Bessie Smith is having something of a moment in 2015, 121 years after her birth.
The celebrated “Empress of the Blues” is not only the subject of a big HBO bio film this year starring Queen Latifah, the much lauded “Bessie’s Blues,” first introduced at the Studio Theatre 20 years ago, is getting a revival across the Potomac at Alexandria’s MetroStage.
Thomas W. Jones II, “Bessie”s author, lyricist, director and choreographer, has been an artistic associate for years at MetroStage, which has premiered seven of his original musicals since 2001. His revival here is all the more remarkable because it features the same lead it did 20 years ago in the remarkable Bernardine Mitchell, who is flanked by Roz White, who won a Helen Hayes award for the role in the original production.
I don’t know how these women did their roles back then, but they could scarcely be better, more assured and knowing than they come across in Alexandria, imbuing their performances with the kind of hard-won experience that makes these hard working women come more fully dimensional.
Mitchell especially is a marvel, with a deep voice that can swirl and swoop with the best of contemporary R&B divas, whose voice cuts through whatever the band and background singers are doing whenever she’s on stage (her headset microphone is affixed to her hairdo, and points down like an errant curl).
With her wan smile and deep unrest, she’s seen it all and keeps on going.
What’s unexpected about Jones’ “Bessie’s Blues” is that it is not directly about the blues singer at all. Mitchell plays a weary singer also named Bernadine, who shares a birthday with the Empress of the Blues, and is inspired by her story, which flits in and out of the two acts. At first Smith only appears in the well appointed dress of dancer Nia Harris (whose jazz age costumes are from designer Fran Labovitz). Then, when Mitchell gets a feather boa around her neck, she embodies the voice of the past as well, enough to sing a couple of her songs.
And that’s the other surprise to “Bessie’s Blues” — how little of the Bessie Smith catalogue is used in the nearly nonstop songs. Even her biggest hits, such as “Downhearted Blues” or “Backwater Blues” are not included (though a couple of others are, including a stirring “Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle” and the near finale of “Nobody Knows You when You’re Down and Out”).
Overwhelmingly the music, when it isn’t a pastiche of the past or blues hits, are original songs by Jones with Keith Rawls. William Knowles plays piano and is music director of the fine on-stage musical quintet. As such, they’re more reflective of 1995-era R&B than they are 1920s blues, such that they might recall “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” era Aretha Franklin. Which isn’t bad, or necessarily out of character since Franklin was influenced by Smith as well, but just unexpected.
If the idea is that the kind of pitfalls a singer in the 1920s had was still around in the 90s (fast talking record company men, unfaithful husbands, a tiredness solved by alcohol) then it all works.
And the cast is so good, with such strong and distinctive voices it can hardly fail being entertaining.
Besides Mitchell, who is more fitting for this part than she’d ever been in her career; and the nearly as strong White, there is Lori Williams, who sang Ella Fitzgerald in “Ladies Swing the Blues.”
Among the men, TC Carson (formerly of TV’s “Living Single”), Stephawn P. Stephens, Djob Lyons and LC Harden Jr. are quite a quartet. And in addition to their voices, they all dance in the monumental set of Robbie Hayes, dominated by eight foot tall letters spelling out the BLUES, affixed with LED lights inside that shift colors and occasional projections on their exterior.
Because Jones wrote, directed and choreographed the work, “Bessie’s Blues” reflects a singular vision that underscores its power.
Because of the tiny size of MetroStage, marking its 30th anniversary, this is a production that will make the viewer feel part of it. And it’s a good place to be.
Bessie’s Blues continues through March 15 at MetroStage, Alexandria, VA.