Lady Day at the Emerson Bar and Grill

‘Lady Day’ mixes music, drama
by Diane Nelson
The Union Democrat

Leave it to Stage 3 Theater to stage a musical that makes you think.

When other theaters present a musical revue, you spend most of the show tapping your shoe. Sure, there may be a mournful ballad or two, but for the most part, it's a feel-good affair.

But Stage 3 is not other theaters and "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" is not your standard revue. It imagines Billie Holiday giving one of her last concerts in a small nightclub in Philadelphia, circa 1959.

Stage 3's already intimate seating is made cozier still with tables set around the stage, the better to see and hear Lady Day. Stage 3 even landed a temporary liquor license, so patrons can imbibe with their music, like in a real club.

And Merced's Michelle Allison doesn't just imitate Billie Holiday. She channels her.

"Me and Em go way back to the bad old days, isn't that right, Em?" she hollers to the imaginary bar keep in the back of the room.

Allison is remarkable. Her Lady Day is pitch perfect. With Dennis Brown as Jimmy Powers, her piano accompanist, she sings about 15 of Billie's classic blues-infused jazz numbers, everything from "God Bless the Child" to "Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do."

In between songs, she talks. And she drinks.

And as she drinks, her blues ramble deep and melancholy. She tells stories, but not in neat, orderly fashion. We don't hear the chronology of her life, from her days scrubbing floors in Baltimore to playing with Count Basie and Artie Shaw. It's more stream-of-consciousness, more real.

The stories are not sugar-coated. A black woman was treated like dirt during the '30s when Billie toured with Artie Shaw and if you don't believe it, listen to a few of Lady Day's stories. They're not pretty.

She talks about her strongwilled mother, the "Duchess," who was 13 when Billie was born. She talks about her bad choices in men and her addictions and her time in iail

She talks about her inspirations, Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong, and she sings songs that burrow straight to your heart.

And just when you think you understand her world, she sings, "Strange Fruit."

And you shudder.

What a gutsy play. You don't meet Lady Day at the top of her game. You meet her when she's out of jail and on parole, when she can't make it through a concert without running backstage for a fix. But her voice is still hauntingly beautiful.

It must be hard to find an actress who can both sing and act like Lady Day. But Stage 3 sure found one in Allison. She grew up in Queens, in the same neighborhood as Holiday and Count Basie. Like Holiday, Allison never had formal training, but she's been singing since she was 18 in jazz clubs and on stages all over Europe and America.

Both she and pianist Brown performed "Lady Day" five years ago for Stage 3. They stepped up to the plate again when Stage 3's original season opener fell through. And that's good news for us. "Lady Day" is a powerful play.