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Judy in disguise

New York production explores Garland’s wobbly London shows

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‘End of the Rainbow’
Belasco Theatre
111 West 44th Street
New York
$31.50-$121.50
212-239-6200

From left, Michael Cumpsty, Tracie Bennett and Tom Pelphrey in ‘End of the Rainbow.’ (Photo by Carol Rosegg; courtesy O and M Co.)

The Judy Garland of “End of the Rainbow” (now on Broadway) isn’t the triumphant Judy who reclaimed her starry diadem after the astonishing comeback concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1961. This Judy is seven years older, further down on her luck and shakier than ever. And while playwright Peter Quilter’s close-up look at the disintegration of a great talent is compelling, it’s Tracie Bennett as Judy who takes the show to an entirely different level. Her spookily spot-on channeling of the troubled superstar is phenomenal.

Set in a suite in London’s Ritz Hotel and the nearby Talk of the Town nightclub where Judy is precariously poised to make yet another comeback, the musical play repeatedly asks the question will she or won’t she? Will Judy be able to perform? Will she stay sober? Doing their best to prop her up offstage and on are manager and soon-to-be fifth husband Mickey Deans (Tom Pelphry), and her gay Scottish-born pianist, Anthony (the excellent Michael Cumpsty). Ultimately, each is fighting a losing battle. Just months after the erratic London club dates, Judy would be dead from an accidental overdose of barbiturates. But for now the show must go on.

Bennett’s Judy draws on the star’s renowned wit, clownishness, foul humor and charm. There’s also the cunning and desperation of an inveterate drug addict. At this point in her life, Judy’s poison of choice is Ritalin washed down with Stoli vodka, but when she can’t get that, any other “adult candy” will do: After mistakenly gobbling pills that were prescribed for a mangy cocker spaniel, she says, “I don’t need a doctor. Call a vet. If I start to pee on a lamppost, then call a doctor.”

Within the fancy suite (designed by William Dudley who also did the perfect costumes), there’s tension. Judy sees her younger paramour as a protector while accompanist Anthony considers Mickey a crass opportunist. He’s written and Pelphrey plays him somewhere in between. Initially Mickey weans Judy off drugs, but later becomes her supplier when she can’t perform without them.

Like any good bio play, “End of the Rainbow” covers all the bases. Judy recalls her vaudeville roots and Benzedrine-fueled MGM youth, cracking jokes about Mickey Rooney’s cigarette–stunted growth, Deanna Durbin’s unibrow and young Elizabeth Taylor’s charm (“She was so charming you just wanted to run her down with a car!”). She covers her lifelong drug addiction and a couple ex-husbands, but conspicuously absent is any mention of her three children whom from all accounts she adored.  She gives a nod to her gay fans: “I could throw up in their laps and I would still be glamorous.”

Bennett, who’s been playing the part since early 2010 when the musical opened to critical acclaim in London before transferring to Broadway in March, sounds and looks (especially in profile) like the bony, middle-aged Garland seen in variety show and concert clips. The manic, jerky movements are all there — outstretched arms, upturned palms, jumpy legs. But it’s more than an impersonation. Directed by Terry Johnson, Bennett fully inhabits the star, artist and damaged woman.

Her quavering voice is a tad hoarse, but it works for this late stage in Judy’s career. When she sings “The Man that Got Away,” her hotel room morphs into a nightclub, nicely demonstrating the blurred boundary separating the star’s private life and career. Her riveting Ritalin-addled take on “Come Rain or Come Shine” is a poignant commentary on a once great talent now sick but still putting across one of her signature songs.

Wry and unconditionally loving, Anthony (representing Garland’s many gay fans) offers Judy permanent sanctuary at his home by the sea, promising wholesome food, quiet walks and chaste kisses. Sounds cozy, but Judy isn’t biting. Despite more than once claiming to be “all sung out,” in the end she goes with what she knows: a chaotic life of work, fans and drugs.

 

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Photos

PHOTOS: Capital Pride Pageant

Court crowned at Penn Social event

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From left, Zander Childs Valentino, Sasha Adams Sanchez and Dylan B. Dickherson White are crowned the winners at a pageant at Penn Social on April 26. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Eight contestants vied for Mr., Miss and Mx. Capital Pride 2024 at a pageant at Penn Social on Saturday. Xander Childs Valentino was crowned Mr. Capital Pride, Dylan B. Dickherson White was crowned Mx. Capital Pride and Sasha Adams Sanchez was crowned Miss Capital Pride.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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Theater

Round House explores serious issues related to privilege

‘A Jumping-Off Point’ is absorbing, timely, and funny

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Cristina Pitter (Miriam) and Nikkole Salter (Leslie) in ‘A Jumping-Off Point’ at Round House Theatre. (Photo by Margot Schulman Photography)

‘A Jumping-Off Point’
Through May 5
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md.
$46-$83
Roundhousetheatre.org

In Inda Craig-Galván’s new play “A Jumping-Off Point,” protagonist Leslie Wallace, a rising Black dramatist, believes strongly in writing about what you know. Clearly, Craig-Galván, a real-life successful Black playwright and television writer, adheres to the same maxim. Whether further details from the play are drawn from her life, is up for speculation.

Absorbing, timely, and often funny, the current Round House Theatre offering explores some serious issues surrounding privilege and who gets to write about what. Nimbly staged and acted by a pitch perfect cast, the play moves swiftly across what feels like familiar territory without being the least bit predictable. 

After a tense wait, Leslie (Nikkole Salter) learns she’s been hired to be showrunner and head writer for a new HBO MAX prestige series. What ought to be a heady time for the ambitious young woman quickly goes sour when a white man bearing accusations shows up at her door. 

The uninvited visitor is Andrew (Danny Gavigan), a fellow student from Leslie’s graduate playwriting program. The pair were never friends. In fact, he pressed all of her buttons without even trying. She views him as a lazy, advantaged guy destined to fail up, and finds his choosing to dramatize the African American Mississippi Delta experience especially annoying. 

Since grad school, Leslie has had a play successfully produced in New York and now she’s on the cusp of making it big in Los Angeles while Andrew is bagging groceries at Ralph’s. (In fact, we’ll discover that he’s a held a series of wide-ranging temporary jobs, picking up a lot of information from each, a habit that will serve him later on, but I digress.) 

Their conversation is awkward as Andrew’s demeanor shifts back and forth from stiltedly polite to borderline threatening. Eventually, he makes his point: Andrew claims that Leslie’s current success is entirely built on her having plagiarized his script. 

This increasingly uncomfortable set-to is interrupted by Leslie’s wisecracking best friend and roommate Miriam who has a knack for making things worse before making them better. Deliciously played by Cristina Pitter (whose program bio describes them as “a queer multi-spirit Afro-indigenous artist, abolitionist, and alchemist”), Miriam is the perfect third character in Craig-Galván’s deftly balanced three-hander. 

Cast members’ performances are layered. Salter’s Leslie is all charm, practicality, and controlled ambition, and Gavigan’s Andrew is an organic amalgam of vulnerable, goofy, and menacing. He’s terrific. 

The 90-minute dramedy isn’t without some improbable narrative turns, but fortunately they lead to some interesting places where provoking questions are representation, entitlement, what constitutes plagiarism, etc. It’s all discussion-worthy topics, here pleasingly tempered with humor. 

New York-based director Jade King Carroll skillfully helms the production. Scenes transition smoothly in large part due to a top-notch design team. Scenic designer Meghan Raham’s revolving set seamlessly goes from Leslie’s attractive apartment to smart cafes to an HBO writers’ room with the requisite long table and essential white board. Adding to the graceful storytelling are sound and lighting design by Michael Keck and Amith Chandrashaker, respectively. 

The passage of time and circumstances are perceptively reflected in costume designer Moyenda Kulemeka’s sartorial choices: heels rise higher, baseball caps are doffed and jackets donned.

“A Jumping-Off Point” is the centerpiece of the third National Capital New Play Festival, an annual event celebrating new work by some of the country’s leading playwrights and newer voices. 

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Nightlife

Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival

An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend

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Ed Bailey's set at last year's Project Glow. (Photo courtesy Bailey)

When does a garden GLOW? When it’s run by famed local gay DJ Ed Bailey.

This weekend, music festival Project GLOW at RFK Festival Grounds will feature Bailey’s brainchild the Secret Garden, a unique space just for the LGBTQ community that he launched in 2023.

While Project GLOW, running April 27-28, is a stage for massive electronic DJ sets in a large outdoor space, Secret Garden is more intimate, though no less adrenaline-forward. He’s bringing the nightclub to the festival. The garden is a dance area that complements the larger stages, but also stands on its own as a draw for festival-goers. Its focus is on DJs that have a presence and following in the LGBTQ audience world.

“The Secret Garden is a showcase for what LGBTQ nightlife, and nightclubs in general, are all about,” he says. “True club DJs playing club music for people that want to dance in a fun environment that is high energy and low stress. It’s the cool party inside the bigger party.”

Project GLOW launched in 2022. Bailey connected with the operators after the first event, and they discussed Bailey curating his own space for 2023. “They were very clear that they wanted me to lean into the vibrant LGBTQ nightlife of D.C. and allow that community to be very visibly a part of this area.”

Last year, club icon Kevin Aviance headlined the Secret Garden. The GLOW festival organizers loved the its energy from last year, and so asked Bailey to bring it back again, with an entire year to plan.

This year, Bailey says, he is “bringing in more D.C. nightlife legends.” Among those are DJ Sedrick, “a DJ and entertainer legend. He was a pivotal part of Tracks nightclub and is such a dynamic force of entertainment,” says Bailey. “I am excited for a whole new audience to be able to experience his very special brand of DJing!”

Also, this year brings in Illustrious Blacks, a worldwide DJ duo with roots in D.C.; and “house music legends” DJs Derrick Carter and DJ Spen.

Bailey is focusing on D.C.’s local talent, with a lineup including Diyanna Monet, Strikestone!, Dvonne, Baronhawk Poitier, THABLACKGOD, Get Face, Franxx, Baby Weight, and Flower Factory DJs KS, Joann Fabrixx, and PWRPUFF. 

 Secret Garden also brings in performers who meld music with dance, theater, and audience interactions for a multi-sensory experience.

Bailey is an owner of Trade and Number Nine, and was previously an owner of Town Danceboutique. Over the last 35 years, Bailey owned and operated more than 10 bars and clubs in D.C. He has an impressive resume, too. Since starting in 1987, he’s DJ’d across the world for parties and nightclubs large and intimate. He says that he opened “in concert for Kylie Minogue, DJed with Junior Vasquez, played giant 10,000-person events, and small underground parties.” He’s also held residencies at clubs in Atlanta, Miami, and here in D.C. at Tracks, Nation, and Town. 

With Secret Garden, Bailey and GLOW aim to bring queer performers into the space not just for LGBTQ audiences, but for the entire music community to meet, learn about, and enjoy. While they might enjoy fandom among queer nightlife, this Garden is a platform for them to meet the entirety of GLOW festival goers.

Weekend-long Project GLOW brings in headliners and artists from EDM and electronic music, with big names like ILLENIUM, Zedd, and  Rezz. In all, more than 50 artists will take the three stages at the third edition of Project GLOW, presented by Insomniac (Electric Daisy Carnival) and Club Glow (Echostage, Soundcheck).

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