{"id":2916,"date":"2012-01-31T19:39:09","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T00:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2916"},"modified":"2012-01-31T19:47:44","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T00:47:44","slug":"the-joint-is-jumpin-at-spotlighters-with-aint-misbehavin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2916","title":{"rendered":"The Joint is Jumpin’ at Spotlighters with AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Theater Reviews Page<\/a> | Previous Theater Review<\/a> | Next Theater Review<\/a><\/p>\n

The Joint is Jumpin’ at Spotlighters with AIN’T MISBEHAVIN<\/h2>\n
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Tylar Montgomery in Ain't Misbehavin'<\/p><\/div>\n

Posted on BroadwayWorld.com on January 27, 2012<\/p>\n

A frequently-revived classic of the modern musical stage, as the world knows, Ain\u2019t Misbehavin\u2019 (now in revival at Baltimore\u2019s Spotlighters Theatre) is a revue of songs by Thomas \u201cFats\u201d Waller (1904-1943), composer, pianist, and singer, one of the geniuses of the Harlem Renaissance period. The revue \u201creviews\u201d no fewer than 31 of his gems, mostly comic, a few deeply touching. The show has roots as a 1978 cabaret (designed to transport the audience back to the uptown and downtown venues that Waller haunted), which then got moved behind a proscenium when it went to Broadway. That hybrid heritage gives the show some flexibility to move either way; this production, played (like all Spotlighters productions), in the round, of necessity emphasizes the cabaret feel, though it does not, like a recent production I saw, intermingle audience and performers.<\/p>\n

In the Round May Be In the Wrong<\/h3>\n

And it must be said that with an audience on all four sides, the acoustics of the space pose a challenge the production does not totally meet. Some of the songs, especially in the first act, are indistinct, at least to middle-aged ears, because the combination of a singer pointing away from you and a pit band playing loudly at your ear is not ideal for discerning lyrics. I have thought for some time that when the Spotlighters do musical theater, they should mike the performers and tell the band to play pianissimo.<\/p>\n

That said, this is a fine youthful cast, showcasing a number of talents from Morgan State University. Tylar Montgomery, puictured above, sometimes channeling Nell Carter, gives us pleasing reminders of Carter\u2019s plangent voice. The high point of this production is Montgomery warbling MEAN TO ME. Phillip Burgess, while not boasting the bang-on vocal impersonation of Fats that Ken Page did on Broadway, does a fine and boisterous non-Fats rendition of songs like HONEYSUCKLE ROSE and YOUR FEET\u2019S TOO BIG. Ann Bragg, Christopher Jones, and Dana McCants all shine in their individual moments (Jones takes VIPER\u2019S DRAG downtown), and the company is gorgeous in its big ensemble number, BLACK AND BLUE.<\/p>\n

In Just Five Words<\/h3>\n

Almost everyone gets to repeat Waller\u2019s signature line: \u201cOne never knows, do one?\u201d Properly delivered, that gives you the essence of Waller, jumping bathetically from pseudo-British affectation to irregular-verb-sparse Ebonics in the space of five words. Somehow every rendition of the line in this performance takes you by pleasing surprise.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a cultural statement in that line, obviously, a statement underlined by some of the songs in the show, most notably BLACK AND BLUE: \u201cI’m white inside,\/ But that don’t help my case. \/ ‘Cause I can’t hide \/ What is on my face.\u201d Waller celebrated blackness, to be sure, but simultaneously partly internalized white pretensions. In an era when he had to enter some of the places he played by a side door, it would have been inhuman to resist completely the allure of white privilege. It\u2019s all on view in his song LOUNGIN\u2019 AT THE WALDORF, which contrasts the kind of freedom and looseness he could enjoy performing in Harlem with the stiffer, whiter milieu of the Waldorf Astoria, for which he had a certain ambivalence. As the lyric critically puts it: \u201cThey like jazz, but in small doses.\u201d Nonetheless: \u201cAin\u2019t it swell doin\u2019 swell with the swells in the swellest hotel of them all?\u201d You don\u2019t need to be a perfect Waller impersonator to get that ambivalence across. One of the strengths of the show (assembled by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby, Jr.) is that it doesn\u2019t whitewash (if I may use that word here) this part of Waller\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n

It’s All Here<\/h3>\n

Or any other part of Waller\u2019s legacy. It\u2019s all here: the flirtatiousness (HONEYSUCKLE ROSE), the exuberance (THE JOINT IS JUMPIN\u2019), the rub-your-nose-in-it celebration of debauchery (\u2018T AIN\u2019T NOBODY\u2019S BUSINESS IF I DO), the celebration of its opposite, domesticity (TWO SLEEPY PEOPLE, KEEPIN\u2019 OUT OF MISCHIEF NOW), the romantic side (SQUEEZE ME, I CAN\u2019T GIVE YOU ANYTHING BUT LOVE), and the downright comic abusiveness \u2013 with again the racial subtext (FAT AND GREASY, YOUR FEET\u2019S TOO BIG). And even if you don\u2019t know Waller or this show, you know these great songs. No wonder this revue was a hit; no wonder it keeps being revived.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t seen it in a while, this revival is guaranteed to put a grin on your face.<\/p>\n

Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn except for image<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A youthful cast, showcasing a number of talents from Morgan State University, brings out Waller’s exuberance and his ambivalence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3098],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-closeup","category-theater-reviews-and-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2916"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2928,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2916\/revisions\/2928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}