‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill’ shines some moonlight on the ugliness beneath Billie Holiday’s bluesy sheen

Alexis J. Roston. Photo by Liz Lauren.

Mercury’s production of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, placed in their Venus Cabaret space, seems like an odd opportunity to mourn the loss of Cullen’s, their old neighbor which closed seven years ago. Even though Cullen’s was hardly a dive in the truest sense, it seemed much more appropriate for this play with music about Billie Holiday. Set in 1959, not too long before her premature death at forty-four, it depicts the singer trying her damndest to put across a decent set while very clearly reaching the end of her rope, hooked on horse and heavy drink and hounded by narcs everywhere she goes, and all in the midst of the boiling Civil Rights movement, mind. We’re given to understand that Emerson’s, in South Philly, is taking a real risk having her around even if the joint isn’t on Harry J. Anslinger’s radar.

Cullen’s was a little cozily worn, had a bit in the way of history, plenty of room for light and darkness. The Venus Cabaret seems a little too chic and clean a venue.

Even so, directors Alexis J. Roston and Christopher Chase Carter seed some ugliness. Before the show proper, house management snakes through the audience whispering excuses—Lady Day (Roston) can’t come through the front door, so she’ll have to come in through the back. Thus, she doesn’t enter center stage with befitting poise, but shuffles in through the side with head bowed, heavy sunglasses on, and pooch in hand.

As she quips, even Hell is preferable to South Philly.

And yet, the show goes on—has to go on—prodded along by Jimmy Powers (Nygel D. Robinson), Billie’s accompanist of short acquaintance.

Billie was an up-tempo gal, “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit” notwithstanding—“a jazz singer with a blues feel,” as she puts it. And the growing rift between Billie’s up-tempo set and her deepening melancholy (and addictions) is the true source of tension of the play. Her increasingly altered state is also something of a blessing for playwright Lanie Robertson, as it gives Billie license to unspool her life story without feeling artificial. “Either [she] find[s] the song, or the song finds [her],” and she starts digging deeper and deeper into her murky past to hit that pay dirt: pervasive racial discrimination, her stint in prison, a chain of abusive lovers.

An impeccable mood piece more so than a solid nuts-and-bolts play (on reflection, it doesn’t really end so much as stop), Roston is just the person to lead us through. This isn’t her first time playing Billie in Lady Day, but her turn is still as fresh as those gardenias and as bracing as her tumbler of Seagrams neat.

Chic and clean, she ain’t. A superbly gifted impressionist and interpreter of the barrelhouse end of the American Songbook, most definitely. A fearless plumber of ugliness beneath the sheen, very much so. If the moonlight is right, you can probably put Roston’s Holiday anywhere.

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill runs through March 12th at the Venus Cabaret Theater at Mercury Theater Chicago, 3745 N. Southport Ave. For tickets or more information, please visit mercurytheaterchicago.com.

For more reviews on this or other shows, please visit theatreinchicago.com.