"Ain't Misbehavin'." So Good I'll Probably See it Again.

"Ain't Misbehavin'" is two things.  It's a 1929 song written by early stride/jazz pianist Thomas "Fats" Waller, and it's a 1978 stage production based on Waller, and featuring his song and the time it represented.  The stage production features the song, and it's composed of many other songs by various other people.  The production presents what appears to be one night in which Waller, one of his male friends, and three of their female friends, enter a Manhattan, possibly Harlem, nightclub.  The production is a nonstop presentation of songs.  It's somewhat like Lieber and Stoller's "Smokey Joe's Cafe" or Bette Midler's "Divine Miss M."  It's a celebration of music and times and a theme.

"Ain't Misbehavin,'" the stage show, is about jazz.  It's about African-Americans.  It's about style.  It's about strutting and posing and caricaturish interacting.  You know many of the songs-- "Ain't Misbehavin,'" "Honeysuckle Rose," "The Joint is Jumpin,'" "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter," and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love"-- and you know the caricatures.  The styling is late 1920s/early 1930s.  The men and the ladies, all black, all have "good" straight hair.  Hats abound, including bowlers for the gents.  The ladies' dresses were all attention-grabbers, as they very much should have been for this hot night out at the club.  The men wore their big, brashly striped suits.  Not zoot suits, but dramatic.

Some songs that you might not know, but you'd have a better life if you did, include "Jitterbug Waltz."  I don't know if "Viper's Drag" is an incredible song, or if it only seemed incredible, because of the way Vlad Dorson sang it.  That song, and Vlad Dorson, are part of why I'll probably see "Ain't Misbehavin'" again.  You might or might not know "Your Feet's Too Big," but if you do know it, it will profit you to see and hear Don Seward perform it.  Don Seward played Fats Waller in the show, and he was magnificent.  He looks Fats, he struts Fats, and he is Fats.  Every song (there are 30 of them) in "Ain't Misbehavin'" is good.  Several or more are great.  The one that will knock you off your seat, or just paralyze you, is "Black and Blue."  If I had no other reason to want to see "Ain't Misbehavin'" again, this song would be reason enough.  "Blue" here is taken to mean the emotion, not the color.  This song should be the anthem of African America.  There is simply no better way to  say what it must feel like to be African American than this song.  It's a gorgeous, captivating, moving, heart-rending song.  I attended this show on opening night (Thursday, February 6), and after opening productions of M Ensemble shows, there is food and mingling.  Before long, the performers, sometimes barely recognizable as their characters (once they've gotten cleaned up, and changed clothes) come into the reception room.  They're hungrier than is everyone else.  You can meet them, and thank them, and talk to them.  I was talking to Vlad Dorson, who played Fats' male friend, and I mentioned "Black and Blue."  I said it must have been hard to perform.  Vlad agreed, and he cited the complicated harmonies.  I know he was right about that, but I said I imagined it must have been hard to sing that, and not cry.  He nodded.  It was hard to listen to it, and not cry.  And I don't even have to live it.

The show opens with an elevated stage, a pit behind the stage for a very small ensemble of about six instrumentalists and a conductor, and two cocktail tables and four chairs on the stage.  The conductor of the musical ensemble, by the way, was a black woman.  You don't most commonly see female conductors, and this is the first black female conductor I have ever seen.  She was very good.

The first character to appear is the waiter, who is an ongoing, although silent, part of the production.  He brings drinks, takes away glasses, says some unheard waiterly things to the other performers, and dances.  And he's great.  The actor/dancer is not even listed in the program, but he should be.  The rest of the show is the five other characters (Fats and the other four) performing one song after another, with whatever buildup is appropriate to stage the song.  All the actors flirt with each other, so there are shifting pairings, connections, jealousies, and, above all, strutting.  I have to admit that for my whole life, I have been inclined to dismiss, disqualify, or demean the strutting, and posturing, of African Americans.  I always told myself it was, or should be, an unnecessary way of finding a place, and an identity, for African Americans in the rest of America.  Or that it softened more uncontained hostility, like the dancing in "West Side Story."  I see it better now.  I wonder if it's "cultural" in the sense of being a factor even in Africans who were never brought here, and who never much later chose to come.  It's very clearly a matter of pride and true identity, though.  I still regret that African Americans think it helps them to have straight hair, and I regret it even more if they're right.  I was coming up-- went to college-- in the '60s, when "black [was] beautiful," and the proudest African Americans had afros-- the bigger, the better-- and that's stuck with me.  It was "Madame C J Walker," a black woman born in 1867 to two (recent) former slaves, who in the early 1900s was said to have become the first black millionairess on the strength of having invented the first hair-straightening compound (for African hair).  And so many blacks have coveted "good hair" ever since.

Anyway, the singing starts with "Ain't Misbehavin,'" and it's nonstop song from there until the end.  Cute songs, funny songs, gorgeous songs, moving songs, clever songs, and strutting, and dancing (the waiter and Vlad were the best dancers, although Don Seward wasn't bad, either).  The ladies were not called upon to do as much dancing.  No, it was the peacocks and their plumages.  The only break was a 15 minute intermission.  That's all they needed?

What a wonderful show!  The venue is the Sandrell Rivers Theater at 6103 NW 7th Avenue.  You take I-95 south to 62nd Street, go right at the bottom of the ramp, take your first left just before 7th Avenue, and find the free indoor parking lot on your right in less than a block.

Because I attended the big do on opening night, of course I had to pay top dollar.  Well, 36 of them.  We're talking here about an opening night performance, with after-reception, and meeting the performers (actors and instrumentalists), for $36.  Normally, an experience like that would cost maybe $125.  $75, if it's a special situation, and you can get a deal.  At the M Ensemble and Fantasy Theater Factory and Sandrell Rivers Theater, this is the deal.  If that's too rich for your blood, or you didn't know about opening night, or opening night was last night, so it's too late now, then you can pay $31 general admission, unless you're an older person like myself (you know, a "senior"), in which case, it's $26.  Or, if you can put together a "group," however many people that is, it's $18 per person.

The point is, this is insanity.  I have rarely seen a show I didn't very much like at Sandrell Rivers Theater, and I've loved many or most of them.  And it's not uncommon that they're free, with "donations appreciated."  The parking is free, the people could not be friendlier and more welcoming, and I hope I've made clear that this is, for who on earth knows what reasons, dirt cheap.  Part of it is that our county somehow cares about culture, and they have built, and continue to support, without apparent question, cultural venues, like South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center and Sandrell Rivers Theater, and they provide grants to almost everyone else.  It's unbelievable, but it's true.  And it's there.  And Sandrell Rivers Theater is in our backyard.  Sort of literally.

Please see this show.  It plays Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 8:00, and Sunday afternoon at 3:00.  The last show will be on Sunday, February 23.  Everyone else will move on to their next gig, and Vlad Dorson will go back home to NYC.  By the way, a meaningless, but faintly fun, bit of trivia here.  One of the women actors/singers is Asher Makeba.  Her mother is Betty Wright, who lives just over the border from us on 108th St.  If you don't know who Betty Wright is, she was a major R&B star "back in the day," and I know her best as the main mentor of Joss Stone.  I don't know how long Betty Wright has lived where she now lives, and if Asher Makeba grew up just a block or so from our southern tip.  I didn't see Asher after the show, so I didn't get a chance to ask her about herself.  She's a wonderful singer and performer, though.