“Disappears into a role” shouldn’t be an easy compliment to throw around, but in Karole Foreman’s case, the phrase feels like an understatement when talking about her role as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.
I can’t speak for the whole audience, but judging by the collective gasps during one scene, I’m not the only person convinced that Foreman was about to collapse on stage.
This happens at a particularly vulnerable moment near the end of the show, and by now we’ve spent about an hour in Holiday’s presence, as if we’re patrons at a club she’s performing at. Between each song we hear (from God Bless the Child to Crazy He Calls Me and other Holiday standards), the iconic singer takes a pause to reminisce about her life, gifting us with humorous and poignant glimpses of her past.
One prop to notice during these anecdotal breaks is the drink in Holiday’s hand.
Holiday becomes gradually intoxicated and incoherent as the show progresses, from song to story to song to story. But Foreman’s performance feels so candid during this escalation. That’s why during the moment she almost faints, we have to remind ourselves we’re not inside a bar, we’re at the Solvang Festival Theater.
The show’s structure allows Holiday to speak to the audience directly, even referring to us as her friends rather than just bar patrons who happened to stumble in on one of her final performances before her death in 1959 at age 44. But she has one person onstage with her to confide in as well—her accompanying pianist, Jimmy Powers, played phenomenally by Stephan Terry in PCPA’s iteration.
At one point, Powers begs Holiday to stop performing and take a break, refusing to sit by and watch her well-being deteriorate any further. But the legendary singer declines. In a similar instance, we’re even led to believe an actual intermission will take place, after Holiday abruptly walks off stage, but she returns just as swiftly to debunk the notion.
For anyone unfamiliar with most of Holiday’s songs, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, a riveting one-act written by playwright Lanie Robertson, works as both an intriguing human drama and a powerful introduction to an icon’s discography.
“Through her singing, Billie Holiday used everything that happened in her life to inform her art,” the show’s director, Wren T. Brown, said in press materials. “Many of the songs she performed and recorded have become standards and have caused audiences to feel her heart and soul, in a manner unlike any other artist.”
For Brown, “the opportunity to explore and examine the life of one of the most transcendent artists of the 20th century” was one of the many rewarding aspects in helming the show.
And while the original play premiered in 1986, Brown also touched upon the show’s timeliness in this day and age.
“Sixty years after her death, at a time in America when race, gender, and the opioid crisis are being discussed loudly on a daily basis, Billie Holiday’s life and career are a great example of what it means to not just survive but triumph in the face of lifelong abuse and struggle,” the director said.
Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood wants an encore. Send comments to cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 2-9, 2021.