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YOUNGSTOWN -- Singing like Billie Holiday may be the least of the challenges that Carla Gipson faces and triumphs over in "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill."
There are plenty of songs in Lanie Robertson's play, which continues its run at Hopewell Theatre with three performances this weekend. But Gipson essentially delivers a well-calibrated meltdown on stage in a show that takes place in a Philadelphia saloon a few months before Holiday died in 1959 at age 44 from heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver.
It starts cheery enough with Holiday singing uptempo numbers such as "When a Woman Loves a Man" and "What a Little Moonlight Can Do," punctuated with between-song banter about her hatred of Philadelphia (it's where she was arrested), the DJs who thinks she's past her prime (calling her "Lady YesterDay") or her ex-husband Sonny Munroe, who she describes more than once as her first love and her worst love.
However, a whisky glass always is in her hand or within arm's reach as she sings. The alcohol she's drinking doesn't ease the pain; it unleashes the demons endured from a lifetime of racism, rape, incarceration and other indignities. As the show continues, the weight of those experiences becomes unbearable.
"Lady Day" isn't a one-woman show. Music director Ellis Anthony plays Jimmy Powers, Holiday's pianist, on stage. He has a few lines but mostly communicates through glaring at the singer and the musical interruptions he uses in a vain attempt to get Holiday back on track and singing again.
Anthony's piano playing is stellar. The music has a real swing and rhythm to it with him behind the keyboard of the upright piano on numbers like "Gimme a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer)."
Some of the dialogue normally handled by Powers goes to Martin Charles Moore here, as he plays bar owner Hal Emerson. He also is responsible for the set design, which includes a fully stocked bar decorated with B&W 8×10 publicity photos of singers from that era. A nice touch in capturing the intimate cabaret feel of the gig on stage is having four or five two-top tables in front of the stage where audience members can sit.
The focus never strays for more than a few seconds from Gipson, even when most actors would be upstaged by the very well-behaved Maci Grace McD, who plays Holiday's dog Pepe. Gipson captivates as the talented, tragic singer. "Lady Day" isn't a tribute show, and Gipson has a huskier alto than the singer she is playing, but she instills in each vocal number the heft they demand, particularly on "Strange Fruit" and "God Bless the Child." She looks radiant with the lighting design by Canacci Consulting illuminating her white gown and the gardenia in her hair, and the sound at Sunday's matinee with Frank Carsone on the board was flawless.
Where Gipson really excels, though, is portraying Holiday's slow unraveling as any inhibitions are washed away and replaced by memories too painful to ignore. It's heartbreaking to watch.
There are some contrivances in Robertson's script, but the weirdest choice is to build to this powerful finale and then add a bouncy reprise of "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" to the curtain call. It undercuts what comes before it.
WHAT: "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill"
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: Hopewell Theatre, 702 Mahoning Ave., Youngstown
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $28.22 for adults and $26.14 for students and senior citizens and are available online at hopwelltheatre.org and by calling 330-746-5455.