Theatre review: Play On!

The onslaught of multiple Twelfth Nights continues with a twist, as Shakespeare's mid-career comedy provides the basic plot inspiration for Talawa's Duke Ellington jukebox musical, Play On Exclamation Mark. Set in Harlem's Cotton Club in the 1920s, Sheldon Epps (concept) and Cheryl L.West (book) bring Viola (Tsemaye Bob-Egbe) to the club to try her luck as a songwriter. But her uncle Jester (Llewellyn Jamal) informs her that she won't convince anyone to listen to her music because women are famously incapable of writing songs. To get the legendary Duke (Earl Gregory) to consider her, Viola dresses as a man with the hastily-acquired pseudonym of Vyman, and her songs impress the Duke so much he employs "him" to serenade a disinterested lover on his behalf: Lady Liv (KoKo Alexandra,) the club's resident diva.

Theatre review: Blues in the Night

Sheldon Epps’ revue Blues in the Night first appeared off-Broadway in 1980, and it’s probably no coincidence that that’s a couple of years after Ain’t Misbehavin’, which has also recently been revived in London. Before the concept of the jukebox musical came along to build a narrative around existing songs, both of these shows presented a much more loosely-connected collection of hit songs of the 1920s and ‘30s; although unlike the earlier show, Blues in the Night doesn’t theme itself around one specific composer or performer (although songwriter Bessie Smith seems to be represented more than most.) Instead it dips into a variety of jazz and blues standards and gives them to three women and a man in a dingy hotel/bar in the wee small hours of a hot Southern night. The title suggests this could be quite a downbeat evening but while a lot of the songs deal with trying to cope during the Great Depression, as well as with the ubiquitous musical theme of personal heartbreak, most of the time we’re in for a much more upbeat, defiant and sexy mood.