Shortly before she died, Billie Holiday told William Dufty (the journalist who went on to co-author her biography Lady Sings the Blues): “I’ve got no understudy… every time I do a show, I’m up against everything that’s ever been written about me. I have to fight this whole scene just to get people to listen to their own ears and believe in me again”. Sixty-four years later, it seems she’s still fighting.
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, written by Lanie Robertson (The Insanity of Mary Girard, Back County Crimes), recreates one of Billie Holiday’s final performances – which took place in Philadelphia after she’d been effectively banned from performing in New York clubs – in the form of a jukebox musical (or a play with songs, if you think you don’t like musicals).
Newman’s rendition of ‘Strange Fruit’ is glorious...worth more than the ticket price alone.
Mitchell Butel directs Zahra Newman as the inimitable Lady Day in this version at Belvoir St Theatre (co-produced with Melbourne Theatre Company and the State Theatre Company of South Australia). Newman also takes on the role of associate director, and her uncannily accurate vocal performance is accompanied by the brilliant trio made up of Kym Purling on keys, Victor Rounds on the double bass and Calvin Welch on drums. The band is full of infectious energy, even before the play begins, as they recreate the cosy jazz club atmosphere of the late fifties.
Set design and costumes by Ailsa Paterson transform Belvoir’s theatre into the club’s corner stage, a shiny black platform that is backed by a bare brick wall. Lighting design by Govin Ruben paints the bricks purple and trains white spotlights directly on Lady Day’s face as she sings. A waiter in a white dinner jacket serves water to audience members at cabaret-style tables, and mismatched lampshades hang from the rafters above those in the stalls. It’s a clever trick that draws the audience into Lady Day’s storytelling, allowing her to weave between them and talk directly to them in her shining white gown.
With all this talent at the helm, it’s a shame that this musical chooses to focus on Billie Holiday as the victim of trouble and tragedy, without also holding space for her revolutionary acts. Women, particularly Black women, who make art are often portrayed in a way that reduces them to tragic figures worthy of pity instead of praise, ignoring the complexity and achievements of their lives and bodies of work – think Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone, Sylvia Plath, or even Taylor Swift. While we shouldn’t expect every depiction of Billie Holiday to be joyful, or to ignore the tragic aspects of her life, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill struggles to find anything other than tragedy in her life and career.
Between performances of her best-loved songs, Holiday becomes increasingly drunk and rambling, regaling the audience – “her friends” – with tales of the worst things that happened to her in her life, ranging from childhood tragedy to her infamous arrest for possession of narcotics in 1947 (in Philly, where she finds herself in this performance). Robertson’s writing indulges in Holiday’s weakness, casting piano player Johnny Powers as a kind of minder, reining her in and keeping her on track. In a way, Robertson plays the role of minder too – writing just enough of her story to garner pity, but not enough to celebrate her achievements both politically and musically. Crucially, there’s no mention of the fact that her arrest in 1947 came after Holiday refused to stop performing ‘Strange Fruit’ (a song that protests the lynching of Black Americans) at the request of Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner Harry Anslinger. The arrest is instead used to contribute to this image of Holiday as a “trainwreck” – someone who breaks the rules, and gets punished.
Despite all this, Newman’s rendition of ‘Strange Fruit’ is glorious. It’s filled with a deep rage and vocal precision worthy of Holiday’s legacy, and worth more than the ticket price alone. Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill’s gravest mistake is couching this performance in misery. May this be a reminder that suffering and pain aren’t the only thing that makes great art – there’s gotta be joy and anger in there somewhere too.
(This review is indebted to the essays in Billie Holiday: Essays on the Artistry and Legacy edited by Michael V. Perez and Jessica McKee.)