[Dixielandjazz] "Satchmo at the Waldorf"

[Robert Ringwald]

'Satchmo' at Long Wharf Paints Picture of a Conflicted Soul
by Donna Doherty
New Haven Register, September 28, 2012
His onstage persona revealed a big smile, a signature puff-cheeked blowing style
that looked like his face would explode, the white hanky at the ready to wipe the
sweat from his brow.
But the "real" Louis Armstrong, a proud black man who needed four chances before
he found the right spouse, whose fame blossomed and faded under the tutelage of a
white man and before white audiences, was a conflicted soul, a bittersweet man.
We get to eavesdrop on his musings backstage in his dressing room before what would
be his final performance in March 1971, as source material for the Long Wharf Theatre
season opener, "Satchmo at the Waldorf." The one-man show, starring John Douglas
Thompson, opens Oct. 3 and runs through Nov. 4 on Stage II.
Thompson, 49, called one of most compelling classical stage actors of his generation
by The New York Times, makes his LWT debut in the show, written by Terry Teachout
and directed by LWT Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein.
"When I was growing up, I had a very unhealthy relationship with Louis Armstrong,"
he says by phone from the run at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Mass. "I considered
him a throwback and an individual who had nothing to do with my present and my future,
and I think a lot of my generation had that attitude. Looking back, I can see that
was an ignorant response, because I didn't have any context.
"But this play has brought context and understanding and a love and appreciation
for his virtuosity, his talent, his iconic status, his love for humanity and his
generosity," says Thompson.
His feelings echo some of the ignorance that played into the perception of Armstrong
by some of his colleagues, such as Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, of whom Satchmo
speaks disparagingly only because he doesn't understand their disdain for him, suggesting
it might be jealousy.
Thompson plays both Armstrong and Glaser, as well as Davis, the latter in a brief
exchange. He says he makes the transitions more by capturing their essence, which,
in each case, is raw emotion, tough language, brutal honesty.
"I'm not looking to imitate them, because I couldn't. Terry's language gives me the
way into the essence of each character, and I do make some physical changes, then
some vocal," he says. "Is it difficult? I'd say it's a challenge. It's much more
of a positive. It engenders much more of a positive response for me, rather than
'difficult,' which seems somewhat negative."
Thompson does, indeed, have a rich text to inspire his performance. But he also seems
genuinely touched by the fact that, though this is fact-based fiction with which
the playwright has taken literary license, playing Satchmo has opened his eyes to
things we often take for granted.
"The choices he made, the music he made, the indignities he had to put up with given
his status as a celebrity and entertainer... you honor that and you start to get
an appreciation of this man, given the constraints of racism."
Thompson found his way into acting from a business career at Unisys, he says, thanks
to an epiphany after being stood up on a theater date to see August Wilson's "Joe
Turner's Come and Gone" at Yale Repertory Theatre. He went to the play alone.
"It was a profound experience for me, because I'd never seen anything like it, never
saw people on stage who looked like me and were playing my history.
"It was really moving, and I found myself leaning forward. I remember asking whatever
spirits are in the room, whatever God is, make me an actor. This is my dream."
He made the leap nearly five years later when Unisys downsized him out of a job,
and he thought back to that moment. He moved to Boston on his severance package,
auditioned for a role in "Worl' Do for Fraid" and got the part and has been working
since.
Part of his research for this role took him to the Armstrong home in Queens, which
is now a museum. Armstrong was a prolific chronicler of his life, tape-recording
some 650 reels, many of which Thompson listened to.
"What you get from these tapes is a very different Armstrong from the public persona.
You get insight from a private perspective of him talking about race, his relationship
with his manager, some of the racial indignities he had to suffer," Thompson says.
"You get to see the man behind the smile."
The play captures a wistful Armstrong looking back on his career and some of the
choices he made, questioning whether the price was too high or whether he made the
correct choice, including his relationship with Glaser. But the audience, when Thompson
is in the Glaser character, learns some of the behind-the-scenes maneuverings that
Armstrong never knew about, some good, some bad.
Thompson says he can identify with Armstrong as a person of the same race, and though
Glaser was white, "What I have in common with him is we come from the human race.
That's enough for me to work my way in. But it's always the writing, always the playwright
to open the door. If you don't have their words to open the door, it's not going
to work.
"My performance has been constructed out of Terry's imagination. He gave me something
to follow. Then you have someone like (director) Gordon, who's really vigilant at
culling things out of words, putting things around you, whether it's lighting or
props. This is one of those times when me, Terry and Gordon, it's been this truly
creative process...."
Thompson says his own journey has made him think of what his influence could be,
because, "I know how significant it was to sit at the Yale Rep and see the production
and make me want to be an actor, so I'm well aware of how inspiring it can be....
If you don't see people doing it, you don't think there's an opportunity. I want
to inspire in the same way I was inspired... I'd like to be a touchstone for the
diversity that can be found in this field."
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-Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
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Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street 
with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.