Regina Marie Williams: Press

Sexy Buttery Blues

"Bud, Not Buddy" matures and shines at Children's Theatre Company.

By ROHAN PRESTON, Star Tribune

Last update: January 23, 2008 - 10:05 PM
BUD, NOT BUDDY
What: Adapted by Reginald Andre Jackson from Christopher Paul Curtis' novel. Directed by Marion McClinton.

When: 7 p.m. today, 7:30 p.m. Fri., 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sat., 2 and 5 p.m. Sun. Ends Feb. 16.

Where: Children's Theatre, 2400 3rd Av. S., Mpls.

Tickets: $22.50-$37.50. 612-874-0400.

In "Bud, Not Buddy," which opened over the weekend at the Children's Theatre Company, the first act offers a lot of perfunctory exposition. It dawdles a bit in setting up the plot and establishing the play's flashback storytelling style.

But the second act, in which the hopes and dreams of a searching 10-year-old orphan meet the realities of the world, is simply sublime. Poignant and elegant, it made my eyes misty.

Adapted by Reginald Andre Jackson from Christopher Paul Curtis' Newberry-winning book, "Bud" is about a boy in an orphanage, played by Nathan Barlow, who runs away to find his father.

The father may or may not be famous bandleader Herman Calloway (Shawn Hamilton as a hurt and truculent taskmaster). When Bud finds Mr. Calloway, he is not received like he thought he would be. But wise and indefatigable, the young man with the potential to flower perseveres.

The play takes place during the Depression, not today, when Bud's search would be a TV special.

Staged with style and sophistication by Marion McClinton, "Bud" is ostensibly a show for children. Children's Theatre recommends it for ages 9 and up. But McClinton has directed a fierce work with some swinging jazz composed by Victor Zupanc -- not the bright musical underscoring that you might expect for youngsters. In other words, this production, which uses real-looking weapons, does not do too much nodding to children.

The performances, by a very capable company whose members play multiple parts, are all admirable. Barlow, a Children's Theatre veteran, is clearly in a growth spurt and his voice is changing (getting lower). Still, he invests Bud with verve and hard-fought hope.

"Bud" features a lovely turn by Regina Williams as the warm, sensitive singer in Calloway's band. In voice and body, Williams' radiant character wraps the orphan boy in warmth and love. Hamilton is deft and in the pocket as the leader of the jazz band. He moves with stylized syncopation as if he is walking on music. Kevin West, Payton Woodson and the always stellar Marvette Knight join Gerald Drake, Samuel Roberson, Traci Allen, Namir Smallwood and Max Tojtanowicz in this lyrical production that is as apt for adults as it is for children.

It might be at Children's Theatre, but adults could ditch the kids and go to this one for themselves. It's a thought.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390

Spirit of Holiday channeled at Stackner
Intense internal energy fuels Williams' organic performance
By DAMIEN JAQUES
Journal Sentinel theater critic
Posted: March 19, 2007

Mesmerizing is a word critics should use very judiciously. It's a term that carries big expectations and responsibilities.
''Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill'

Regina Marie Williams uses nuance and exquisitely subtle shadings to portray jazz singer Billie Holiday in the Milwaukee Repertory Theater's production of "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill."
If You Go
What: "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill"
When: Through May 13.
Where: The Stackner Cabaret at the Baker Theater Complex, 108 E. Wells St. Tickets are on sale at the Milwaukee Rep's box office in the complex's lobby, by phone at (414) 224-9490, and online at www.milwaukee
rep.com

But I can't think of a better way to describe Regina Marie Williams' performance in "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill," the new show the Milwaukee Repertory Theater opened in its Stackner Cabaret over the weekend. Williams plays the late jazz singer Billie Holiday in Lanie Robertson's well-written theater piece, a monologue-concert hybrid.

Actually, Williams channels the troubled singer to a degree that few performances attain. She toys with something that seems beyond acting. It's more visceral, organic and almost ghostly.

No wonder the lone act flies by as if time is standing still.

Playwright Robertson used the conceit of placing "Lady Day" in a Philadelphia jazz club near the end of Holiday's short life. She died in 1959 at the age of 44.

Billie is out of prison and has a new boyfriend-piano accompanist. She is on stage at the intimate Emerson's Bar & Grill to entertain the smattering of fans and jazz aficionados who have shown up.

Holiday sings 17 songs, and between numbers rambles on, talking about her life. The star was a poster child for the crushing price of racial bigotry exacerbated by bad personal choices.

She was raped at 10, then handed over by her mother to a brothel madam as a teenager. He first husband introduced her to heroin, begging her to sample it as a sign of her love for him. Billie had a knack for being attracted to the wrong men.

Holiday's career was short-circuited by the double whammy of prejudice and her frequent conflicts with the law. The best jazz songs were often restricted to white singers to record, and Billie talks about the indignities suffered by black touring performers in the first half of the 20th century.

The club appearance we are witnessing is lubricated by the constant sipping of alcohol as Holiday sings and talks. Her stability gradually slips away.
A different route

Most singer-actresses portray an increasingly inebriated Billie sloshing through her final songs. With her intense internal energy, Williams takes a different route.

She exudes the instability using nuance and exquisitely subtle shadings. That makes the character's descent more harrowing.

Williams also underplays her performance of "Strange Fruit," Holiday's signature song about lynching. Broadway composer E.Y. (Yip) Harburg called the number a "historic document." In Williams' interpretation, she sings "Strange Fruit" without a great deal of drama but with impeccable clarity, demonstrating that less can be more.

The singer-actress employs a remarkably expressive face and physicality to suggest a compelling presence despite faded glamour and an erratic spirit. Vocally, Williams has a distinctive style that offers a velvet purr sometimes punctuated with a hint of spunky squawk.

Pianist William Knowles ably handles the keyboard and the few lines of dialogue he has with Williams.

CONSTANT STAR SHINES

REGINA is...