Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Sep 14 – Oct 15, 2023
Playwright: Lanie Robertson
Director: Mitchell Butel
Cast: Zahra Newman with Kym Purling, Victor Rounds, Calvin Welch
Images by Matt Byrne
Theatre review
Jazz legend Billie Holiday is performing at a bar in Philadelphia, several years after being incarcerated in that same city, and finds herself unable to maintain composure, as the worst times of her life come flooding back. In Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, the diva unravels before our eyes, disclosing the innumerable traumatic events she had suffered, as a Black woman surviving 20th century America. She sings her songs to perfection, but is completely guileless in between numbers, defenceless to a degree that is almost humiliating in her revelations. Such is the nature of art. It demands such honesty and vulnerability from the creator, that we witness her disintegrating even as she fulfils her destiny, as one of the world’s foremost singers of the modern era.
The tragedy is both heartbreaking and beautiful, under Mitchell Butel’s direction. Amidst the unbridled distress, is a star who retains her independence and agency, maybe not always making the best choices, but owning every one of them. Butel manufactures a theatrical glamour that helps us lionise Holiday, to see that we can celebrate the totality of her, that flaws in her biography cannot be divorced from her immense legacy, and that where she does flounder is indeed largely a consequence of social injustice, rather than of personal deficiencies.
Production design by Ailsa Paterson features an unpretentious slightly rundown setting, appropriately depicting a space that we should consider beneath a talent of Holiday’s magnitude. Her white gown is resplendent, on a woman who knows her worth, at least in commercial terms. Band members too are dressed with dignity, each one suave and sophisticated, in a story that inevitably confronts matters of class and race. Lights by Govin Ruben are transportative in their realism, accurately evoking a club and performance space of the period, although more heightened dramatics could improve our connection to some of the play’s more intense moments.
Prominent songs from Holiday’s oeuvre comprise the set list in this somewhat inadvertent jukebox musical. From his grand piano, Kym Purling leads a band of prime quality, for exceptional renditions of these historical pieces. Along with bassist Victor Rounds and drummer Calvin Welch, the trio gifts us a truly sumptuous experience of hearing these almost otherworldly compositions. The human voice is of course integral, and Zahra Newman’s proves astonishing not only in her mimicry of Holiday’s iconic tone, texture and timbre, she brings a power that is perhaps surprising to her interpretations of these numbers. As actor Newman is exacting and vivid with her storytelling, and in her strongest scenes, thoroughly convincing with the verisimilitude she is able to muster, to convey some incredibly lamentable details of Holiday’s life and times.
Billie Holiday was a descendant of slaves, and even though she achieved stardom, there was no escaping circumstances that remained cruel and deplorable for African Americans. Even as a musician of world renown, she was not protected from the abuse that women routinely endured, in both public and private spheres. In Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill we observe how she was wronged, again and again, so that we may ameliorate our feelings about a celebrity we wish to have done better. We are offered a reminder that the problem was the time and place in which she had existed, and that the artist was herself unreservedly immaculate.
Suzy Goes See 