Studio’s ‘Paradise Blue’ is a Sultry, Immersive Dream
In Studio's gripping "Paradise Blue," 1940s film noir meets August Wilson-style drama inside a Detroit jazz club.
With its smoky, seductive, immersive staging of Dominique Morisseau’s Paradise Blue, Studio Theatre turns up the heat and the suspense. Part of the playwright’s acclaimed Detroit Trilogy — which includes Skeleton Crew and Detroit ’67 — the narrative is set in 1949, in the city’s storied Black Bottom neighborhood, inside the fictional club, Paradise. The club’s jazz comes spiced with blues and bebop, courtesy of the house band led by trumpeter and club owner Blue (Amari Cheatom).
Blue’s sound, like a beguiling scent on a cool breeze, beckons audiences inside Studio’s Victor Shargai Theatre, which has been transformed for director Raymond O. Caldwell’s production into Paradise. Patrons settle in at tables and chairs, with added cushions, granted views of the bar, the stage, and the parquet floor where the action takes place.
Set designer Lawrence E. Moten III has outfitted the club with the exposed brick and chipped-paint walls of a spot that’s been around a while but has seen better days. At the rear of the club, on a second raised stage, a plush curtain opens onto the set of a bedroom, located on the second floor above Paradise.
Depending on your seat — or stool at the bar — keeping your eyes on every scintillating scene in that bedroom, or on the main floor, requires the active attention of occasionally swiveling your head or even your whole body.
Some might scorn the necessity of such physical exertions. Also, having actors at times just over your shoulder, or emoting a few inches from your face, can tug hard against one’s suspension of disbelief.
That’s also the beauty of an immersive experience, though — yielding to your imagination and the present moment. The visceral charge of being embedded in the play’s steamy, jazz-stoked action is undeniable.
Yet, the performers, for the most part, act as if they were alone in Paradise. We’re but specters to them, watching through the veil, not unlike Blue’s late daddy, Clyde, who passed this club onto his son, and, years after his death, still haunts him.
Trumpeter Michael A. Thomas appears as Clyde’s ghost, playing haunting strains of Blue’s jazz, accompanied by bassist Mark Saltman. Going cold at the sight of him, Cheatom captures Blue’s blood-curdled fear. Yet, he also captures the bluster of a man who won’t betray fear of anything or anyone else.
In his speeches, Cheatom lends Blue a charismatic reserve, underscoring the authority he wields here in his domain. Outside of Black Bottom, playing at the white clubs means entering only through the back door, and smiling and nodding while playing precisely what he’s told.
But in Paradise, Blue rules absolutely over his club, his sound, and his band — that is, mild-mannered piano player Corn (Marty Austin Lamar), hot-tempered percussionist P-Sam (Ro Boddie), and the just-fired bassist we’ll never see.
Blue rules with an even sterner hand over his woman, the sweet, dutiful Pumpkin (Kalen Robinson), who’s passionate about poetry and keeping the peace in Paradise. Her sweat and toil also keeps the place running. Pumpkin does the cleaning and laundry in the club, and upstairs in the rooms, Blue lets to folks like P-Sam.
She cooks for the boarders and the band. She is the heart of Paradise, and in Robinson’s radiant turn, the heart of the play. As Pumpkin frequently interrupts her chores to recite poems by her latest fave, Georgia Douglas Johnson, Robinson draws out the character’s guileless warmth, curiosity, and conviction.
Pumpkin’s naïveté feels overstated, but that also seems to be a function of Morisseau’s script, which positions her so squarely as the innocent ripe for ruin. Voluptuous widow Silver (Anji White), a femme fatale in jet-black fur and a string of pearls, is just as squarely designated as the corrupter up for the job.
Caldwell supplies Silver with a delicious entrance. She struts through the swinging doors into Paradise, lit lusciously by Keith Parham. Costume designer Cidney Forkpah supplies her killer wardrobe. And White’s fierce performance fully lives up to the auspicious intro, generating riveting friction between Silver and Blue, and romantic tension between her and Corn.
Through White, we see just enough of Silver’s opportunist m.o. to wonder if she’s working Corn, or is he just a toy to keep her occupied while she works somebody else? Could that be Pumpkin, or Blue?
Blue is considering his own opportunities, including future plans for Paradise. For now, the club anchors the Black entertainment strip known as Paradise Valley. But the city’s changing, and Black Bottom and Paradise Valley might not survive encroaching redevelopment and the coming Chrysler Freeway.
In reality, they didn’t survive. Black Bottom’s residents were displaced, and the Paradise Valley venues were closed and demolished. Morisseau artfully honors their loss, and resurrects their memory in Blue’s music, in his nightmare visions of Clyde, and in his struggle to make the best of his slice of Paradise.
Paradise Blue (★★★★☆) runs through June 22 at The Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. Tickets are $55 to $125, with discount options available. Call 202-332-3300 or visit www.StudioTheatre.org.
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