philly, her
barbs at New York where they won’t let her perform any more to earn her bread,
and although we know it’s because she has become so undependable, no one can
know for sure if Billie will be there or if Billie will perform if she manages
to get to her gig, or what explosion or “accident” will occur, no one wants to
put on a horror show for the gawkers because under everything is the enduring
love for Lady Day, a love requited at last in Audra McDonald and in spite of
the tears, we couldn’t be happier. Billie Holiday isn’t that ghost any more,
she’s here. Thank you, thank you, Audra McDonald. Rest easy, Lady Day.
through August 10, 2014
Circle in the Square, 1633 Broadway, at 50th Street near 8th Avenue.
Tickets: 212-239-6200 or 855-368-1441 or visit http://www.ladydayonbroadway.com
Running time: 90 Minutes without an intermission
