Theater review: ‘Blues in the Night’

Altar Boyz" is still running at Swift Creek Mill Theatre, but there's more going on there through the end of May: "Blues in the Night" is on stage when the Boyz are off.

This is the 1980 Sheldon Epps revue with a cast of four covering more than two dozen blues songs, some more classic than others. We're talking Bessie Smith blues, not Muddy Waters blues -- sometimes brassy and bawdy, sometimes forlorn. Epps includes some interesting out-of-the box choices, too: Ann Ronel's "Willow Weep for Me" and a haunting slow version of the jazz standard "Stompin' at the Savoy."

The thinnest of conceits weaves the songs together. Three lonely women inhabit adjacent rooms at a seedy Chicago hotel in the late 1930s. One is a retired showgirl from the chitlin' circuit recalling her glory days; one is a world-weary woman who has been done wrong; the third is a girl waiting for a date. And there's a lowdown man in the saloon downstairs who represents all the no-good men in these women's lives. It's not a particularly effective setup.

But director Tom Width's staging, augmented by Audra Honaker's choreography, is continually inventive and engaging. Width's set and Maura Lynch Cravey's period costumes, with Joe Doran's hot-colored blues-joint lighting, create the right atmosphere. The five-piece orchestra, under Paul Deiss' direction, has the snaky, sinuous sound to back up the vocals.

As the former showgirl, Nancy Crawley looks great in her sparkling dresses and sounds terrific. She's hilarious with suggestive numbers such as "Take Me for a Buggy Ride" and "Kitchen Man," and she does some nimble hoofing for "New Orleans Hop Scop Blues."

Jessica Caylor, as the young girl, has a lighter, less bluesy voice, but her performance of Bessie Smith's "Reckless Blues" is meaty.

TJ Ellis has the thankless role of the cad, but he does a serviceable job with tunes such as "I'm Just a Lucky So-and-So" and "Wild Women Don't Have the Blues."

And Brenda Parker gives us transcendent performances of Billy Strayhorn's breathtaking "Lush Life" and the winking Alberta Hunter song "Rough and Ready Man." Parker is the embodiment of the blues.

The singers join for duets, trios and quartets of lovely harmony, though when the three women sing together, they sound incongruously like the Andrews Sisters.

And there's a problem with the sound design, which hardly seems necessary for the cozy Swift Creek auditorium. It's dull and echoing, with occasional feedback, and seems monophonic. It might be better to let these blues be as natural as they are meant to be.
Susan Haubenstock is a Henrico County-based freelance writer and editor. She can be contacted at .