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12/12/2018 11:01 PMWhile watching Paradise Blue the play now at Long Wharf through Sunday, Dec. 16, I was struck by how clear it was what had influenced playwright Dominque Morisseu: August Wilson.
I’m not implying that Paradise Blue is anything but original. It is. But it is also easy to identify the DNA of this play, and it all points to Wilson, one of America’s greatest playwrights.
It isn’t just that Paradise Blue is part of a three-play trilogy about African-Americans in Detroit, similar to Wilson’s 10-play cycle about Pittsburgh. Nor is that there is a heavy jazz influence. Other references relate to the spirits and the neighborhoods that are so much part of the culture. Yet by including so many themes in this play, none of them have the impact they should have.
It seems that Morisseu has drawn on some of the same influences in African-American culture to tell this story set in the late 1940s. She has added her own theme about the empowerment of the African-American woman and her independence of thought and action.
It’s set in Paradise Valley in Black Bottom, which was a thriving black neighborhood in Detroit. The area had numerous black business and Paradise Valley was the mecca for jazz, nightclubs and theaters. But now it appears that the city administration would like to renew the neighborhood’s old buildings and is offering money for people to leave. Title character Blue and his band banter that the city is trying to move them out of town.
Blue has runs the Paradise Blue jazz club for five years, but it is a long established institution in the neighborhood that his father ran. He’s a talented trumpet player and is conflicted by desires for larger audiences and recognition and the old neighborhood.
He is in a malaise—easily angered and apparently confused. He just fired his bassist, and tells his other two musicians (the older Corn, a pianist, and the younger P-Sam, a drummer) that for the next weeks he’ll be working solo. But he wants Corn to help his girlfriend, Pumpkin, to prepare to be a singer for the club.
But more is going on: He is talking to the people in charge of the redevelopment and he’s tempted by the $10,000 they are offering him.
Into the club comes Silver, who can only be described as a vamp. She comes asking to rent a room upstairs, but this woman has more than a place to sleep on her mind. She’s mysterious and the rumors start flying in the neighborhood that she killed her husband, that she has multiple male lovers, that she has a lot of money, and more.
She also takes an interest in the club and the three men: the widowed Corn, the young P-Sam, and Blue.
Blue finally tells Pumpkin his plans: to sell the club and to hope that he will be hired by a Chicago group. They are coming to see him next Friday and he wants Pumpkin to sing so that she will be hired as well. Pumpkin does not want to leave the familiar, old neighborhood with the friends she views as family.
But Blue has other problems. His music isn’t coming as easily and he feels the spirit of his father around him.
If you are familiar with Wilson’s plays, you can see the similarities: the involvement of music in the plot, the spirits that haunt various characters, and even the emphasis on the black man in a white world.
But Morisseau has also added her own touch by giving us two contrasting women: Pumpkin and Silver. Pumpkin is content to cook, clean, and wash clothes for the boarding house that is part of the club and for Blue. To her, the neighborhood is important. Her man is important. Love is important.
Silver, on the other hand, seems to have been constantly on the move. She doesn’t seem to need anyone, especially a man. She views men as tools to be used to get what she wants. She’s independent and dangerous—at some point she tries to seduce each of the three men. She is the somewhat stereotypical siren who entices men to do things they shouldn’t.
Carolyn Michelle Smith has a blast playing this sexpot/vixen. She channels her inner Mae West as she sashays around the club, luring all the men with her voice, her double entendres, and her sex appeal. She is so obvious that it is somewhat surprising that the men don’t run in the opposite direction, but Corn and P-Sam don’t. Blue’s relationship with her is much more complicated. He resents her butting in to his business, and distrusts her. To him, women should be seen but not heard.
As her foil, Margaret Odette as Pumpkin is the homebody. The two women exemplify the duality of good girls vs. bad girl that is so common in some literature. She is the good girl.
The three men also exemplify three different types. Corn, played beautifully by Leon Addison Brown, is the older man who finds new love and passion with Silver. Freddie Fulton as P-Sam is the impulsive younger man who spends his money on pleasure. You get the feeling that he has a thing for Pumpkin.
As Blue, Stephen Tyrone Williams reveals a complicated man. He’s driven by his musicand haunted by his father, with a resulting anger and despair.
The play has some flaws—the first act seems to end multiple times, which makes the audience restless. It goes on a bit too long. The revelations that Silver has a gun hidden in the dresser can remind the experienced theatergoer of Chekhov’s statement, that if we see a gun, it absolutely must go off. The audience spends most of act two wondering when and how the gun comes into play.
Morisseau uses Silver as an empowering force for Pumpkin. Silver’s independence and willingness to take care of herself, at first comes across to Pumpkin as condescension for her more conventional life. But by the end of act one, you see Pumpkin opening to the possibility of a more assertive manner. One can argue that the denouement of that new assertiveness is not particularly realistic, but empowering in so many ways.
Awoye Timpo has directed the play with a sure hand, though perhaps she allows some of the actors to overplay some moments. But overall, Timpo has captured the feel of the period and the area. The entire production team has contributed to the effectiveness of the piece. The set by Yu-Hsuan Chen shows us the two levels of the house with the upstairs coming out above the club. It got oohs and aahs from the audience. Lex Liang has created fabulous costumes for Silver and Oona Curley’s lighting and Daniel Kluger’s sound design are effective.
Paradise Blue is a play that attempts much, but doesn’t deliver on all of it. Yet, it is an interesting story of period and the effect of urban renewal on thriving minority neighborhoods.
For tickets visit longwharf.org or call 203-787-4282.