After Midnight!

Erin N. Moore, Virgil Lil O Gadson, Karine Plantadit

Photos by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

After Midnight!
By Jeanne Lieberman
In a season rife with the cerebral pleasures of Shakespeare, Pinter, Becket, its time to get
visceral. As Dul Hill advises, drawing on Langston Hughes for narrative touches
throughout: after midnight in Harlem your heartbeat is a drum beat.
And indeed the first drumbeat laid out by the 16 musicians hand picked by artistic director
Wynton Marsalis, called The Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars, launches you on a magical
musical carpet ride that will eventually carry you on out to the street.
The fabric of that magic carpet is the music of Duke Ellington, Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen,
Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh and others.

Dul Hill and cast

That ride is a trip back to Harlems Cotton Club of the 20s and 30s meticulously
recreated by Jack Viertel who conceived it originally for the City Center Encores!
production the Cotton Club, directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle who keeps the
show moving and the energy up, on minimalist yet striking sets by John Lee Beatty;
enhanced by lighting designer Howell Binkley and the all important sound design by Peter
Hylenski. Isabel Toledos costumes keep the cast chic ad sexy, and Charles G. LaPointes
hair designs keep them true to the era.
But that time was not as happy as depicted onstage. It was the Depression. Segregation
reigned unchallenged and, though the cast was all black (including such greats as
Ethel Waters, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Louis
Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, and a 16-year-old Lena Horne) the
audience was all white. On might see Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, George Gershwin, Mae
West, Irving Berlin, Moss Hart, Al Jolson, and New York Mayor Jimmy Walker lending their
panache to the proceedings.
Escape was provided in the uniformly high spirited acts lovingly and ingeniously
recreated. Some will appeal more than others according to individual tastes but the
cumulative whole is greater than its parts even when its parts are individual polished
sparkling gems.

Fantasia Barrino opened as current headliner in a series of celebrity guests who will be
gracing the stage. She credits her big voice to singing in church choirs, but she slips with
surprising ease into a sophisticated scat and jazz as in vocals as in her spirited interaction
with a quartet of taunting guys on Zaz Zuh Zaz (by Cab Calloway and Harry White), or
lending the Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh classic I Cant Give You Anything but Love a
bit of vampy sensuality.

Adriane Lenox
Another chanteuse is the sassy Adriane Lenox in her cautionary musical lesson about not
flaunting your man in order to keep him Women Be Wise, (by Sippie Wallace), or later the
scolding Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night, (by Sidney Easton and Ethel
Waters). Carmen Ruby Floyd was absolutely spellbinding in Ellingtons Creole Love Call
wordless yet ultimately expressive in musical conversation with the band.

Jared Grimes
One might spot modern, jazz and ballet notable Desmond Richardson slinking through The
Mooche or Jared Grimes, tops in taps. Certainly one of the many highlights is the stunning
duo, Virgil Gadson sleek and speedy be it on his feet, back or hands and rubber limbed
iGlide Julius Chisolm in the number Hottentot (by Fields and McHugh) Other s in this 15
member cast of stand outs are Karine Plantadit, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Phillip
Attmore, Christopher Broughton, C. K. Edwards, Erin N. Moore, Monique Smith and Daniel J.
Watts. Their performances a series of gems that shine brightly alone but blaze in unison.

This said the ultimate star if the show is its music. As with the cast, each musician seems to
have his moment in the spotlight inserting himself in solo moments which often speak as
eloquently as lyrics. They are deservedly onstage through the excursion.
Spoiler Alert! Just when the energy of the show mounts higher and higher towards its
inevitable concluding finale - dont leave!
As the performers leave the stage after their bows the band miraculously slides forward and
just takes over rewarding the audience (many of whom stood transfixed midway to the
exits, mesmerized) with a mini concert filling the house with glorious, pure sound until the
drumbeat actually does morph from cerebral to visceral and your heartbeat does echo the
musics rhythm cardiologists take note. It can happen!
Brooks Atkinson Theater, 256 West 47th Street, Manhattan, 212-745-3000,
ticketmaster.com. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes.