STAGE REVIEW A Night With Janis Joplin
6 / 10
It's a shame, then, that this musical doesn't give Davies much to work with other than her phenomenal voice. Written and directed by Randy Johnson, Night focuses on Joplin's musical icons - Bessie Smith (Taprena Michelle Augustine), Nina Simone (de'Adre Aziza), Etta James (Nikki Kimbrough), and Aretha Franklin (Allison Blackwell) - without revealing much about their influence beyond the fact that sheplayed that record until she wore it out, man. There's no trace of Joplin's juicy life - no gossip about what happened backstage at Woodstock or the Monterey Pop Festival, nothing about the night she allegedly broke a beer bottle over Jim Morrison's head, or her romance with Leonard Cohen, who later memorialized their relationship in the ballad 'Chelsea Hotel.' Instead, Johnson strings together broad clichés from her childhood memories, with Joplin's character insisting that women feel the blues more acutely than men, and that fans love blues singers more after they're dead. During one night of previews, an audience member audibly gasped 'Aww!' after the latter line, apparently unaware that Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970.
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