Review Roundup: NINA SIMONE: FOUR WOMEN at Arena Stage

By: Nov. 22, 2017
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Celebrating the life and music of Nina Simone, one of America's most iconic singers and civil rights activists, Christina Ham's provocative musical journey Nina Simone: Four Women makes its East Coast debut at Arena Stage. Nina Simone: Four Women runs November 10-December 24, 2017 in the Kreeger Theater. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the company at their first rehearsal below!

Set in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which four little girls lost their lives in 1963, Ham uses Simone's song "Four Women" as the framework to explore the songstress' shift from artist to artist-activist. Timothy Douglas returns to Arena Stage to direct this "gorgeous and moving testimonial" (Star Tribune).

Joining Harriett D. Foy (Broadway's Amelie and Mamma Mia, Arena's The Women of Brewster Place) as Nina Simone, the cast includes D.C.-area's Felicia Curry (Arena's Disgraced) as Sweet Thing and Theresa Cunningham (Round House Theatre's Caroline or Change) as Aunt Sarah, with Toni Martin (Broadway's Airline Highway) as Sephronia. Darius Smith (Signature's Jelly's Last Jam) will play Nina's younger brother Sam Waymon.

The creative team for Nina Simone: Four Woman includes Music Director Darius Smith, Choreographer Dane Figueroa Edidi, Set Designer Timothy Mackabee, Costume Designer Kara Harmon, Lighting Designer Michael Gilliam, Sound Designer Matthew M. Nielson, Wig Designer Anne Nesmith, Stage Manager Christi B. Spann and Assistant Stage Manager Marne Anderson.

Roger Catlin, BroadwayWorld: While not a musical exactly, music does erupt in "Four Women," starting with the adaptation of Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy" that first put Simone on the map. Amid traditional hymns and songs of early 20th century like Bert Williams' "Nobody," there are Simone's own compelling compositions, from "Old Jim Crowe" to "Sinnerman" to her adaptation of "To Be Young, Gifted and Black."

Nelseon Pressley, Washington Post: So yes, the script can be diagrammatic. But the civil rights-era how shall we resist arguments still slice into the audience, as do the intermittent musical performances of what Simone called her "black classical music." Songs include her anthem (with Weldon Irvine) "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" and the harried "Sinnerman," a spiritual chase that interrupts the dialogues with a surge of rhythm and melody. Foy's Simone-like rendition of "Mississippi Goddam" and the ensemble's slow-burning turns through "Four Women" are dramatic knockouts.

Debbie Minter Jackson, DC Theatre Scene: Director Timothy Douglas has truly called on the ancestors big time to bring the inner cry of these characters to the stage. Choreographer Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi unleashes a fury of movement, including a step cadence, some jelly roll strut, then brings it all home to a sanctified church praise. The women cover it all.

Robert Michael Oliver, DC Metro Theatre Arts: Ms. Ham's dialogue brings that pain into full focus, and it is personal and prophetic. Social change is indeed too slow for the people suffering under the wheel of political and economic oppression. But it's not too slow because of the social damage that it does (even though that damage is great). It's too slow because of the psychological torment that contempt and pity bring to the oppressed. Nina Simone is a welcome reminder that the strongest among us will never be strong enough to endure that pain forever.



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