Ain’t Misbehavin’
Music by Thomas “Fats” Waller
Book by Murray Horwitz, Richard Maltby Jr.
Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont (map)
thru Dec 20 | tix: $39-$48 | more info
Check for half-price tickets
Entire sterling cast back for rollicking, irresistible musical tribute
Porchlight Music Theatre presents
Ain’t Misbehavin’
Review by Lawrence Bommer
“Back by popular demand” never meant more than for Porchlight Music Theatre’s holiday revival of this born-again surefire charmer. Or, as its founding father would say, “One never knows, do one?” That’s the favorite catchphrase of Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904-1943), an irrepressible master of music. The 285-pound, cherubic-cheeked jokester genius is the powerhouse presence and driving dreamer behind Ain’t Misbehavin’, an irresistible tribute revue from 1978. In this happy case, well, one do knows. Happily, the entire sterling cast from way back in 2014 has returned–and that’s as good as it gets on any stage in town.
Picking a perfect cast as solo dynamos or a harmony-happy ensemble (with Austin Cook on piano conducting the cool-to-combustible five-person band), director Brenda Didier delivers a hard-hoofing, high-strutting, big-belting two-act delight. Taking us seventy years back, the situation/setting is an after-hours party in a Harlem basement in the winter of 1944. (The show works equally well as a rent party that also honors the recently deceased swing master.) The opening title number ushers in five homegrown, go-for-broke, sizzling entertainers, their songs giving them away as well as creating their own dialog on class, love, sex, Harlem (and its “Renaissance”), downtown, and surviving World War II.
Robin Da Silva, in the part that Nell Carter immortalized on Broadway, avoids the thorns and pushes the pollen out of “Honeysuckle Rose.” Lina Wass coos content in “Squeeze Me” (her high notes seemingly with no visible means of support, as in inevitable). Vixenish Sharriese Hamilton, as the opportunistic ingénue, slings her sass in “Yacht Club Swing.” All but channeling Walker himself (complete with wicked asides), Lorenzo Rush Jr. illustrates why “The Joint is Jumpin” (in this case Stage 773). Slick Donterrio Johnson croons glory from the come-on ballad “How Ya Baby.”
We get tributes to the “The Ladies Who Sing With the Band,” a tap-dancing Andrew Sisters spin-off with “Cash For Your Trash,” and a marvel of mimicry in “Handful of Keys”: Here, defining syncopation with off-time splendor, the cast imitate an entire jazz combo. This the hardest hoofing to hit a stage, including the Lindy Hop, Jitter Bug, Cakewalk, and every other way to “cut a rug.”
If the first act’s unashamed celebration of Waller’s lust for life isn’t persuasive enough, the second act moves from the credo of “Spreadin’ Rhythm Around” to a spoof of the posh world of the slumming toffs who frequented the Savoy Ballroom and the Cotton Club (“Lounging at the Waldorf”). Then it quickly descends into the reefer netherworld with Johnson’s tour-de-force as a drugged-out denizen in “The Viper’s Drag.” Novelty numbers like “Your Feet’s Too Big’” and the audience-clapping “Fat and Greasy” alternate with serious stuff like Da Silva’s heartbreakingly simple “Mean to Me” (with the perfect pun of the final line).
A delirious evening ends with a medley of Waller’s vinyl favorites: The names barely suggest the joys they unleash: “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” “Two Sleepy People,” “It’s a Sin To Tell a Lie, “I’ve Got My Fingers Crossed”—as fresh as the day they were recorded in a lucky studio. You couldn’t be present at a happier creation. But then—One never knows, do one?
Rating: ★★★★
Ain’t Misbehvin’ continues through December 20th, at Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont (map), with performances Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays 8pm, Saturdays 4pm and 8pm, Sundays 2pm. Tickets are $39-$48, and are available by phone (773-327-5252) or online through Stage773.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org. (Running time: 2 hours, includes an intermission)
Photos by Kelsey Jorissen
artists
cast
Robin DaSilva, Sharriese Hamilton, Donterrio Johnson, Lorenzo Rush Jr., Lina Wass
band
Austin Cook (director, keyboard), Michael Weatherspoon (drums), Chris Thigpen, Dan Kristan (bass), Bryant Millet (trumpet), Rajiv Halim (saxophone), Shaun Johnson (trumpet), Corbin Andrick (reeds)
behind the scenes
Brenda Didier (director, choreographer), Austin Cook (music director), Aaron Shapiro (production manager), Bill Morey (costume designer), Nick Belley (lighting design), Jeffrey Kmiec (scenic design), Robert Hornbostel (sound design), Kevin Barthel (wig design), Mealah Heidenreich (properties design), Jessica Forella (stage manager), Kelsey Jorissen (photos)
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