Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The immersive new musical PLAYING HOT scores big for its music making but is otherwise deficient

• By drediman
• May 3, 2019
• No Comments

Linton Smith II in Pipeline Theatre Company’s “Playing Hot” at Theater 511. Photo by Marcus Middleton.

Last night, the new musical Playing Hot opened Off-Broadway at Theater 511 (or, Ars Nova’s former home base), courtesy of Pipeline Theatre Company. Pipeline has made a name for itself over the last few seasons for staging out-of-the box musical productions, many of them with an enticing immersive bent (for example, the company’s production of Dave Malloy’s Beardo featured a wonderful environmental staging in a church in Brooklyn). Playing Hot – which tells the turbulent life story of jazz legend Buddy Bolden – continues this exciting trend, unfortunately to limited success.

The piece is clearly the work of young, enthusiastic, but relatively inexperienced theater-makers. C.A. Johnson and Kevin Armento’s book is erratically structured and unintentionally borders on parody. Even the central character of Buddy Bolden comes across as two-dimensional (I was hoping for the same complex characterization that was given Jelly Roll Morton, another jazz great, in the sensational Jelly’s Last Jam). Despite these criticisms, I nonetheless still ended up having fun. Indeed, when Playing Hot drops its pretensions of being a musical and commits to simply playing Bolden’s music, it thrillingly lives up to its title.

The production has been energetically directed by Jaki Bradley, who does a good job of sprinkling the stage action throughout the immersive environment she and her hit-or-miss design team have created. Despite occasional moments of tonal uncertainty, I admired how Ms. Bradley attempted to imbue her staging with the fast and loose qualities of jazz itself. Her cast is young and eager, scoring big in the music department but understandably deficient in the acting one.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

PLAYING HOT
Off-Broadway, Play
Pipeline Theater Company at Theater 511
1 hour, 30 minutes
Through May 18