It’s been simply over one yr for the reason that Tonys gave the Pasadena Playhouse an award for regional theater, and that honor appears extra justified than ever now that the venue is presenting a much-needed manufacturing of “Jelly’s Final Jam.” It looks like they’re re-earning that brass medallion, moderately than coasting on it, with a contemporary manufacturing of writer-director George C. Wolfe’s early ‘90s hit, a present that that helped modified the course of stage musicals and helped set a course for jazz consciousness on Broadway, but can barely get a revival to avoid wasting its life. The Playhouse is doing God’s work right here, within the service of a present set in jazz purgatory.
There are some logical explanations for why “Jelly’s Final Jam” nonetheless looks like a family identify, as indelible titles go, whereas getting a manufacturing mounted is almost unimaginable. It feels enormous sufficient to belong in a serious Broadway home; in L.A., by rights, it should be taking part in the Ahmanson. However whereas it calls for a casting director dredge up a small military of inordinately proficient singers and faucet dancers, it additionally has a Wolfe guide involved with race, ego and self-implosion, which make it extra of a pure for the Taper (the place, in actual fact, the present first opened again in 1991, earlier than transferring to Broadway). If you’ve acquired a present that’s meant to really feel enormous — and just about is — however can be higher serviced by a reasonably intimate house, who you gonna name? Tony is aware of: It’s the Pasadena Playhouse.
“Jelly” acquired a really brief contemporary look as a part of New York’s Encore sequence earlier this yr, but it surely’s L.A. the place the present has settled in a bit extra for an actual run (which ends this Sunday). That’s type of satirically acceptable provided that the present ends with jazz originator Jelly Roll Morton laid out on a coroner’s slab within the place the place he died in 1941, Los Angeles … not completely flatteringly portrayed within the script as a spot the place a jazz genius who thrived in Chicago can solely come to a sorry finish. With that main spoiler out of the way in which on the outset, Jelly Roll is led again by the occasions of his life by the Chimney Man, a type of pesky afterlife guides who insists on making the newly departed confront their misdeeds, after they would possibly moderately be having a extra heavenly NDE. Thankfully, the 2 of them gained’t simply be specializing in Jelly Roll’s private piccadellos, however exploring the historical past of early jazz, itself. It’s principally a metaphysical “This Is Your Life — Ken Burns Version.”
By means of many of the first act, Morton is a greater than sympathetic determine. As performed by John Clarence Stewart, he’s almost as ebullient an evangelist for the brand new artform of jazz as Jon Batiste can be, if he had really invented the stuff, or claimed to. However he’s torn between worlds — between the excessive artwork of his classical coaching as a well-to-do Creole lad in New Orleans and the low artwork he discovers eagerly investigating the music of brothels — and his beloved grandmother disowns him for betraying their noble heritage. (Karole Foreman portrays the spectral Gran Mimi, who’s as a lot horror-movie wraith as prickly matriarch.) As soon as he’s reduce adrift, Jelly Roll finds all of the neighborhood he wants within the firm of his finest buddy and wingman, Jack the Bear (Wilkie Ferguson III), and the sultry, soulful membership proprietor Anita (Jasmine Amy Rogers). However these two don’t discover that, as Jelly Roll’s status rises, he’s getting excessive on his personal provide — of sheer arrogrance — till he pulls some dick strikes that ship them into one another’s arms.
“Jelly Roll’s Final Jam” is the uncommon musical that dares to finish Act 1 on a deeply bitter observe, because the ugly aspect of its hero is exemplified in a manufacturing quantity, “Dr. Jazz,” that has the dancing ensemble carrying disturbing minstrel masks. It’s a dangerous sufficient transfer that you could be be left at intermission questioning whether or not he can redeem himself in any respect within the second act, realizing what we learn about his final finish — and realizing that the Chimney Man hasn’t precisely made it sound like Jelly Roll’s later life was stuffed with vibrant spots. Certainly, it’s not all sunshine and roses because the later going finds the protagonist making some more and more poor selections on his solution to being down and out in L.A. However a few of these selections are thrust upon him by the Thirties model of the leisure business. There are some sensible bits of staging as Jelly Roll encounters the one white characters within the present — performed by the Black ensemble utilizing masks or puppetry — who be certain that a Black genius gained’t get too uppity. Typically, Jelly Roll’s sense of entitlement is aggravating, when he’s being a purist concerning the new offshoots of jazz which can be usurping his specific model. Typically, his outrage at being shut out is completely justified. It’s hardly ever straightforward for any of us to tell apart in actual time between precise aggrievements and imagined ones, and that makes it simpler to have inventory in Wolfe’s anti-hero when Jelly is simply being a jerk.
Fact be instructed, feeling sympathy for him in his ultimate, forlorn days is extra of an mental act than one you leap to instinctively in watching the present. It’s not at all times straightforward to inform whether or not that’s simply inherent in Wolfe’s guide or whether or not there may have been one thing extra completed to attract us into Jelly Roll’s tragedy in addition to his toxicity. Nevertheless it certain is enjoyable going up with Stewart within the lead position, even when one thing feels lacking within the coming down. As soon as we’ve seen him within the early a part of the present do a mutual faucet quantity with the actor who performs his youthful self (Doran Butler), his expertise and joie de vivre have made a giant down fee on the forgiveness we’ll be requested to afford him later. However in some methods, the present is destined to be skewed if it has an Anita as nice as this manufacturing’s. Jasmine Amy Rogers turns into the guts of the present, transcending what may very well be a inventory wronged-woman character to pay testimony to all the ladies who’ve ever stayed wild whereas placing down roots. I’ll admit it: I had moments of wishing the present may very well be retrofitted to turn into “Anita: The Musical.”
However “Jelly’s Final Jam” is de facto in the end an ensemble piece, and the quantity of sheer expertise on view at any given time is staggering. Director Kent Gash and choreographer Dell Howett let no uninteresting or insufficently staged moments transpire in a present that’s at all times discovering life-saving delight within the energy of dance, regardless of the Chimney Man’s finest efforts to softly nudge the hero off this mortal coil. Particular credit score is because of the sensual Greek refrain that’s the Hunnies (Naomi C. Walley, Janaya Mahealani Jones and the intriguingly named dance captain, Cyd Charisse Glover-Hill). Watch the way in which that these sirens set themselves up as props for a pool recreation the primary characters are taking part in, and it’s possible you’ll by no means consider pool as something lower than deeply attractive once more.
Morton is seen as a person who refused to compromise, even to something so seemingly innocent as bending a bit to the brand new types of jazz. (It’s most likely the one musical you’ll ever see that features a rousing swing music and dancing quantity… to exemplify what the hero sees as the tip of all that’s good and true.) “Jelly’s Final Jam,” in the meantime, is a present that makes the case that you just can have all of it, from resonant social commentary to the sort of thrilling hoofing that’s utterly unbeholden to any deeper which means. Modern exhibits like “Hadestown” could also be pulling off related stuff, but it surely’s good to have this one so rousingly again.
