Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Hallucinatory musical journeys: LIGHTS OUT: NAT “KING” COLE at New York Theatre Workshop and BOWL EP at the Vineyard

• By drediman
• May 22, 2025
• No Comments

This past week, a pair of what can be best described as hallucinatory musical journeys opened Off-Broadway. Although seemingly disparate by categorization — one is a jukebox musical based on the life and career of a beloved American icon, the other is a drug-fueled work of avant-garde theater — the two productions are similar in that they both lay bare, beguilingly, the inner demons of Black artists.

LIGHTS OUT: NAT “KING” COLE”
New York Theatre Workshop
Through June 29

First up is New York Theatre Workshop’s production of Lights Out: Nat “King” Cole (RECOMMENDED). As written by Coleman Domingo and Patricia McGregor (McGregor is also credited for direction), most of which takes place in the expanded moments leading up to the final airing of The Nat King Cole Show, the beloved crooner’s short-lived NBC variety show. As an encapsulation of the singer’s life and times, the show is more fever dream than by-the-numbers jukebox bio-musical. As such, the production emulates the theatrically imaginative storytelling of Jelly’s Last Jam more than it does the dutiful documentary-like approach utilized by workmanlike shows like Jersey Boys and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Domingo and McGregor juxtapose instantly recognizable selections from the Nat “King” Cole songbook with the singer’s splintering state of mind — at times, snippets of these iconic songs are all you’ll get. Although some may find the fragmented, hallucinatory quality of the musical confusing and even frustrating, I thought it to be a fascinating way of painting the portrait of a complex man coming to terms with waning sponsorship for his television show due to outright racism. Arising deep from Cole’s imagination is Sammy Davis Jr. — a close friend of his in real life — who emerges as an emcee-like apparition who comments and eggs on Cole’s unsettled stream-of-conscience musings. Easily the most show-stopping and satisfying number of the show is “Me and My Shadow”, a thrilling dance-off between Cole and Davis, in which their internalized rage is viscerally manifested (Jared Grimes’ choreography throughout, by the way, is outstanding). As Cole, Dulé Hill gives an uncanny performance — both vocally and in appearance — that brilliantly captures the complicated, brooding psyche underlying the sunny smile. Daniel J. Watts is dynamite as Davis, giving a performance that nicely contrasts with Hill’s in terms of temperament and demeanor. The rest of the mid-size company is very good, ably transitioning between defined characters parts and members of the ensemble with impressive ease.

BOWL EP
Vineyard Theatre and National Black Theatre in association with The New Group
Through June 8

Taking theatrical hallucinations to another level is Nazareth Hassan’s singular Bowl EP (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), which you can currently catch at the Vineyard Theatre. Presented in association with the National Black Theater and The New Group, the work depicts — at least initially — the budding romance between Quentavius da Quitter and Kelly K Klarkson, two aspiring queer rappers-cum-recreational skateboarders. Very much like the works of the great Caryl Churchill, Hassan’s piece takes on a formally daring structure and unspools with immense linguistic imagination. More specifically, the play progresses in short, rapid fire scenes, bookending an acid trip for the ages, in which the pair reckon with demons lodged deep within each of them. In turn poetic and mundane, these mini-scenes transpire in a hypnotic, deceptively casual manner until the aforementioned drug-fueled segment (the escalating sense of absurdity is superbly heightened by the lighting and sound of Kate McGee and Ryan Gamblin, respectively). This is when Bowl EP truly howls, namely in the form of Lemon Pepper Wings — the manifestation of Quentavius and Kelly’s internalized fears, traumas, and shame — who is given free rein to cause havoc on the pair’s sweet but tentative romantic relationship. As Lemon, Felicia Curry gives a spectacularly unhinged performance and is a swirling force of nature — an unfiltered and often contradictory truthsayer who both disrupts and harshly illuminates. As Quentavius and Kelly, Oghenero Gbaje and Essence Lotus give disarmingly natural performances that are utterly convincing. The Vineyard auditorium, all but unrecognizable, has been reconfigured to accommodate an abandoned swimming pool, in and around which the duo spend their days coming up with rhymes and skating (kudos to Adam Rigg and Anton Volovsek’s audacious and beautifully-realized set design). Although I’d ultimately probably classify the show as a play with music, l’m hard-pressed to think of another show in recent memory in which the musical cadence of rap — composed by Hassan and Free Fool — and spoken word play a more central role.