Given all its explosive growth and creative change, the Black Ensemble Theater’s look at “The Way We Were” might well be an exploration of itself.
Just a year or two ago, Jackie Taylor’s little North Side theater was a cheerful but low-budget and rough-and-ready community operation with far more heart than polish. These days at Black Ensemble, hordes of people show up for increasingly sophisticated productions featuring glamorous costumes, big bands, stellar vocalists and — in the case of Black Ensemble’s newest and most recent history of what it terms “colored entertainment” from 1920 to 1940 — even multimedia accouterments.
Once a local secret, Black Ensemble now builds its shows with national tours in mind. When it comes to Taylor’s musicals honoring black performers and packed with sing-a-long standards performed by those impersonating the original stars, the word got out long ago.
One of Black Ensemble’s discoveries, Chester Gregory II, is on Broadway. There’s a lot more money behind the impassioned productions, which attract far more accomplished performers than once was the case. And from Detroit to North Carolina, they know the Black Ensemble name.
That means the stakes have changed. It’s long been an open secret in Chicago that one goes to Black Ensemble for the singing, the good times, the history lesson, the warmth of the experience, and for Jimmy Tillman’s crack band.
One doesn’t go for the book.
In many ways, that’s very much the case with “The Way We Were,” a creative and thoroughly enjoyable potpourri of music and biography based on the life and works of everyone from Paul Robeson and Canada Lee to Sarah Vaughn and Bessie Smith. The message has the usual note of inclusiveness. You gotta know where you came from. And don’t condemn those (like Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, a.k.a. Stepin Fetchit) who did what they had to do to survive in tough times.
For the first time, Taylor also has included often fascinating footage of the real performers whose work this show celebrates. As is often the case when theaters attempt such things, the oft-errant video clips cause a bevy of problems.
And that leads to the main issue here.
This show has a plethora of fine performances. Herb Porter’s take on the work of Robeson and Alana Arenas’ stunning rendition of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” are better than fine. Tillman’s band is bigger than ever and sounds stronger than ever. Taylor’s direction is taut. Surely, it’s time to pay some attention to the book.
The unifying structure of “The Way We Were” (a tale awkwardly narrated by Steven F. McClain as a dull character called “Coloredman”), doesn’t work on any level. It meanders. It comes and goes. It does not hold together.
Three years ago, that was fine. But the stakes (and the prices) have gone up. Now that everything else is so good, it’s time to hire a book doctor — and then go out and conquer.
“The Way We Were”
When: through April 11
Where: Black Ensemble Theater, 4529 N. Beacon St.
Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Tickets: $32.50 at 773-769-4451
