Review: Empress Of the Blues Hosts Sultry, Scintillating Stackner Cabaret

Milwaukee Rep's Stackner Cabaret hosts a sultry, sensational evening featuring a brief biographical musical revue of blues star Bessie Smith. Their masterful production, The Devil's Music: The Life and Times of Bessie Smith, a Drama Desk nominated musical by Angela Parro, embraces the essence of the Empress of the Blues through the magnificent voice of Zonya Love, and Bessie's piano man, Pickle, who flashes his fingers on those ivories as DeMone, an actor making his Milwaukee Rep debut.

To begin the cabaret, DeMone's Pickle enters from the back tables and walks through the audience while relating Smith's sudden death in a car accident. After walking on stage, he then recalls an after hours show in a buffet flat, beautifully recreated by Scenic Designer Joe C. Klug which was a place where people of color, mainly black Americans, could frequent for liquor and nightly entertainment of every persuasion in the 1920's and 30's. Smith appeared to have premonitions about encountering 'The Boogie Man' a week or two before her accident recounts Pickle and she lived by the words, "To error is human, but it feels divine."

Bessie's life epitomized the blues she immortalized, and the singer often "danced with the devil" her entire career, a time, "where you live, love, hurt and roll with it." Love certainly rolls with the music and her sensual curves in "I Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl," and then sparkles in a rendition of "Baby Doll." Dressed in Jason Orlenko's full length white satin gown accented by rhinestones, Love's Bessie downs her 'white lightening', retells her life story and cavorts with the cabaret crowd-mussing men's hair while she seductively strolls through the audience. Pickle faithfully plays her straight man, explaining her volatile personality and temper that earned her nickname "Hurricane Bessie."

In the cabaret, Love radiates a Bessie Smith that sizzles in the intimate space, and crackles with the realities of the Depression Era racial and social issues, as much as DaMone plays to her tunes. While Smith was one of the top earners of any skin color during that period, all she wanted was a peaceful marriage, to raise her son, and to truly be 'someone's baby doll.' so 'some man would take a chance on me.'

During the just over two hour performance, Love sings a powerful "St. Louis Blues," a song inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame while Smith herself has garnered a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and also lays claim to three Hall of Fame honors: Rock and Roll, Big Band and Jazz,, and the Blues. Love personifies this illustrious legacy with a grand presence and talent under the direction of Artistic Associate JC Clementz, who's quickly gaining a reputation for his finely tuned musicals and productions, along with Musical Director Dan Kazemi.

This winter the Stackner serves up a classic, sizzling revue for a truly "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," thanks to Love and DeMone. Warm up this winter and send those bluesy shivers down your spine by being in the audience for this scintillating performance filled with heartache, risqué humor and timeless melodies. Show Zonya and DeMone all that Milwaukee love for great entertainment and American music, the supposed devil's music, at the Stackner Cabaret while celebrating Bessie Smith, the incomparable Empress of the Blues.

Milwaukee Rep presents The Devil's Music: The Life and Times of Bessie Smith in the Stackner Cabaret at the Patty and Jay Baker Theater Complex through March 20. For special events, performance schedule and tickets, please call: 414.224.9490 or www.MilwaukeeRep.com

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