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      Paul Vance, Lyricist Behind an ‘Itsy Bitsy’ Bikini, Dies at 92

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      His daughter’s experience wearing a bikini on a beach in 1960 inspired him to write a novelty song that became a No. 1 hit.Paul Vance, who described the uncertain path of a girl in a risqué two-piece bathing suit as she advanced from a locker to the shore in the novelty hit song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini,” died on May 30 in West Palm Beach, Fla. He was 92.His daughter Paula Vance confirmed the death, at a nursing facility.It was Paula, who at 2 years old, inspired the song. On a family trip to the beach in 1960, she wore one of the itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikinis that her Aunt Lena had made for her and two of her cousins. But her shyness made her retreat, at first, because of the reaction of two boys who exclaimed that she was wearing no clothes.When she re-emerged, she wrapped herself in a blanket before venturing into the water. While in the water, the bottom of her bikini fell off. Heading home, the lyrics to “Itsy Bitsy” started coming to Mr. Vance. He called Lee Pockriss, his songwriting partner on a number of hits.“I sang the lyric on the phone and by the time he got to my office a couple of hours later, he had 90 percent of the tune written,” Mr. Vance was quoted as saying in the obituary for Mr. Pockriss in The Los Angeles Times in 2011.The song was soon recorded by Brian Hyland, a 16-year-old heartthrob from Queens, and it spent 15 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including one week at No. 1. Before Mr. Hyland was introduced on “American Bandstand” — where a little girl would re-enact Paula Vance’s experience on a set with a bath house and mock waves — the host Dick Clark called “Itsy Bitsy” the “hottest or coolest record in the country, the biggest thing around.”“Itsy Bitsy” endured longer than its time on the charts, though. It has been covered dozens of times by artists as diverse as Connie Francis, Kermit and Miss Piggy, and Devo and used in commercials for products like Yoplait Light and Special K cereal.Joseph Philip Florio was born on Nov. 4, 1929, in Brooklyn to Philip and Concetta Florio. His father delivered ice in a horse-drawn wagon. His mother was a homemaker.He began writing lyrics when he was 13 but had no clear path to being a composer. He described himself to The Palm Beach Post in 2015 as a “dese, dose and dem” guy who avoided falling in with the Mafia. Instead, he served in the Army at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., then opened a junkyard and auto salvage business. He was already in his mid-20s when he met Mr. Pockriss, a composer who had done graduate work with Aaron Copland.“It’s an ideal professional combination,” Mr. Pockriss told The Associated Press in 1960, adding: “He understands the public. I understand the profession.”Their 1957 song “Catch a Falling Star” was a hit for Perry Como in 1957 and the first record certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.Paul Vance in an undated photo with one of his gold record awards. He had a long career collaborating on songs recorded by Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, Paul Anka, Patti Page and others.via Vance familyThe success of “Catch a Falling Star” let Mr. Vance focus on songwriting, and he changed his name to sound less ethnic. With various collaborators, including Mr. Pockriss, he wrote songs originally recorded by Johnny Mathis, Paul Anka, Tommy James and the Shondells, and Patti Page.Mr. Vance cajoled Clint Holmes into recording his and Mr. Pockriss’s song “Playground in My Mind” by following him into a men’s room to make his pitch, at a venue in the Bahamas, where Mr. Holmes was performing. Speaking to The Palm Beach Post, Mr. Holmes said of Mr. Vance, “His enthusiasm struck me more than the song.” The song, though, became Mr. Holmes’s only top 10 hit.While still writing songs, Mr. Vance owned and bred horses for harness racing.In addition to his daughter Paula, he is survived by another daughter, Connie Vance Cohen; a son, Joseph; a sister, Joanne Florio, a singer; nine grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren. His wife, Margaret (Curte) Vance, died in 2012. His son Philip died in 2009.Mr. Vance was erroneously reported to have died in 2006 when the wife of a man named Paul Van Valkenburgh, who had indeed died, asserted that her husband had written “Itsy Bitsy” under the name Paul Vance. The obituary, by The Associated Press, was picked up by many news outlets, including The New York Times. (Corrections ensued, and The Times published a corrective article.)But the false report shook up Mr. Vance’s family and friends. His music publisher confirmed that Mr. Vance, not the deceased man, was the songwriter and that he was still collecting royalties.But as Mr. Vance told The Orlando Sentinel in 2006, some people still called thinking he was dead, and he would inform them: “This is Heaven. Who do you wish to speak to? Paul Vance? Oh, yeah, he just got up here.” More

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      Bill Walker, Nashville Force as Conductor and Arranger, Dies at 95

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      He scored chart-topping records for country stars and later served as the musical director of “The Johnny Cash Show.”NASHVILLE — Bill Walker, a conductor and arranger who became a musical force in Nashville, scoring popular recordings for country stars like Marty Robbins and Connie Smith and serving as musical director for Johnny Cash’s primetime television variety show, died on May 26 at a rehabilitation facility near here. He was 95.His death was confirmed by his daughter-in-law Terri Walker, who said he had developed pneumonia after recent knee replacement surgery.A classically trained pianist, Mr. Walker orchestrated blockbuster hits like Eddy Arnold’s “Make the World Go Away” (1965) and Sammi Smith’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” (1970). Both records reached No. 1 on the country chart and crossed over to the pop Top 10.He also served as arranger and conductor for, among many other recordings, Donna Fargo’s “The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A.,” a chart-topping country single that stalled just outside the pop Top 10 in 1972.In the process he had a hand in shaping both the lush, sophisticated Nashville Sound of the 1960s and the soulful “countrypolitan” sensibility that came after it.Mr. Walker, left, in an undated photograph with Earl Poole Ball and Johnny Cash. In addition to working on “The Johnny Cash Show,” he wrote and conducted the arrangement for Mr. Cash’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down.”Joseph Cates via Earl Poole BallEmpathy and elegance were his calling cards, along with a knack for plumbing the emotional heart of a song, a gift that was nowhere more evident than in his work on “Help Me Make It Through the Night.”“Take the ribbon from my hair,” Ms. Smith implores her lover as Mr. Walker’s gossamer arrangement caresses the ache in her voice.His sympathetic strings likewise lent pathos to George Jones’s lovelorn “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” a No. 1 country hit in 1980.“You are there to make the artist sound good, not to show how clever you can be,” Mr. Walker said of his philosophy of recording in a 2015 interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.“That’s how I used to do it,” he continued. “It didn’t matter if the artist was a hillbilly singer from back in the woods somewhere or Perry Como. You give them the same attention no matter what.”Mr. Walker in the early 1970s with Loretta Lynn and Ray Charles as they rehearsed for an NBC television special.Courtesy of the Country Music Hall of Fame and MuseumWilliam Alfred Walker was born on April 28, 1927, in Sydney, Australia, the eldest of three children of Alfred and Beryl (Gabb) Walker. His father was a dairy farmer, his mother a homemaker.William began playing the piano at age 5 and soon started taking private lessons. While in high school and college he performed in clubs and taught himself the rudiments of arranging by listening to popular recordings on the radio. He received his formal training at Sydney University’s Conservatorium of Music, graduating in 1955.In 1957 he moved to South Africa to become the musical director of the Johannesburg division of RCA Records, where he released 23 largely instrumental albums of pop and Latin music that featured him on piano backed by large and small ensembles.He also produced sessions for the country superstar Jim Reeves, who encouraged him to move to Nashville; Mr. Walker arrived the weekend Mr. Reeves died at 39 in a fatal plane crash, in July 1964.He started working with Mr. Arnold and helped revive the singer’s career at a time when ballad singers were being eclipsed on the country chart by artists like Buck Owens and Roger Miller, who were more attuned to up-tempo rock ’n’ roll.Mr. Walker later turned down a chance to succeed Chet Atkins as head of the Nashville office of RCA before becoming the musical director of “The Johnny Cash Show” on ABC-TV in 1969. There, he helped bring Southern culture to living rooms and dens across the country by collaborating with Mahalia Jackson, Roy Acuff, Louis Armstrong and an array of other guests.He also wrote and conducted the arrangement for Mr. Cash’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” a live recording from the show that went to No. 1 on the country chart in 1970. Mr. Cash typically signed off each episode of his program with the salutation, “Goodnight, Mr. Walker!”After The Johnny Cash Show ended its run in 1971, Mr. Walker spent the next two decades working as an independent producer for singers like Ferlin Husky and Wanda Jackson and managing his own label, Con Brio Records. In the early ’70s he worked with Ray Charles and Loretta Lynn for an NBC television special. Mr. Walker worked with ensembles on at least four continents, including studio professionals on the East and West Coasts of the United States.via Marco MusicFrom 1991 to 1998 he was the musical director for “The Statler Brothers Show,” a popular musical variety show on the Nashville Network. He remained active as a producer and arranger into the 2000s, writing scores for TV specials and movies at a time when session musicians relied primarily on improvised, or “head,” arrangements.Mr. Walker is survived by his wife of 51 years, Jeanine (Ogletree) Walker, a former Nashville session singer; a daughter, Beth Walker; a son, Colin, from a previous marriage; his sister, Julianne Smith; his brother, Robert; and 13 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren. Two sons, Jeff and Peter, and a daughter, Lisa Gibson, all from previous marriages, died.Mr. Walker worked with ensembles on at least four continents, including studio professionals on the East and West Coasts of the United States. For the arrangements that he composed, though, he preferred the intuitive, less-is-more approach of the session musicians he first encountered in Nashville in the 1960s.“That’s the thing with Nashville players,” he said in his interview at the Country Music Hall of Fame. “They all listen to each other and they join in the licks. It’s the stuff you can’t write. You can only give them the idea and let them go with it.” More

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      Broadway’s Beloved Basement Club, Feinstein’s/54 Below, Turns 10

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      The venue beneath what was once Studio 54 will pick up a Tony Award for excellence in the theater as it marks its anniversary with a pair of concerts.On June 5, 2012, shortly after noon, a bevy of cabaret and theater artists and insiders gathered in a space beneath what had been the storied West 54th Street nightclub Studio 54. The occasion was a dress rehearsal for a show that evening that would open a new venue called, reasonably enough, 54 Below. Patti LuPone was the featured act, with other Broadway and nightlife luminaries, including Ben Vereen and Justin Vivian Bond, slated to appear soon afterward.Joe Iconis, a young composer, lyricist and performer who was part of that initial lineup, recalled the event as “a coming out for the room itself.” The bar was separated from the stage and dining tables by a curtain, which was later opened, “so there was this dramatic reveal of the room, to the people who would soon be playing it.”It was a fittingly theatrical debut for a spot that, 10 years later, still bills itself as “Broadway’s living room.” (The venue is now known as Feinstein’s/54 Below, acknowledging a creative partnership with the veteran performer and American songbook champion Michael Feinstein that began in 2015.) On June 12, it will receive an honor at the Tony Awards for excellence in the theater.“To me, Feinstein’s is not only about the American songbook; in some ways it’s become a sensibility, a lifestyle brand,” Michael Feinstein said.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAt the time of 54 Below’s start, the Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room, one of New York’s most established cabaret venues, had just announced its closure; Feinstein’s own namesake at the Regency Hotel shut down not long after. Don’t Tell Mama and the West Bank Cafe’s Laurie Beechman Theater still offered show tunes and standards, as did the jazz club Birdland. But as Richard Frankel, one of the four Broadway producers who started and still own 54 Below, remembered, “There was nothing geared towards the huge resource of the Broadway talent pool, and the continual renewal of new music that Broadway provided.”Today, 54 Below occupies a rare perch as a free-standing club offering just that. But it faces more competition. In 2017, the Green Room 42 arrived, which, like 54 Below, features name acts, rising stars and cult favorites alongside theme shows and special events. The following year, Birdland unveiled Birdland Theater, a space that has accommodated longer runs by Broadway performers and emerging jazz artists as well as freewheeling variety shows. Other venues have continued to pop up downtown, like the East Village spots Pangea and Club Cumming, where artists generally less associated with Broadway can wax theatrical in their own fashion.But Don’t Tell Mama’s longtime booking manager, the cabaret doyen Sidney Myer, conceded that 54 Below still “draws the best and the brightest” and called its team “creative and proactive.”The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, the first to recognize shows that opened after a long Broadway shutdown during the pandemic, will be given out on June 12.Lifetime Achievement: Angela Lansbury, an acclaimed and beloved star of stage, film and television, will be honored with a special award during this year’s ceremony.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.A New Star: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process.Frankel and fellow owners Steven Baruch, Marc Routh and Tom Viertel — who have produced “The Producers,” “Hairspray” and the 2018 revival of “Angels in America” — recruited the Broadway mainstays John Lee Beatty, Ken Billington and Peter Hylenski to design the restaurant and its lighting and sound. Beatty even requested a story for inspiration; Viertel spun one about Jewish hustlers who, as Frankel relayed it, sold stolen car parts during World War I, “then started bootlegging when Prohibition came, and invited showgirls and opened a speakeasy. John said, ‘Fine—I’m good.’”On June 12, the venue will receive an honor at the Tony Awards for excellence in the theater.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesFor a pair of anniversary concerts on Sunday and Thursday, the club will spotlight young and emerging performers, composers and playwrights — among them the “Dear Evan Hansen” and “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series” alumnus Andrew Barth Feldman, 20, who grew up “binging YouTube videos of people at 54 Below” before starting to visit the club in his early teens. (Minors are welcome but aren’t permitted at the bar without parental supervision.)When the coronavirus pandemic shut down live performances in March 2020, there was no guarantee the venue would make it to this milestone. Two rounds of government loans “really saved us from the abyss,” Frankel said, though he estimated that business was still down between 20 and 25 percent from 2019.54 Below inherited its first director of programming, Phil Geoffrey Bond, from the Beechman. When Jennifer Ashley Tepper joined the venue as creative and programming director a little less than nine years ago, she took a cue from Bond’s popular “Sondheim Unplugged” series. One of her first projects was “New Musicals at 54,” which has delivered concert versions of shows such as Iconis and Joe Tracz’s “Be More Chill” and Michael R. Jackson’s Pulitzer Prize winner “A Strange Loop,” now up for 11 Tony Awards, both showcased before they were produced in New York. An eclectic assortment of additional series have come to include “New Writers at 54!” and “54 Sings …,” which mostly celebrates pop music. “A lot of these shows are done on the fly,” noted the composer Stephen Flaherty, whose musicals “My Favorite Year” and “Seussical” have been showcased at the club, which also features cast reunions and concerts of classic and underappreciated works. “You’ll have people dropping out and others replacing them, so you never know what you’re going to get, which is part of the excitement.”Slotting such vehicles and novelty acts alongside headliners like Chita Rivera, Ariana DeBose and Charles Busch into at least two shows per night, seven nights a week, can pose a challenge, Tepper says: “A big part of my job is making sure that the crowd is different at different performances.” 54 Below has drawn what the jazz singer Nicole Henry, one of several artists brought on board by Feinstein, calls “an informed, intelligent audience. They often know more about the music than I do.”Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      Review: Beatrice Rana Plays Tchaikovsky at Human Scale

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      The pianist made her New York Philharmonic debut with the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 1, on a program with Shostakovich.The New York Philharmonic’s season isn’t quite over. There are a couple of chamber concerts coming up, and, next Friday, a one-off at Carnegie Hall, as well as the traditional parks programs in mid-June.But this weekend does mark a farewell. After its last events at Alice Tully Hall three weeks ago, the Philharmonic is now saying goodbye to the Rose Theater, its other main host during this wandering season while David Geffen Hall has been closed for renovations.Tully, built for chamber music, was a sonic adjustment for the orchestra. Though it’s not much bigger in capacity, the Rose, part of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s home on Columbus Circle, has been a better fit. On Thursday, its acoustics admirably bore the grand onslaught of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 — with Beatrice Rana making her Philharmonic debut as soloist — and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, conducted by the ensemble’s music director, Jaap van Zweden.Not that Rana’s Tchaikovsky ever felt like an onslaught. Her take on this war horse is more of an embrace. Even when she’s muscular, she’s lyrical.From early on, the stylish use of rubato gave a sense of dreaminess to her performance. The sprawling first movement never felt lost, but it wandered: assertive; then suddenly reflective, translucent; then once again roiling. In the finale, her playing danced with appealing, almost sticky heaviness, but then the next line would take off with sparkling freshness.All this changeability never evoked anxiety, as it has in the hands of other artists. Rana projects an underlying calm command, a grounded quality, with the concerto’s different moods on human scale. Small corners were intimate communication: the notes touched, with perfect clarity, by her right pinkie as punctuation to her mellow left hand; her trills, lucid yet silky, a little melty.The orchestra played with panache in the third movement — and van Zweden supported artful details, like the double basses seeming to take up the resonance of the piano near the end. But it was hard to focus on anything but the central player. Even during a big flute solo in the first movement, you couldn’t take your ears off Rana. It was a truly memorable debut.Shostakovich is van Zweden country, the kind of repertory in which his characteristic clenched grip on the music helps rather than hinders it. This was a punchy, tightly played Fifth, an angrily grinning take on a work whose politics will always be ambiguous. (Its composer was desperately attempting to get in Stalin’s good graces, but as far as the score’s meaning, who knows?)The Philharmonic played well, with an almost choked grotesquerie in the march in the first movement, an eerie danse macabre of the second and bristling unsentimentality in the third. Van Zweden began the finale very fast, and the orchestra responded with clean ferocity. The progression to the climactic major-key explosion was grim, and its achievement, as Shostakovich may well have intended, was the very definition of an empty victory.New York PhilharmonicThis program continues through Saturday at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Almost Famous,’ Now a Musical, Will Open on Broadway This Fall

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      The stage adaptation, with book and lyrics by Cameron Crowe and music and lyrics by Tom Kitt, will begin previews Sept. 13.“Almost Famous,” Cameron Crowe’s rock ’n’ roll coming-of-age story, will make its pandemic-delayed trip to Broadway this fall.A musical adaptation of the beloved 2000 film, the show had an initial run in San Diego in 2019, and its creative team then continued to work on the project while theaters were shut down by the coronavirus pandemic and as Broadway began to rebound.The musical is now scheduled to begin previews on Sept. 13 and to open Oct. 11 at an unspecified Shubert theater. It is the 11th show to announce performance dates for the new Broadway season, and at least two dozen more are circling.“Almost Famous” is Crowe’s semi-autobiographical story, set in 1973, about a teenage music journalist and his relationships with members of the band he is chronicling as well as the young women who follow it. Crowe wrote and directed the film, and won an Oscar for the screenplay; he has written the book and is a co-author of the lyrics for the musical.In an interview, Crowe described himself as “exuberant” about the Broadway transfer, saying, “I’m ready to share it with people.”“Every time I see the play I go back to being 15 years old,” he added.Crowe said he grew up seeing Shakespeare plays at the Old Globe in San Diego, where the musical began its life, and that he has found working in theater more “personal and soulful” than working in the film industry. And, he said, “something about telling a story about loving music draws music-loving people.”The Old Globe production garnered strong reviews, particularly from the critic Charles McNulty of The Los Angeles Times, who called it “an unqualified winner.”The score is mostly original, with music by Tom Kitt (“Next to Normal”) who collaborated on the lyrics with Crowe; the musical also features a number of pop songs, including Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” and Joni Mitchell’s “River.”The show is being directed by Jeremy Herrin (“Wolf Hall”) and choreographed by Sarah O’Gleby.The lead producers are Lia Vollack, a former Sony executive who is also the lead producer of “MJ,” the Michael Jackson musical, and the Michael Cassel Group, an Australian production company that has become increasingly active on Broadway. The show is being capitalized for up to $18 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The role of the young journalist, named William Miller, will be played by Casey Likes, who also played the role at the Old Globe in San Diego; this will be his Broadway debut. (“He still looks young,” Crowe promised.)Chris Wood, best known for CW television shows including “Supergirl” and “The Vampire Diaries,” will make his Broadway debut as the band’s lead guitarist, Russell Hammond (played by Billy Crudup in the film). Anika Larsen (“Beautiful”) will take on the role of the protagonist’s mother, Elaine (played by Frances McDormand in the movie), and Solea Pfeiffer (“Hamilton”) will portray Penny Lane, Kate Hudson’s character in the film. The cast will also include Drew Gehling (“Waitress”) as the band’s lead singer, Jeff Bebe. More

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      ‘Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr.’ Review: A Volatile Band

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      This alt-rock trio is made up of three soft-spoken guys who generated a big noise, learned to hate one another and then made peace.This documentary opens with a credit sequence that will immediately bring nostalgia to its intended audience of alt-rock hounds: titles in a prefab type style in garish purple against a bright green background. The effects are redolent of the D.I.Y. videos of the late 1980s. The title song is an emblematic one for Dinosaur Jr., the movie’s subject. The band’s pre-grunge specialty was infectious tunes sung in a nasal drawl, nearly submerged in fuzzy guitars squalling and squealing.Directed by Philipp Reichenheim, the brother-in-law of the band member J. Mascis, the movie delivers exactly what the second half of its title promises: The story of the band. Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph, three punk-rock-besotted teenagers from Western Massachusetts, wend their way through various post-punk combos, until hitting on a distinct and ultimately influential sound. In interviews, luminaries from the era, such as Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) and Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü, Sugar), contemplate the band’s talents and its members’ quirky personalities.In keeping with their time and its mien, these fellows were very anti-rock star. Describing the style of a similarly inclined musician, Donald Fagen, back in the 1970s, the critic Robert Christgau said Fagen looked “like he just got dressed to go out for the paper.” For Barlow in particular, going out for the paper seems Napoleon-level ambitious.For all that, the trio’s volatile history is the stuff of alt-rock lore. Stranded in a motel in Idaho on a tour, their fellowship melts down; the group loses Barlow, then Murph, and years later, in 2005, the guys all mend fences for a productive and still ongoing reunion.There’s nothing here about the later soundtrack work Mascis embarks on with the director Allison Anders, or about his side project Sweet Apple; Barlow’s own highly regarded band Sebadoh is barely mentioned. The movie is nothing if not relentlessly focused on Dinosaur Jr. itself. The band is a noteworthy one. But this treatment feels skimpy.Freakscene: The Story of Dinosaur Jr.Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      Why ‘This Is How We Do It’ Is Actually a Country Song

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      Elyssa Dudley and Listen and follow Still ProcessingApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicIt’s an indelible 1990s relic, a tune that gets you into a groove right when the six opening words hit. Wesley has heard “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan countless times since he was a teenager, but it wasn’t until a recent listen at the gym that he had an epiphany: It’s a country song. It fits into a long tradition of country music that expresses love and respect for an artist’s hometown — which, in Jordan’s case, is South Central Los Angeles.Wesley explores other songs that have personally changed in meaning for him over the years (like “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M.), and he considers music that has changed in tone for our collective culture — such as Britney Spears’s catalog, in the aftermath of her yearslong struggle to end her court-sanctioned conservatorship.While the context and meaning of these songs may evolve, “the art itself is not going to change,” Wesley realizes. “‘This Is How We Do It’ is the same song in 1995 as it is in 2022,” he continues. “But what’s different is me, I have changed, and there’s something about just hearing Montell Jordan talk about what it’s like to live in South Los Angeles that my life was finally ready to absorb in some different way.”Hosted by: Wesley Morris and Jenna WorthamProduced by: Hans Buetow and Elyssa DudleyEdited by: Sara Sarasohn and Sasha WeissEngineered by: Marion LozanoExecutive Producer, Shows: Wendy Dorr More

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      in Theater

      ‘Dreaming Zenzile’ Review: A Tribute to Mama Africa

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      The musical is Somi Kakoma’s thank-you note, written across generations, to the South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba.If you want to see a performer in full command of her instrument and her powers, take the F train to Second Avenue and walk the few blocks to New York Theater Workshop to savor Somi Kakoma in “Dreaming Zenzile,” her tribute to the South African singer and activist Miriam Makeba, born Zenzile Miriam Makeba.Makeba, a star from the 1960s through her death in 2008, pioneered the form broadly known as world music. Singing in Xhosa, Swahili, Sotho, Zulu and English, Makeba popularized African songwriting among American and European audiences, earning the nickname Mama Africa. Throughout her life, she lent her voice to social justice causes, particularly that of Black South Africans living under apartheid. Onstage, at New York Theater Workshop, in collaboration with the National Black Theater, Kakoma, in a marigold dress, with a voice like a sunrise, plays her through 76 years of her eventful life.Makeba was a vocal shapeshifter who could triumph in practically any genre — folk, jazz, American songbook, Afropop. Vocally, Kakoma has that chameleonlike quality, too, varying her big, bright voice with husky breaths, vivid ululation and the Xhosa clicks for which Makeba was famous. Her singing seems as effortless as it is varied, as easy as it is virtuosic. “Dreaming Zenzile,” directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz with music direction by Hervé Samb, is best understood and enjoyed as Kakoma’s gift of love and dignity, across generations, from one artist to another.The set, by Riccardo Hernández, suggests a concert stage, illuminated by Yi Zhao’s vibrant lights.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut as a work of theater, “Dreaming Zenzile” struggles among the competing forms of recital, dream play, memory play and biography. The bare set, by Riccardo Hernández, suggests a concert stage, illuminated by Yi Zhao’s vibrant lights and backed, less helpfully by Hannah Wasileski’s banal projections of waves, flowers and rainbow abstractions. Is this an auditorium or some astral way station? Is it the afterlife? Lacking the style and thematic force that defines Blain-Cruz’s best work, the show feels less like a narrative than a tone poem, which can make time hang heavy in the first half; it takes an hour just to bring young Miriam to her professional debut.Amplified by a four-person chorus (Aaron Marcellus, Naledi Masilo, Phumzile Sojola and Phindi Wilson) and a four-person band, the music feels electric, often joyful, a sharp shock of pleasure that Marjani Forté-Saunders’s supple, elegant choreography enhances. But the interplay between book passages and Makeba’s songs, which are not subtitled, rarely feels essential. Why these songs, in these moments? By contrast, Kakoma’s emotion-heavy, jazz-inflected songs are too on the button. Really, they’re all button. Those who arrive without a working chronology may feel lost.Though it touches briefly on some central themes — exile, responsibility — and limns, however elliptically, most of the major life events of its subject, “Dreaming Zenzile” withholds what most of us desire from a work of this kind: a greater understanding of how a performer’s life shapes and impacts her art, the relationship between experience and oeuvre. This desire isn’t necessarily fair or sensible. Sometimes that relationship doesn’t exist. Sometimes it is too oblique to parse. But because “Dreaming Zenzile” too often favors symbol and abstraction, the audience is denied this connection.Only in its closing moments, which occur shortly before Makeba’s death, does the show achieve a kind of cohesion and vigor. Throughout, Makeba has taken up the burden of activism with sturdiness and poise, freeing her voice in the hope that others might be made free. Finally, she announces the cost.“Do you know what it is to be the first?” she says, choking on the words. “Do you know the weight of that? The loneliness?”To ask one woman to stand in for an entire continent was always too great a burden. Mama Africa? It was impossible. That Makeba bore it for so long, and with such grace, is a wonder and a gift. At its best, “Dreaming Zenzile” is a thank-you note, written with deep and abiding gratitude.Dreaming ZenzileThrough June 26 at New York Theater Workshop, Manhattan; nytw.org. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. More