‘PARADISE SQUARE’: The cast. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

PARADISE SQUARE
Book by Christina Anderson, Craig Lucas & Larry Kirwan
Music by Jason Howland
Lyrics by Nathan Tysen & Masi Asare
Choreography by Bill T. Jones
Directed by Moises Kaufman
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th Street
(212-239-6200), www.ParadiseSquareMusical.com

By David NouNou

It’s certainly not the lack of a good storyline that plagues Paradise Square. It has a riveting and compelling story, but the book hammers and repeats itself again and again. In case you missed it in the book, the score will hammer it some more, and if you still missed it, the repetitive choreography will tap, stomp and body slap the message home.

Paradise Square is a fictionalized historical version set in the Five Points area in Lower Manhattan and the events leading up to the violent Draft Riots of 1863 that started as immigrant protests against the Civil War draft, but then turned to violent attacks against the Blacks. As I mentioned earlier, it is a complex and riveting tale, but it is presented quite heavy-handedly.

Nelly Freeman O’Brien (Joaquina Kalukango) is a Black owner of a saloon—left to her by her father who was a slave—in the Five Points. Nelly is married to a white military Irishman, Willy O’Brien (Matt Bogart) who helps her run the saloon until he is drafted. Matt’s sister Annie Lewis (Chilina Kennedy) is married to Reverend Samuel Jacob Lewis (Nathaniel Stampley), Nelly’s brother. The four share the duties to run the saloon. The saloon is open to all immigrants, people of all races down on their luck and even prostitutes. Nelly is the leader of Five Points and a mother figure that makes sure everyone is welcome.

Reverend Samuel takes in a runaway slave and changes his name to Washington Henry (Sidney DuPont), a man who allegedly killed his master in Tennessee. The reverend keeps Washington hidden to protect him. Add to the mix Annie Lewis’ nephew from Ireland, Owen Duignan (A. J. Shively), a recent immigrant who also needs lodging. Washington and Owen end up dancing in the saloon to pay for their stay. Of course, in every Garden of Eden, there is a snake; here, he is a boss man and elected official, Frederic Tiggens (John Dossett). He is the man that will blow Paradise Square by destroying the bond between the Blacks and the Irish.

There is a lot to digest here, but the story isn’t as convoluted as it sounds once you get to meet the characters. It’s that their tale is repeated again and again through the book, score and dance numbers. The book meanders, the score is unmemorable, and Bill T. Jones delivers some excellent dance steps, but they keep recurring with every song and it gets monotonous after the fifth round. Moises Kaufman’s direction doesn’t add much but moves characters from one end of the stage to the other, and from upstage to downstage and reverse.

However, all is not lost. The incandescent, dynamic powerhouse Joaquina Kalukango blows the roof off the theatre with her soaring voice and heartbreaking, gutsy performance. She has a lovely opening number entitled “Paradise Square,” and her final song “Let It Burn” is theatrical history in the making. Her emotion-packed delivery of the song thrills the audience and they erupt with thunderous applause. Last year, she was nominated for a Tony for Slave Play. This year, she has to be the shoe-in to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published May 4, 2022
Reviewed at May 3, 2022 performance.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: (left to right) Joaquina Kalukango, Nathaniel Stampley, Chilina Kennedy & the cast. Photo: Kevin Berne.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: Joaquina Kalukango & Matt Bogart. Photo: Kevin Berne.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: Ellis Quinn, Chloe Davis & cast. Photo: Kevin Berne.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: Sidney DuPont & cast. Photo: Kevin Berne.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: Chilina Kennedy & Joaquina Kalukango. Photo: Kevin Berne.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: A.J. Shively. Photo: Kevin Berne.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: Colin Barkell & Garrett Coleman. Photo: Julieta Cervantes.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: Nathaniel Stampley & Chilina Kennedy. Photo: Kevin Berne.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: Joaquina Kalukango. Photo: Kevin Berne.

‘PARADISE SQUARE’: Kevin Dennis, John Dossett (5th & 6th from left), A.J. Shively (6th from right) & cast. Photo: Kevin Berne.

Video clips from Paradise Square

The post ‘Paradise Square’: Blacks & Irish in 1863 NYC appeared first on StageZine.

‘SLAVE PLAY’ (On ground, left to right): Ato Blankson-Wood, James Cusati-Moyer, Sullivan Jones, Annie McNamara, Joaquina Kalukango, Paul Alexander Nolan. (In red boxes, left to right): Irene Sofia Lucio & Chalia La Tour. Photo: Matthew Murphy

SLAVE PLAY
By Jeremy O. Harris
Directed by Robert O’Hara
Through January 19, 2020
Golden Theatre
252 West 45th Street
212-239-6200, https://slaveplaybroadway.com/

By Scott Harrah

Sex and race are topics that push everyone’s proverbial buttons, and the two themes are explored via outrageous extremes in Jeremy O. Harris’s provocative Slave Play.

The show, in the beginning, is a series of uncomfortable, absurdist S&M sexual vignettes but ends up actually being a send-up of psychotherapy and relationships. It also tries to make serious statements about race in America. Playwright Jeffrey O. Harris’s overlong one-act tale mostly chronicles, in the first hour, titillating simulated sex scenes among interracial couples, followed by a second hour that explains, from a psychological and historical perspective, everything we’ve seen previously.

The scenes in the show’s first half are stereotypical in the absolute worst porn-style way and so intentionally offensive that they just look absurd and pointless. In the first vignette, Kaneisha (Joaquina Kalukango) is an African slave shown twerking to Rihanna’s “Work” while white overseer Jim (Paul Alexander Nolan) reveals how much he likes her, brandishing a whip as she calls him “master” (please, don’t ask).

There is the antebellum older white woman Alana (Annie McNamara), seen sporting 19^th century finery, while speaking in derogatory sexual innuendoes to her well-dressed, younger black lover Phillip (Sullivan Jones). She calls him her “Mandingo” (perhaps an homage to the awful “blaxploitation” film and novel of the same name). Phillip must endure Alana’s racist blather about his ample endowment. Eventually she whips out a dildo and penetrates him, asking if he likes her being “the man.”

We also have the gay male couple, Gary (Ato Blankson-Wood) and Dustin (James Cusati-Moyer). Dustin is a white indentured servant who is overseen by African American stud Gary. They both sport black Calvin Klein underwear and leather boots and you can draw your own conclusions about what happens next.

In the next hour, we learn that all this racially charged sex way down in pre-Civil War Dixie is an erotic phantasmagoria of fantasies of role playing and we’re really watching three interracial couples in “antebellum sexual performance therapy.” There is a lot of bantering from the couples and pretentious psychobabble from the two therapists, Teá (Chalia LaTour) and Patricia (Irene Sofia Lucio). The point (or lack thereof) of this group study is for the couples to better understand their racial standing, only to pulverize each relationship. Supposedly, they are told, in interracial couples someone is “the prize” and someone is “the master,” everyone is doomed to their own self-destruction, blah, blah, blah.

Despite the play’s shortcomings, there are some good performances here from cast members who play dual roles as both modern couples and their antebellum counterparts. Joaquina Kalukango is one of the most outstanding, displaying many raw emotions, and she is particularly effective in one of the show’s final scenes. As Gary, Ato Blankson-Wood is perfect, especially in a therapy sequence in which he goes off on his partner Dustin.

Perhaps playwright Jeremy O. Harris wanted to write a play that addressed, in a lighthearted way, the important topics of racism and America’s sad history of slavery while also examining modern-day human sexuality. Slave Play originated Off Broadway last year at the New York Theatre Workshop and in a smaller, less commercial production this show works best. However, as directed by Robert O’Hara for the Broadway stage, it is too flawed and ultimately unsatisfying to work as either a solid comedy or eye-opening drama about such sensitive subject matter.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published October 12, 2019
Reviewed at October 10, 2019 press performance.

‘SLAVE PLAY’: Annie McNamara & Sullivan Jones. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘SLAVE PLAY’: James Cusati-Moyer & Ato Blankson-Wood. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘SLAVE PLAY’: (Left to right) Ato Blankson-Wood, Chalia La Tour, Joaquina Kalukango (kneeling), Irene Sofia Lucio, Sullivan Jones, Annie McNamara, Paul Alexander Nolan, & James Cusati-Moyer. Photo: Matthew Murphy.

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‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Cynthia Erivo & Joaquina Kalukango. Photo: Matthew Murphy

THE COLOR PURPLE
Based upon the novel by Alice Walker
Book by Marsha Norman
Music & lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis & Stephen Bray
Directed by John Doyle
Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
245 W. 45th St.
(212-239-6200), http://colorpurple.com/

By Scott Harrah

Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel The Color Purple was a tricky classic to adapt for the screen and stage. Steven Spielberg did a superb job making the story into a film, but the Broadway musical adaptation a decade ago, despite 11 Tony Award nominations in 2006 (including a win for LaChanze for Best Actress in a Musical as Celie), was considered too lavish and overdone by some critics. So it is truly amazing what British director John Doyle—who brought us all those gimmicky Stephen Sondheim revivals of Company and Sweeney Todd, featuring actors doubling as musicians, playing instruments—has accomplished. This revival, which originated at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, is a total reinvention of the musical, with no real sets other than a wooden backdrop with chairs. In addition, British actress Cynthia Erivo, as the lead character Celie, gives the most-talked-about performance of the 2015/2016 season, stealing the show in virtually every scene with her emotionally exhausting, virtuoso portrayal of the poor, awkward-looking, downtrodden young African-American girl in rural 1930s Georgia.

Mr. Doyle has taken a complicated saga (the novel was written in Southern black slang as letters to God) and Marsha Norman’s bloated Broadway book adaptation and pared everything down to its bare bones, and this simply works beautifully. Fortunately, Mr. Doyle has moved away from the days of making actors play instruments and here focuses on what he does best. He streamlines this blockbuster musical, snips away the fat, and keeps the emotional content intact.

One doesn’t need to be familiar with the book or movie to understand the basic plot, but in a nutshell, Marsha Norman’s original script skips over a lot of the story’s details. Celie is 14 when we first meet her, pregnant, and is soon forced to marry Mister (Isaiah Johnson), a man who beats her. He separates from her sister Nettie (Joaquina Kalukango). The Color Purple is a tale of black women overcoming domineering, abusive men and insurmountable odds despite race and gender, and Mr. Doyle’s utilitarian set and direction helps us focus on these incredible, inspiring characters. It’s impossible not to root for them.

Danielle Brooks (Taystee in “Orange is the New Black) is glorious as Sofia (the role played by Oprah Winfrey in the film), a sassy mama who takes no guff. She brings down the proverbial house when she belts out the women-fight-back anthem “Hell No!” in Act One. Fine performances are also given by Joaquina Kalukango as Nettie, Isaiah Johnson as Mister, Kyle Scatliffe as Harpo, Patrice Covington as Squeak, and Carrie Comprere, Bre Jackson and Rema Webb as local church ladies.

Oscar and Grammy Award winner Jennifer Hudson, as the glamorous singer Shug Avery, is a bona fide Hollywood name helping this production sell tickets. Ms. Hudson will surely please fans with her trademark golden pipes in such rousing numbers as “Push Da Button” and the duet with Celie, “What About Love?” Unfortunately, she has a lackluster stage presence. The character of Shug Avery is supposed to be a bisexual powerhouse, ultimately becoming Celie’s partner, and she should command everyone’s attention whenever she’s onstage. Were it not for Ann Hould-Ward and Christopher Vegara’s gorgeous costumes, Ms. Hudson’s Shug Avery wouldn’t be noticeable at all. When Ms. Hudson delivers a line, she’s definitely good, but it seems she is giving the same performance she did as Effie in Dreamgirls. Ms. Hudson is a diva indeed, but she may disappoint anyone expecting more from such an accomplished star. However, the rest of the cast’s performances are so strong that it doesn’t matter.

Cynthia Erivo makes her Broadway debut here, but she’s already established over in the United Kingdom, where she toured in Sister Act (playing another role Whoopi Goldberg originated for a Hollywood hit). There is no question Cynthia Erivo is bound for stage superstardom on our shores, and the whole audience gets chills as she belts out her 11^th hour number “I’m Here” toward the end of Act Two. By spring’s awards season, Ms. Erivo, Mr. Doyle and this revival itself are going to clean up with this richly shaded, exquisitely acted Color Purple.

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published December 16, 2015
Reviewed at performance on December 15, 2015

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Cynthia Erivo & Jennifer Hudson. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Jennifer Hudson & Cynthia Erivo. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Isaiah Johnson. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Jennifer Hudson & Cynthia Erivo. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: (left to right) Cynthia Erivo, Jennifer Hudson, Isaiah Johnson & company. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Joaquina Kalukango. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: (left to right) Danielle Brooks, Patrice Covington, Cynthia Erivo, Bre Jackson, Carrie Comprere & Rema Webb. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: (left to right) Antoine Smith, Patrice Covington, Jennifer Hudson, Cynthia Erivo, Isaiah Johnson, Kyle Scatliffe & Danielle Brooks. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Danielle Brooks & Kyle Scatliffe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Danielle Brooks & Kyle Scatliffe. Photo: Matthew Murphy

‘THE COLOR PURPLE’: Danielle Brooks. Photo: Matthew Murphy

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