Kym Purling and Zahra Newman at Emerson’s Bar and Grill. Photo: Matt Byrne.
For this Tony Award-winning show, a musical play about the life of jazz great Billie Holiday, the Belvoir stage has been transformed into a Philadelphia cabaret club, dark and perhaps a little rundown, and complete with a cluster of café tables and chairs (and even a waiter) for some audience members. The year is 1959, shortly before Holiday died. Assume the place will be packed (it was the night I attended), everyone eagerly anticipating the return of the already almost legendary Lady Day herself. In fact, this gig would be one of Holiday’s last performances. Warming up the crowd is the superb musical trio of pianist Kym Purling (who also takes the role of Jimmy Powers, as well as being the show’s musical director), bassist Victor Rounds and drummer Calvin Welch.
And then Zahra Newman appears as Holiday, sparkling in a white evening gown, and after the briefest of introductions, the lights dim and she launches into her first number, a stunning rendition of ‘I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone’. It’s a brilliant beginning and Newman, with her incredible vocals, already has her audience on side.
What follows, along with snippets of some of Holiday’s best known songs, is ‘Newman’s Billie’ reminiscing about key points in her life. She’s not happy to be back in Philly, it holds dark memories. Powers jollies her along, trying to keep the atmosphere light – and sometimes succeeding – but Holiday’s life has been full of dark and violent moments and now, in 1959, she has much to look back on and much to be angry about.
As Holiday, Newman veers wonderfully from dark to light and back again. And from song to soliloquy. Among other things, she recounts a troubled childhood, a difficult mother, a grandma whom she adored and whose death caused more trauma. There’s a throwaway line about a rape when she was aged 10. And then she’s back behind the mike, singing her heart out and thrilling us all. ‘I gotta sing the way I feel,’ she tells us. And Lanie Robertson’s script gives her plenty of opportunity to vent those feelings as it highlights some of the lows of Holiday’s life.
There are plenty of lows. The racism she endured, for example. The abusive relationship with her first husband (‘Everyone said Monroe was no good. My best talent is for picking the worst apple in the bunch.); her ever-increasing drug and alcohol addiction; the 1947 narcotics bust at her Philadelphia hotel that landed her in jail for 366 days (the case was called The United States vs. Billie Holiday and, according to Holiday, ‘That’s just the way it felt’) and made her dislike Philadelphia.
Not every aspect of Holiday’s life and various loves can be explored in a show that lasts 90 minutes, and Robertson gives us a snapshot that tends towards the bleaker aspects. Newman provides us with fabulous renditions of Holiday’s trials, tribulations and – above all – her songs. Her version of Strange Fruit, for example, is just astonishing and one of many highlights. It’s not obvious in the show, but Holiday recorded this protest song – about the horrific lynching of Black Americans – in 1939; it is now considered one of the first protest songs in the Civil Rights movement. Holiday’s refusal to stop singing it made her a target for the FBI (and no doubt was a key factor behind the 1947 drug bust).
As the evening progresses, and Holiday gets increasingly drunk – weaving in and around the tables and proclaiming everyone ‘her friends’ – there are flashes of humour too. Her recollection of a snooty White club maitresse de’ refusing her access to a bathroom – there were no facilities available to Black women, in itself a huge indictment of the times – is very funny and ends very badly. But not so much for Billie.
Newman is on record as saying her craft is not to mimic and that what we are seeing is her version of Billie Holiday. “I’m an actor,’ she says, ‘[and] it’s about evoking her sound and phrasing, so people get the feeling like when they listen to her.’ And we certainly do. Newman conveys the heartbreak, the despair and the remarkable singing style behind one of music’s greats, a woman of whom Sinatra said in 1958: ‘Billie Holiday was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.’ A year later, Holiday was dead at only 44, seen off by cirrhosis.
Back to Emerson’s Bar and Grill. Much credit to set and costume designer Ailsa Paterson and to lighting designer Govin Ruben, who have transformed Belvoir into this 1950s venue. And of course to the man who directed it all with such aplomb, Mitchell Butel. This show is a co-production with State Theatre Company South and Melbourne Theatre Company. Luckily, Belvoir’s artistic director Eamon Flack secured it for Sydney. It’s on until 15 October – and is not to be missed.
Tickets: $37-$93, plus booking fee
More information at https://belvoir.com.au/productions/lady-day/or (02) 9699 3444.
