[Dixielandjazz] Queenie Pie reviewed - Long Beach Post, January 29, 2014

Robert Ringwald rsr at ringwald.com
Sat Feb 1 00:36:41 PST 2014


Long Beach Opera's Expert Cast, Historic Venue Round Out Duke Ellington's Unfinished
'Queenie Pie'
by Jonathan Ross
Long Beach Post, January 29, 2014
Calling Queenie Pie an opera is a bit of a stretch, even though a considerable amount
of the show is sung. Calling it a musical in a conventional sense, however, is also
a bit of a stretch, as the show's narrative is more suggestive and impressionistic
than it is straightforward. It is also not a jazz concert, although at many times
throughout the evening, if you were to close your eyes and listen to the swinging
orchestra or the impeccable cast, you would be forgiven for assuming as much.
Queenie Pie, then, is a bit of an enigma. Written by the great Duke Ellington (with
a libretto by Betty McGettigan and additional material by Tommy Shepherd and Ken
Roht) from the years of 1967 to 1974 under commission from NYC Public Television,
the piece was originally conceived to be a vehicle for jazz great Lena Horne. Due
to a loss of funds, unfortunately, the piece never fully materialized, and the transition
from his hour-long version that was to air on television to the full length "Street
Opera" of Ellington's dreams never came to completion. This means that we now must
add "unfinished" to the list of things that Queenie Pie inherently both is and isn't.
The Long Beach Opera, one of the most forward thinking and progressive artistic voices
in our fair city, has now taken on Queenie Pie as the opening to it's 35th season,
a cause for both celebration and debate; celebration due to the wealth of wonderful
sounding music and the exceedingly handsome production/cast at hand, and debate because
the "opera" still feels unfinished at times, especially towards its ending, which
raises questions about whether unfinished works should be presented in fully mounted
stagings rather than in semi-staged readings or more concert oriented productions.
More on that a bit later. For now, let's focus on the good stuff, and dear reader,
there is plenty of it.
I must state right off the bat that the production currently on stage at the insanely
gorgeous (and perfectly suiting) art deco Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro is very
impressive. Besides some issues with sound on opening night, the only beef I had
with the show at all was in relation to its source material, not the fruits of Long
Beach Opera's labor.
The plot of Queenie Pie is not its strongest suit, though the Long Beach Opera does
a good job of trying to find some topical and poignant moments within the opera's
slight narrative infrastructure. Queenie, whose character is based on the real life
C.J. Walker--"the first female, African-American, self-made millionaire"--has been
at the top of the beauty product game for years. With the Harlem Renaissance roaring
all around her, she has found a comfortable place for herself at the top of her field.
As the action starts, Queenie is challenged by a new competitor on the beauty product
front, the lighter-skinned Creole woman Cafe O'Lay. The differences between the two
women's approach is apparent in both their physical appearance and the products that
they manufacture, with Queenie's products seemingly enhancing one's natural beauty
and O'Lays bleaching or lightening one's skin tone to be more "acceptable." When
a man comes in between the two competitors, tragedy strikes, and the rest you will
just have to discover for yourself. I stress again that Queenie Pie is not really
about it's plot at all; it's about the production and the music, and if you can look
past its shortcomings and towards those attributes, you will find much to celebrate.
The set (Danila Korogodsky), costumes (Dabney Ross Jones) and lights (Brandon Baruch)
each fit the space and the performance perfectly. Through almost all of the first
act and on through much of the second I kept noticing how beautiful everything was,
which is even more impressive when you consider the short amount of time the Long
Beach Opera has to get something up and on its feet.
The staging is also quite stunning, with a fluid and smart sense of rhythm and flow
and some surprisingly inventive choreography. Director and choreographer Ken Roht
knows when to make the stage feel alive and vibrant and when to strip that all away
and rely on the vocal and acting chops of his cast to convey the music and emotions
on display. Unlike in much opera I've seen, Roht also knows how to have his cast
interact with each other like real people. Even though the characters in Queenie
Pie are more archetypal than actual, Roth and his amazing cast know how to make these
characters at least behave like people you might actually know or meet. These people
look into each other’s eyes when they sing to each other. They make jokes, riff and
scat, and most importantly, they touch each other when they are trying to convey
an emotion or a thought, something that so often is lost in the great melodramatic
world of opera. Everyone involved should be commended on how consistently convincing
Queenie Pie is on this level, even if the actual happenings can sometimes feel unfinished
or contrived.
What does not feel unfinished or contrived in any way is the cast and orchestra of
Queenie Pie, who are, to put it mildly, spectacular. Every instrument in the pit
(conducted with great skill by Jeffrey Lindberg) and every voice on the stage are
cause for celebration. Even opening night's faulty micing couldn't hide that fact.
The music all sounds great. Even the lesser songs of Queenie Pie and the jingles
that constantly appear throughout the performance sound so good you likely won't
want them to stop. I only wish that the band could have somehow been placed on the
stage like the big bands that the Duke was so famous for leading. It would have been
wonderful to see the orchestra as they played and I think placing them behind or
on risers above the action on stage would have made it easier for the audience to
hear some of the singers at times, making the microphones less mandatory, something
I think is always important to consider.
I have rarely walked away from a show as happy with a cast as I was with this one.
I would not have changed anyone. Everyone not only had the vocal chops to carry their
roles (and then some in a lot of cases), but the acting was also top notch all around.
Jeffrey Polk as Lil' Daddy and the Witch Doctor is a great physical actor and a fantastic
comedic presence. Keithon Gipson (Holt Faye and The King) sings beautifully and delivers
all of his dialogue with proper weight and empathy. It is the two leading ladies
however that really bring the house down.
Anna Bowen is a complex and haunting Cafe O'Lay, always making us aware that there
is more going on inside of her emotionally than what she lets on, and creating a
three dimensional character out of an archetype. When she sings of heartbreak, you
believe it, and when she smiles, you'll smile as well.
The true star of the evening however, is Karen Marie Richardson as Queenie Pie. She
delivers a performance that would make the show worth seeing if for her alone. She
owns Queenie from the second she steps on stage, and paints her with such varying
levels of complexity that you are often left in awe. Her voice, a beautiful jazzy
and sultry beast, has traces of Holiday, Fitzgerald, Horne and even Winehouse in
its DNA, but it belongs to her and to her alone. She could scat me the whole Webster's
Dictionary and I would likely pay money to see it. Any time she is on stage, she
caries the whole show on her shoulders like Atlas carries the world, and you will
likely be glad to take it from her at any moment as if it were a feather pillow.
Queenie Pie, as I have said many times, is an uneven work. The second act goes in
and out of feeling cohesive and at odds with itself, some songs feel more like thoughts
or fragments (which they most likely are) than actual songs, and there are times
when the plot progresses in ways that don't really make much sense. If these are
the kind of things that can ruin a night at the theater for you however, you likely
aren't an opera fan to begin with (just try to make logical narrative sense out of
something like "The Magic Flute" for example). Queenie Pie is unfinished, even though
it is finished, but you don't have to accept that fact in order to enjoy the Long
Beach Opera's current production. Though Queenie Pie may have felt more comprehensive
as a staged reading or concert version without the full sets and staging, it is a
pleasure for the most part to see what the LBO has come up with.
Often, it's ambiguities lift it from the confines of the tangible, and lift it into
the reals of the metephorical. It is at these moments that the piece feels most alive,
teetering on the brink of greatness somewhere between the Duke's pen, the Harlem
Renaissance, and now. Anyone with a love of jazz, opera or musicals and anyone with
a curiosity towards what progressive performing arts in this city today looks like
will have lots to relish and enjoy here.
If you get yourself across the Vincent Thomas this weekend, step into one of the
last remaining Deco theaters in the Los Angeles area, and surrender all your nitpicking
to Queenie Pie's syncopations and swing. I'm nearly positive that you will be happy
that you did.
-30


-Bob Ringwald K6YBV
www.ringwald.com
916/ 806-9551

“The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.” -George Burns


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