Summary 
Remounted Broadway musical version of Twelfth Night modernizes the romantic comedy to swing-era New York City, with songs by Duke Ellington and choreography by his granddaughter. Superb production values and wonderful renditions of the jazz music enliven and enlighten the familiar romantic entanglements with stylish creativity. An enormous entertainment with a resoundingly happy ending.
Design
Directed by Sheldon Epps. Book by Cheryl West. With the songs of Duke Ellington. Musical arrangements and supervision by Luther Henderson. Choreography by Mercedes Ellington. Set by James Leonard Joy. Costumes by Marianna Elliott. Lights by Michael Gilliam. Sound by Rob Milburn. Musical direction by J. Leonard Oxley.
Cast
Natalie Venetia Belcon (Vy/Vy-Man), Andre De Shields (Jester), Ken Prymus (Sweets), Cynthia Jones (Miss Mary), Angel Barrette (C.C.), Charles E. Wallace (Duke), Paul Oakley Stovall (Rev), Tonya Pinkins (Lady Liv).
Analysis
Chicago's Goodman Theatre - the city's largest not-for-profit house - attempts to revive the Broadway disappointment Play On! with this pared-down version of the Twelfth Night story set to an abundance of Duke Ellington tunes. This production returns two of the Broadway stars as well as the reworked choreography of Ellington's granddaughter, Mercedes Ellington. The towering set of beveled mirrors is richly adorned with the dark-hued and large-scale art of Romare Beardon, a contemporary and friend of Ellington. The music, two dozen new arrangements, is orchestrated by Luther Henderson and played with thundering power and flair by a six-piece band.
The play begins with the diminutive Vy, in a striped dress and carrying suitcases, arriving at Grand Central Station in the 1940s. Filling Shakespeare's Viola role, Vy is ready to be attired as a male - "Vy-Man" - a necessity in order to gain respect or even a listening ear as a songwriter in New York's swing society. Beneath an enormous clock, bellhops in black and red scurry about her, and her question - "which way to Harlem" - is given a rousing response of "Take the A Train" by the suddenly swinging bellhops.
Vy journeys to Harlem to visit the Duke - a hybrid of Ellington and Orsino - and his band, the Duke's Royales, at the infamous Cotton Club. At the Club, Jester whisks his Rug Cutter Girls through "I'm Just a Lucky So-and-So." The Duke, despondent and apparently in love with the sultry Lady Liv, i.e. Olivia, plays the bar's grand piano. Two candles and an ostentatious bust of Lady Liv adorn the instrument. Jester introduces the Duke to Vy as fresh songwriting talent, and Vy, now in a three-piece pin-striped man's suit, is instantly attracted to the bluesy songwriter, who sings a longing "I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart."
Set within "the Magical Kingdom of Harlem," the Cotton Club - referred to in Lady Liv's intro as "heaven's runner-up" - features eight purple-and-black clad accompanying tap-dancers for Liv. Broadway star Tonya Pinkins sings with wanton fervor despite her later professed loneliness, and she devours the Lady Liv role. The set closes following "Mood Indigo" to indicate her private dressing room with vanity table (pun intended), mirror, sofa, and Beardon's blue-and-green impressions. The lusty Liv dons an indigo evening gown and pursues Vy-Man with a variation of sighs, whimpers, purrs, and barks. When Vy ignores her animal grunts and groans, she joins "him" to play a side-by-side duet of "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" that concludes with Vy chased right off the piano bench.
Lady Liv's Cotton Club is managed by the uptight and puritanical Rev, with Paul Oakley Stovall filling this Malvolio role in yellow shirt and suspenders. At times nearly too far over-the-top, Stovall nonetheless stops the show - again - with a passionate and potent "Don't You Know I Care." The singer's anguish, captured within Ellington's yearning melody by Henderson and the band, illuminates musical and dramatic parallels between Viola, Orsino, Olivia, and Malvolio that a straight dramatic reading of the text would only struggle to shed some light upon.
The Club features many splashes of color in addition to the beret-topped, green-suited, checker-panted Jester. The limber band conductor Sweets, a kind of sweetened Sir Toby Belch, acts as Jester's partner and accomplice, and Lady Liv's costume-designer is Miss Mary (Maria). The three colorful Cotton Club denizens perform a rousing "It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing" with the spirit that there truly may be no more cakes and ale. The song stops the show yet again, although the dynamism never really flags, and Jester and Sweets share a high five at center stage. Later, the three perform their trickery and deceit of Rev/Malvolio - "you can't go hither if you can't slither" - by teaching him how to chicken-walk with a swagger and smile more broadly, all while singing "Hit Me With a Hot Note."
The Duke, lit in somber sanguine tones and alone on his soundstage with just piano and drums, delivers a melancholic "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good." The ceiling-high beveled mirrors flank a towering red mountain backdrop. The mirrors reflect images of Vy and Liv at either side of the Duke, and the two women join him for the final, moving chorus of his song of unrequited love. The Duke then begins to bond with his new friend Vy, also his compatriot in the pangs of being in love, and at one point he puts a hand on "his" chest and claims he "can't quite put a finger on" why they relate so well.
The emotional distress of being lost in love, captured so perfectly within Ellington's lushly spare music, continues with Lady Liv's "Everything But You," and the first half concludes with memorable flair. The Duke, in a pink suit and carrying flowers, is rebuffed by Liv and infuriated with the apparent treachery of Vy-Man. Then, the four lonely lovers - Vy, joined by Duke, Liv, and Rev - each share in "Solitude," with Vy accompanied from separate mini-stages that slide forward and back depending upon who is spotlit and singing. The desperate cry of the refrain - "send back my love" - is hauntingly repeated as Vy walks offstage amid the refracted and broken reflections of the other lovers.
The shorter second act features brief songs and one reprise amid strong set-pieces. Lady Liv begins with the churning yearn of "Black Butterfly," dressed in a slinky black gown and accompanied by four black-tuxedoed dancers. Pinkins' star turn as Lady Liv includes some excellent acting as well as blazing torch-singing, and she reveals profound insights into her Olivia character. Her disappointment in both Vy - "I thought you were different" - and herself - "I'm an illusion" - is palpable, and she summarizes her lonely Club-icon existence with a self-reflective comment: "I'm Lady Liv but I don't live on stage."
Liv follows Vy's hasty exit with "I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues" until Rev arrives in horrific yellow zoot suit and hat. As Rev croons to her about beginning to "see the light" and shows her his chicken-walk, she wonders aloud if there may be a full moon. Next, Jester and Sweets, both jilted by their lovers, lament with stiff glasses of bourbon - "hold the water" - and join together for a jaunty duet as the bar and tables disappear from around them as they sing of "Rocks In My Bed." They conclude with another high five, each with drink in hand.
The high-energy production propels toward its happy conclusion with a surprisingly sweet duet by Liv and Rev of "Something to Live For." In Play On!, Malvolio actually wins the heart and hand of his beloved Olivia, and with Stovall's earnestness and fervor, the plot twist works happily and well, as the unlikely lovers share a warm and apparently genuine embrace. Mary and Sweets also reconcile, with "Love You Madly," although Jester and his love, C.C., remain apart, at least for the moment.
The Duke, still wounded and angry, plays "Prelude to a Kiss" at his piano in a black velvet smoking jacket and a bow tie. When he refuses to listen to her entreaties, Vy begins to strip off her clothes, and when her femininity is revealed, the Duke leaps away, then comes forward, again happily, with an amusing confession of his own: his real name is Francis.
At the finale, the couples all dance and sing "In a Mellow Tune" together, and even Jester and his C.C. are betrothed: no melancholic Feste drifting off alone in this production. The curtain calls are presented as marriage announcements, and in a tribute to Shakespeare's confused and mistaken identities, Rev and the Duke nearly kiss the wrong brides, then correct their errors at the last moment.
Presented with tremendous energy and enacted with infectious if at times unbridled enthusiasm, this production of Play On! has become an artistic and box-office triumph for Chicago's Goodman, a redemption for the show's Broadway cast and crew, and most importantly, an envitalizing and thrilling rendition of Twelfth Night, stripped down but very jazzed up.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.16, No.4, Fall 1998.