How did “Play On!”, an OK musical but a commercial Broadway flop, turn into the sensational show that is now taking Goodman Theatre by storm?
Certain bedrock elements of this production are the same as they were in the past. The songs of Duke Ellington, 20 in all, are still there, neatly worked into a Harlem-in-the-’30s adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” Director Sheldon Epps, choreographer Mercedes Ellington and the original design team have returned, and Andre De Shields and Tonya Pinkins are back in top form as principals.
In between the show’s Broadway closing in 1997 and its jubilant Goodman opening this weekend, however, a marvelous transformation has taken place. “Play On!” is now better than good; it’s phenomenal–recast, rethought and reinvigorated with exciting results.
Perhaps it’s the marvelous six-piece pit band, conducted by J. Leonard Oxley, that makes all the Ellington songs jump for joy in their Luther Henderson arrangements. Perhaps it’s the superb, subtle amplification balance achieved by Rob Milburn, one of the best sound designers in the business. Perhaps it’s the slight revisions that Epps and book writer Cheryl L. West have made in the script.
And, almost for sure, it’s because of the addition of some superb new players: the lissome Natalie Belcom, as the young woman who disguises herself as a man to break into the man’s world of songwriting; Ken Prymus and Cynthia Jones, joining De Shields as comic mischief makers, and, in a breakout performance, Paul Oakley Stovall, both touching and hilarious as the priggish Rev, who briefly turns into a jitterbugging zoot suiter and finally (unlike Shakespeare) wins the love of Pinkins’ sultry Cotton Club torch singer, the Lady Liv.
Whatever the case, it works. A hit when it originated in 1996 in a not-for-profit house (the Old Globe Theatre of San Diego), it has returned, after its Broadway foray, to the not-for-profit sector at the Goodman, where subscribers appear deliriously happy with it. (In the fall, the show moves on to another not-for-profit house, the Seattle Repertory Theatre.)
The musical’s direction, so sure-footed most of the time, comes a cropper in the big “I’m Beginning to See the Light” number, when a lot of fussy interplay at the side between Rev and Lady Liv takes away from the song-and-dance at center stage.
The book still needs some pruning and strengthening, particularly in its second half (but with three show-stopping numbers in that act, one shouldn’t complain too much).
These flaws aside, “Play on!” rides along on an almost constant wave of energy. Whenever the book threatens to drag, or a less-than-ideal bit of casting (Charles E. Wallace, uncertain in pitch as the Duke) brings down the music a bit, Pinkins starts smokin’ or De Shields and Prymus begin jivin’, and all’s well with the musical.
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In what may be its supreme achievement,”Play On!” also manages to be both politically correct for our time and resolutely faithful to its period. It successfully casts African-American actors of the ’90s as Harlem Negroes of the ’30s. And, with a little help from Shakespeare, it champions women’s rights and artistic freedom, too.
Put that together with the Ellington songs, a top-notch ensemble, and a blazingly colorful design, and you’ve got a summerlong smash at the Goodman.
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“Play On!”
When: Through Aug. 9
Where: Goodman Theatre, 200 S. Columbus Drive
Phone: 312-443-3800