Josephine at the Asolo in Sarasota, Fl

[Jarethan]

Posted: 5/16/16 at 5:07pm

The Asolo Theatre, where Bonnie and Clyde tried out several years ago, is trying again, with a new musical based on the life of Josephine Baker.  I saw this over the week-end, and thought I would share some thoughts.

As I was leaving the theatre, I said to my wife that it was very clear that the life of Josephine Baker is a great subject for a musical.  To get the bad news out of the way, this was not the show to do it.  There are two words that I can think of that summarize this show:  thoroughly mediocre.  Well maybe, thoroughly mediocre with a truly awful score.

The show opens with what is supposed to be a number from the Follies Bergere.  Given the modest budget I assume the show has, there are a small number of people on stage -- as I recall, 4 couples singing and dancing around Josephine, which is fine.  The sets and costumes are also more than fine.  The number itself is almost embarrassing in its mediocrity.  I never could catch an actual tune.  This is the opening number!!!  Immediately after, Josephine stays on stage alone and sings a ballad that is as bad as the first song.  

The show continues along, cheating on applause once by having the young Josephine -- who lives in Sarasota -- sing something at the top of her lungs.  Lousy song, off key a couple of times, big applause.  

Early in the show, Bricktop comes along and the actress playing her injects some personality into the show.

Josephine has an affair with a Swedish Prince and visits him in Sweden.  Naturally, her dresser/companion/friend, who is male, falls for the butler of the prince, and it's mutual.  They dally around stage in a way that sets back the cause for equal rights quite a bit.  They are both such stereotypes.  It goes on for awhile and then Josephine seems to start to hate Nazis because they called her a Schwatze (sic).  She comes across as pretty shallow, even as she determines to play a role in the resistance.

Act I closing..terrible number that actually had me ask the following question to my wife during intermission: do you think actors hate to sing bad songs as much as we hate to listen to them?  How do they manage to perform in front of a live audience if they know how bad the show is?

We decided to stay for Act 2 -- which the local critic said was much better than Act 1.  After 30 minutes, during which the companion / butler had some embarrassing moments, and Josephine's spying was performed as if she was an idiot.  We finally decided we wouldn't take any more, and left.  

This is really one of the worst musicals I have ever seen and I have to say that I think it is unsalvagable.  To repeat my introductory comments, everything about it is just so mediocre.  This includes the choreography.

I haven ever seen Deborah Cox before, so I have nothing prior with which to compare her contribution here.  She is clearly a beautiful woman and looks gorgeous in the costumes -- again, despite what I assume is a low budget, the sets and costumes were the highlight of the show -- but that is about all I can say positively.  Her performance provided no evidence of acting talent, her dancing seemed uncomfortable, and the songs were so bad that I couldn't comment on her singing.  She worked very hard, but the material is just too weak.

Even though I didn't stay till the end, I have no doubt this got a standing ovation.  I just hope this doesn't give the producers hope that it has audience appeal...hell, audiences stand for anything these days.

I was really rooting for this because even going in, it did sound like a good subject for a musical.  But, without a good score and with an entire first act devoted to showing how frivolous her life is and how she hates to be reminded of her childhood, even the story line they have chosen needs to be re-thought.

 

 

 

Updated On: 5/16/16 at 05:07 PM

[broadwayboy223]

Posted: 5/16/16 at 5:12pm

What a shame. I wanna hear more about this production though 

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/17/16 at 9:42am

I attended a  semi staged reading for the show in NYC a few years back. Don't know what they changed as far as the score but it was really good at the reading. I thought the show had great potenial. Hopefully they can fix the things mentioned in the reviews as I am looking forward to seeing the full production. 

[Jeremiah]

Posted: 11/19/17 at 11:35am

The show will be playing at the Waco Theater (co-owned by Tina Knowles) in California in the spring of 2018.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 11/19/17 at 7:48pm

There's an "r" in schwarze. It is pronounced more like shvar-tsuh.

It simply means "black woman", if a noun, or "black [any feminine noun]", if an adjective". Used by a German in Europe it isn't necessarily a racial epithet. When I've heard it used in the U.S. (usually by speakers of Yiddish), however, there does seem to be something derogatory about the term, not as harsh as the "N word", but not as matter-of-fact as simply saying "black". I don't speak German or Yiddish and haven't done a scientific survey; I'm speaking here just from anecdotal evidence and a little internet research.

Why hearing the word in Sweden during WWII would make Baker become a spy is beyond me. How did she NOT know the Nazis had a tiny bit of prejudice toward those they viewed as non-Aryan? (Yes, I know Sweden is not Germany, but Sweden's supposed neutrality during WWII was a matter of degree. Sweden had its own form of fascism and wasn't too neutral to allow Germans to pass through on their way to help the Finns fight the USSR.)

[Jarethan]

Posted: 11/20/17 at 12:04am

Any time that I have heard someone use the term -- both in movies and 'real life', it seemed pretty derogatory to me.  Maybe not as bad as the N-word, but still pretty nasty.  While watching the show, I felt that she reacted the same way that she would have if they had called her the N-word.  

But remember, I said that this show was a piece of crap; nothing had to make sense to stay in this show.  I would certainly not assume that this was the reason the real Baker made her decision to work with the resistance.

An amusing aside...I read this post because i was surprised to see it show up in the first 50.  In reading what I wrote, I do not even remember half the things I mentioned, e.g., a young Baker singing badly.  It was SO forgettable.

[Jeremiah]

Posted: 11/20/17 at 6:14am

I was so taken aback by how negative this review was that I had to look up the reviews posted from critics. They were a bit more complimentary while acknowledging some things needed to be tweaked.

I'm looking forward to seeing what I'm assuming will be a revamped version. And hearing the ballad "How Many Oceans."