THE HANGOVER REPORT – Signature’s searing production makes a strong case for Dominique Morisseau’s PARADISE BLUE

J. Alophonse Nicholson and Kristolyn Lloyd in Dominique Morisseau's "Paradise Blue" at Signature Theatre Company.

J. Alophonse Nicholson and Kristolyn Lloyd in Dominique Morisseau’s “Paradise Blue” at Signature Theatre Company.

Yesterday, I caught the Off-Broadway mounting of Dominique Morisseau’s Paradise Blue at Signature Theatre Company. I had seen the Detroit-set play about a tortured jazz musician previously in Chicago courtesy of the excellent TimeLine Theatre Company. Despite a more than solid staging, I was less than impressed with what I had then considered a derivative love child of August Wilson and Eugene O’Neill.

Well, I’m eating my hat as I write this review. The searing production at the Signature is simply stunning. Director Ruben Santiago-Hudson has put together a white-hot, gorgeously designed (Neil Patel did the sets, Clint Ramos the costumes, Rui Rita the lighting) production that boldly underlines the melodramatic excesses of Ms. Morisseau’s play. But instead of making the play even more heavy-handed, this approach astonishingly unleashes the immense cathartic power within the text.

Paradise Blue features some of the most forceful, visceral acting you’ll see in New York at the moment. In the central role of the jazz musician Blue, J. Alophonse Nicholson gives a smoldering performance that’s at once seductive, commanding, and vulnerable. As his sweet but tortured love interest Pumpkin, Kristolyn Lloyd gives a nuanced performance that gradually reveals immense depth. As Blue’s fellow band mates, Francois Battiste and Keith Randoph Smith are just about perfect in their respective roles. And as the mysterious, sultry visitor, Simone Missick singes everyone in her path.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

PARADISE BLUE
Off-Broadway, Play
Signature Theatre Company
2 hours, 25 minutes (with one intermission)
Through June 17

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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