We all know the tragic story of Billie Holiday (and if you don’t, look it up; or at least watch Lady Sings the Blues, for Pete’s sake – Diana Ross, in her Oscar-nominated role, offers a fantastic example of what I like to call “Methadone acting”).  No matter what one thinks of her life; however, the impact Billie Holiday had on popular music (of her time, and since) cannot be overstated.  In 1958, Frank Sinatra told Ebony “…every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. “

So, I knew going in, that with Billie Holiday as its subject, we weren’t exactly in for a light-hearted romp; but I was just not ready for the sheer intensity of emotion that Audra McDonald would unleash on the audience, in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, last week, at New York’s Circle in the Square Theater.

Some of the credit is due to the spectacular seating at the theatre, and specifically the two seats I bought.  I’d opted to get a pair of seats in the Circle Club, taking advantage of the fact that Circle in the Square offers one of Broadway’s only two thrust stages.  According to TeleCharge.com, “Circle Club seating gives audiences a chance to enter the world of Emerson’s Bar & Grill and share the stage with Billie Holiday herself.  Audience members who take advantage of this special limited seating are encouraged to dress festively.”  Having chosen wisely, we were seated at an intimate cocktail table, in the very front of the stage, to the left (where, in a conventional theater, we’d have been Downstage Right, actually on the proscenium stage).  On a number of occasions (especially as Holiday became more imbibed) McDonald was mere inches from my face, seemingly singing to me.  In the midst of staring, wide-eyed; it was all I could do to make sure my mouth wasn’t hanging open with spittle running down my chin.

One scene in particular seems to have seared itself into my brain.  McDonald, as Holiday, returns to the stage (after spending a spell receiving a ‘treatment’ from her ‘doctor’), and while the most noticeable thing is the miniature Chihuahua she’s holding in her right arm, after a moment, you notice that the opera glove on her left arm is rolled-down, exposing track-marks and the detritus of her heroin addiction.  She sings this way for a song or two, and then, her musical director gently walks-over to her, and whispers in her ear.  McDonald/Holiday, turned away from the audience, looks back with a look of abject horror, mortified at having revealed this very intimate aspect of a not-so-secret side of her life, to the audience; and tears roll down her cheeks, ruining what’s left of her already devastated maquillage.

Billie Holiday’s story is not a new one.  I daresay that it served as the prototype for every episode of VH1’s Behind the Music and E!’s True Hollywood Story.  But it’s never been told* in such a way as by Audra McDonald in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.  All of the tragedy and light, pathos and (very dark) humor that made-up the woman we knew as Billie Holiday; all were expertly employed by McDonald, and earned her that much-deserved record-breaking sixth Tony Award.

I’ve spoken with a lot of people who’ve seen Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, and the responses to the question “What was the first thing you wanted to do, after leaving the theater?” have run the gamut from “Have a cigarette,” and “Take a Xanax,” to “Call my sponsor, and find a meeting.”  The power of theater; it’s really heady stuff.

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill
Starring Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday
Circle in the Square Theatre
Click HERE for tickets and info

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#LadyDay

*Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is a revival, and I never saw any of its previous incarnations – when it starred Eartha Kitt, Loretta Divine, Jackée Harry, or most notably, the brilliant S. Epatha Merkerson (in 1987, both off-Broadway and at LA’s Hollywood Playhouse); but I’m sure they were all magnificent!