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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > June > 11
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Review: ‘Love, Janis’
Janis Joplin’s colored sunglasses and uncombed hair are icons of 1960s rock. “Love, Janis,” playing at Zach Scott through July 12, relies heavily on audience’s familiarity with Joplin, but the musical also avoids the trap of superficiality icons offer. The musical does not tell the story of Joplin’s life as a tragedy. “Love, Janis” celebrates Joplin’s voice and performance style: big, wild, and oh, so pleasurable.
“Love, Janis” follows the now familiar formula of jukebox musicals: well-known popular songs interspersed with short scenes stringing together a sparse storyline. Randal Myler created the musical from the book of the same name by Joplin’s younger sister Laura. The book and musical draw exclusively from Joplin’s letters written to her family in Port Arthur, Texas, and press interviews. These materials merge into a musical for two versions of Janis, one who sings and speaks (Mary Bridget Davies) and one who delivers much of the letters turned monologues (Sydney Andrews).
In Wednesday’s performance, much credit for the musical’s depth goes to Davies, who seemed a bit too Texas cheerleader to channel Joplin in early scenes, but then her voice took over. Davies has a sensually gravelly voice in early numbers and elsewhere perfectly mimics Joplin’s sultry mumble in opening song lyrics. Davies also manages to create a full character transformation for Joplin through subtle vocal shifts over the course of the two-hour show. Early on, she is a howler, but by the end her singing has turned to a lullaby, comforting the sadness and anger lurking within the drug-addled Joplin.
Andrews, too, finds nuance in Joplin by these closing moments, having traveled from enthusiastic teen to unsatisfied, lonely star. Davies alternates in the role of singing Janis with Andra Mitrovich, who I saw a week earlier in a show that ended early due to technical problems. Creating Joplin, Mitrovich makes a woman who’s plenty beatnik, but has a stronger Texas outsider quality to her.
For fans of Joplin’s music, “Love, Janis” provides layers of context, particularly around Joplin’s debt to black female performers. Hearing Joplin talk about her love of Bessie Smith brings out “Down on Me’s” blues. Later, after Joplin calls Aretha Franklin the best voice of 1968, I heard “Me and Bobby McGee” anew, recognizing the R&B vocals in Kris Kristofferson’s country melodies.
Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
“Love, Janis” continues 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays through July 12 at Zach Theatre. $20-$52. www.zachtheatre.org.
Photo by Kirk R. Tuck.
