Play On! A jazz musical based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is an exhilarating production that melts the winter blues with the warmth of its infectious joy and vivacity.
Conceived by Sheldon Epps, with a book by Cheryl L West, and music by Duke Ellington, Play On! originated on Broadway in 1997, where it received three Tony nominations. This UK production is directed by Talawa’s Artistic Director, Michael Buffong,
“If Music be the Food Of Love Play On” is one of the most famous quotes by the lovesick Duke Orsino from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Play On! which is relocated from Illyria to the infamous Cotton Club in 1940s Harlem, plays fast and very loose with the bard’s original masterpiece.
Viola (Tsemaye Bob-Egbe) is a talented young jazz musician who comes from Mississippi to New York with dreams of making it big as a songwriter. At the Cotton Club her uncle Jester (Llewellyn Jamal) tells her that songwriting is a man’s world, so she disguises herself as one of the boys and she calls herself Vyman.
The band leader at The Cotton Club is known as The Duke and is in love with his star vocalist Lady Liv. Lady Liv has rejected his advances and this has caused him to suffer from writer’s block. On hearing Vyman’s music, The Duke sends Vyman to Lady Liv in the hope that her songs will be the instrument that woos Liv back to him. What ensues is a syncopated razzmatazz jazz fused farce.
Under Ashton Moore’s musical direction, the songs of Duke Ellington have been artfully woven into the narrative of Play On! to reflect the emotional journeys of the characters. There are stunning vocals by Koko Alexandra as Lady Liv as she belts out ‘Mood Indigo’, and Act 1 ends with exquisite quartet rendition of ‘In My Solitude’, sung by the main protagonists Vyman, Lady Liv, The Duke and Rev as they express their frustrations in their search for love.
The equivalent of Malvolio’s yellow stockings scene is one of Rev (played with a fine balance of arrogance and vulnerability by Cameron Bernard Jones), idiosyncratically dressed in a canary yellow Kid Creole zoot suit singing and dancing ‘I’m Beginning To See The Light’ to an unimpressed Lady Liv.
When Jester and Sweets (Lifford Shillingford) get dumped by their better halves, they bring the house down with a rowdy interpretation of ‘Rocks In My Bed,’ and when Vyman reveals her true feelings for The Duke, they sing a heartfelt duet of ‘Prelude To A Kiss’ together.
Tightly directed by Buffong, Play On! is bolstered throughout by nifty street dance choreography by Kenrick H2O Sandy.
