Janis Joplin: Mash-up about tragic rocker

CHANNELING A SANITIZED JANIS JOPLIN: Mary Bridget Davies as Janis Joplin. Photo: Joan Marcus

A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN
Written and directed by Randy Johnson
Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th Street
866-668-7285, http://anightwithjanisjoplin.com/

By Scott Harrah

There’s quite a story to tell about the late Janis Joplin, so it is frustrating indeed for anyone familiar with her to sit through the messy mash-up writer-director Randy Johnson has assembled here, with the outstanding Mary Bridget Davies bringing the tragic star back to life.

We watch and listen to a confusing array of the African-American female singers who influenced Ms. Joplin (Etta James, Odetta, Bessie Smith), interspersed with awkward, expository dialogue about the star’s down-home girlhood in Port Arthur, Texas, told while she sits in a chair and sips Southern Comfort. Much of the show covers “the blues” and cameo appearances from purported “blues” singers. Other than Bessie Smith, Odetta and The Chantels weren’t truly “blues” artists. In fact, it takes nearly 40 minutes of silly chatter in act one about “the blues” (from both Ms. Davies and the talented women playing the star’s heroines) before we hear a genuine Joplin classic, “Piece of My Heart.”  When Ms. Davies belts out the words, with her gravelly voice, she is more than a marvelous impersonator, but we feel none of the trademark Joplin “soul.”  Why? We are so bludgeoned by Randy Johnson’s scattershot narrative at this point that we don’t know what we’re seeing.  Is it a musical biography? Or is it a tribute concert of people impersonating soul singers, with Ms. Davies channeling Janis Joplin as the headliner?

This overstuffed show might have the makings of a fun 90-minute nostalgia fest in a small theater in the East Village, but as is, in two long acts, this doesn’t belong on Broadway. Other than her infamous cussing, Ms. Joplin’s tale has been so sanitized that it seems more like a bio-musical of Doris Day than a woman known for indulging in sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So much needs to be cut here, from pointless tales of Joplin going to the library as a kid, idolizing Hemingway and Fitzgerald, to imagining Nina Simone (played with panache by De’Adre Aziza), popping up in her bedroom to sing “Little Girl Blue.” There’s a house-raising finale at the end of act one, featuring Aretha Franklin (Allison Blackwell), Ms. Joplin and the “Joplinaires” singing “Spirit in the Dark,” but it’s unnecessary and says nothing. Why feature Aretha jamming with Janis when there were real-life highlights of the icon’s career, such as her appearances at the Monterrey Pop Festival and Woodstock? Or her famous interview on “The Dick Cavett Show” in 1970, months before her death?

Act two gives us some bona fide Joplin standards, from “Try Just a Little Bit Harder” to a spine-tingling, raw rendition of “Cry Baby.”  When Ms. Davies sings these classics, and the star’s only Number One hit, “Me and Bobby McGee,” one wonders why writer-director Randy Johnson chose to focus on so many numbers from legends that inspired Ms. Joplin, instead of just giving fans a shorter show that features her greatest original work. Ms. Joplin began performing in 1962, overdosed on heroin at age 27, and only had four years of major success, from 1966 to her death in 1970. A Night with Janis Joplin would work with much-needed trimming of all the filler.  Janis Joplin, in her short life, inspired (and some argue, defined) an entire generation, but she lived hard and fast, and her inimitable spirit has been captured far better in countless biographies, the 1974 documentary Janis, and even The Rose (which was loosely based on Ms. Joplin), starring Bette Midler.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” Janis Joplin once sang. Perhaps writer-director Randy Johnson took this notion too literally, for the liberties he takes with the material here are perplexing and never capture the essence of the real Janis Joplin.  She was a talented and complex woman indeed (not some psychedelic Pollyanna), and deserves a more honest stage homage than this.

A LITTLE PIECE OF HER ART: Mary Bridget Davies as Janis Joplin in ‘A Night with Janis Joplin.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

Tony Nominated for Best Musical Actress Mary Bridget Davies

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 17, 2013
Reviewed at press performance on October 16, 2013