Review: Noir suspense and Detroit history converge in ‘Paradise Blue’ – Los Angeles Times

Paradise Blue, one of the three plays in Dominique Morisseaus Detroit Project series chronicling the generational struggles of the Black community in her native city, takes place in a jazz joint on a downtown strip known as Paradise Valley.

The year is 1949, a little more than a decade before the neighborhood known as Black Bottom was demolished in a redevelopment program that ran a highway through an area that was a vibrant hub of Black-owned businesses.

Detroits incoming mayor, Albert Cobo, has promised to rid the city of urban blight. The characters who work at Paradise Club and live upstairs in the rooming house cant help feeling that a target has been placed on their backs.

Under the direction of Stori Ayers, an actor with a long collaborative history with the playwright, this production of Paradise Blue (at the Geffen Playhouse through Dec. 12) makes a compelling case for a play that proudly parades in vintage genre clothing. Reviews were mixed for the New York premiere in 2018, but this ensemble cast drama is well served by the character-centered nature of Ayers staging.

Sociopolitical context is crucial in The Detroit Project plays. For Skeleton Crew, which had a production at the Geffen in 2018 and is opening on Broadway in January, the focus is on the faltering auto industry as the 2008 Great Recession kicks into gear. In the background of Detroit 67" is the riot that brought clashes between Black residents and the police in the plays title year.

Paradise Blue is set in an era when misguided policies of urban renewal led to the erasure of predominantly Black neighborhoods. This social history, while crucial to the plot, sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of dramatic narratives. Story drowns out all other concerns. But its hard not to become absorbed in the motivations and maneuverings of the plays fully drawn characters, whose future hinges on the fate of a club that, despite its lost luster, is still something of a local landmark.

Blue (Wendell B. Franklin), the trumpeter who owns Paradise Club, knows the city is willing to pay a pretty penny for his property. Hes devoted to the music he regularly performs with a couple of other musicians who board there, Corn (John Earl Jelks) and P-Sam (Alani iLongwe). But hes considering selling the place, which belonged to his father and carries some violent family memories that Blue fears may be derailing his artistic dreams.

Pumpkin (Shayna Small), Blues girlfriend, cooks and cleans and calls herself a go-along gal. Happy to finally have a home, shes content to look after the men at Paradise Club. But an unspoken longing in her finds expression in the poems of Harlem Renaissance writer Georgia Douglas Johnson. Reciting this verse to anyone who will listen refreshes Pumpkins persevering spirit.

Into this world sashays Silver (Tyla Abercrumbie), a widow wrapped in noir mystery. She has money, a mind of her own and, if the rumors are true, a murderous history. Once she unpacks her lingerie and jazz records upstairs, the equilibrium of Paradise Club will never be the same again. (Edward E. Haynes Jr.'s set, enlivened by Alan C. Edwards moody lighting, lays out this world with clever economy.)

Paradise Blue, which tries to juggle an impossible number of plots, owes a clear debt to August Wilsons 10-play cycle. The gentrification drama evokes aspects of Jitney while the artistic tensions of the band members recall the squabbling musicians of Ma Raineys Black Bottom.

Theres a touch of Fences in the way Blue is oppressed by the memory of his brutal father. But perhaps the play that looms largest is Joe Turners Come and Gone. Its not just the setup of a mysterious newcomer disturbing the order of a makeshift family but also the profound desire of the characters to find their song or music, as Corn, whos coaching an inexperienced Pumpkin to sing, describes this spiritual quest.

With Silvers seductive languor and quick, calculating eye the play may also jog a few memories of Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire. Pumpkin, as domestically grounded as Stella, is both fascinated and appalled by Silver, whos as dangerous as Blanche DuBois to the stability Pumpkin has tenuously found with a man every bit as volatile as Stanley Kowalski.

About Silver, Corn exclaims, Shes got some kinda walk on her, aint she? Abercrumbie, curvaceously accentuated in Wendell C. Carmichaels striking costumes, knows how to cast a spell with a strut. Blue senses shes trouble, but Corn, a widower, is hypnotized by this woman, who awakens the dormant lover in him. (Jelks, a seasoned veteran who was in Lynn Nottages Sweat in New York and at the Mark Taper Forum, brings Corns transformation to life in all its touching humor.)

Morisseau is extremely skillful in creating a fertile theatrical landscape in which the actors can lay down roots. The shifts in character relationships occur with a naturalness that allows not just the performers to make discoveries but also the audience.

Special attention is paid to the connection between the women, which unfolds as much in glances as in words. Behavioral details speak volumes throughout. It takes some time to learn the cause of Pumpkins painful wrists, but the way she rubs them reveals a good deal about her life with bad-tempered Blue. Silvers twinges of disappointment whenever Pumpkin rejects her help give us a sense of the sadness that Corn detected in her when he first admired her walk.

The delicacy of the acting manages for the most part to withstand the melodramatic pressures that are placed on the characters. A gunshot that goes off at the start of the play is traced backward in a plot that might have more in common with films from the period in which the play is set than with contemporary drama.

The battle at the heart of Paradise Blue is for control of Paradise Club, which is a home for Pumpkin, a stake in the ground for Silver, a place of artistic freedom for P-Sam, a community for conciliatory Corn and a burdensome legacy for Blue. At the same time, its a bulwark of Black culture and enterprise in a neighborhood thats imperiled by the joint forces of politics and money.

As in Skeleton Crew, Morisseau recognizes that for her characters work isnt just a paycheck but an identity. One of the most stirring moments in the play is when P-Sam, hearing that Blue has decided to go ahead and sell the club, erupts in a defiant dignity: You might be the one to own it, but you aint the one to make it. We all make this Paradise.

This sentiment is more powerful than what follows. The ending, though perhaps true to the style of noir, feels more like a bold gesture than a convincing inevitability.

The strained final note shouldnt detract too much from a drama that is otherwise so richly observed and inhabited. Under Ayers direction, this Geffen production conjures to the stage a living narrative full of personal truth and sweeping history.

'Paradise Blue'

Where: Gil Cates Theater at Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 12.

Tickets: $39-$129

Contact: (310) 208-2028 or geffenplayhouse.org

Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes, including one intermission

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Review: Noir suspense and Detroit history converge in 'Paradise Blue' - Los Angeles Times