The Louis Armstrong Musical’ overview

Come for the music in “A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical,” the Satchmo present that opened Monday night time at Studio 54.

As for the throaty crooner’s life story, learn a e-book as a substitute. What’s on Broadway is essentially a deflating and cobbled-together spouse story that fails to seize Armstrong, the artist. 

The “Hello, Dolly!” singer, who died in 1971, certainly married 4 instances and was a dishonest jerk to that quartet of ladies.

His turbulent relationships with them as his fame skyrockets — from second trumpet in King Joe Oliver’s (Gavin Gregory) jazz band to Hollywood icon — punctuate “A Wonderful World.” 

That’s personally messy, sure, however it’s a theatrically tough alternative by e-book author Aurin Squire to middle a musical crammed with many, many (did I say many?) upbeat tunes round spousal quarrels and infidelity.

The present’s greatest numbers truly belong to the actresses who play the wives, each fabulous.

Consider it like “Nine” or “Six” — however “Four.”

Armstrong’s girls are Daisy Parker (Dionne Figgins), a “switchblade hooker”; sensible piano participant and supervisor Lil Hardin (Jennie Harney-Fleming); fan Alpha Smith (Kim Exum); and Cotton Membership singer Lucille Wilson (Darlesia Cearcy), who lastly holds him accountable for his zipper.

Their personalities are as distinctive as their knockout voices. The primary act ends stunningly when spurned exes Daisy and Lil duet on “Some of These Days”/ “After You’ve Gone” — the present’s most blood-pumping auditory second.

Cearcy has one other standout within the second half with the transferring “That’s My Home.”

The difficulty is that Satchmo shouldn’t be solely second trumpet, however he’s decreased to being second fiddle. In his personal present!

We’re left with the impression that the creators didn’t discover Armstrong, emptily impersonated by James Monroe Iglehart, to be a very fascinating man. So, they made his important others extra important.

Even so, the musical spans 60 years of occasions — from his 1910s New Orleans beginnings to a Prohibition-era stint in Chicago to movie stardom in Nineteen Thirties California and, lastly, New York Metropolis.

Whereas Adam Koch and Steven Royal’s set, with a Bourbon Road balcony, persistently evokes Louisiana, the terrific and malleable ensemble’s fiery dance and motion (by Rickey Tripp) assist relocate the motion across the nation.  

In addition to love and lust, what drives Armstrong to the street is the ever-present ugliness of racism. A member of his band, Banjo Ben (Renell Taylor, a wonderful dancer), is wrongly referred to as a thief and killed in New Orleans early on. That traumatic reminiscence haunts him perpetually.

And, even when he’s an in-demand actor on film units, administrators spout off insensitive remarks whereas aggressively pushing him to smile huge.

“That’s what you do!” one dismissively says.

However these scenes that transcend clunky biographic exposition are short-lived. Simply after we’re beginning to discover the depths of the person, one other music begins. Some, like “Black and Blue,” contribute which means and texture; others fill time in a present that already drags.

Regardless that each single tune sounds chic, the applause dims because the efficiency goes on. There may be typically a collective feeling of: “That should have been cut.”

Iglehart does effectively with Armstrong’s signature gravelly voice. He doesn’t, nonetheless, add up his recognizable traits right into a plausible particular person. The actor, who performed the Genie in “Aladdin,” falls again on sitcom one-liners and mugging on the crowd to wring out a response. As Iglehart grabs for laughs, he doesn’t seize our hearts.

Armstrong argues to his supervisor and spouse that he’s extra than simply the blissful act he places on for the general public. The present and its lead recommend the precise reverse. 

That the musical doesn’t gel isn’t any shock. The Playbill tells a tragic story of too many cooks. The musical is directed by Christopher Renshaw,and co-directed by Iglehart and Christina Sajous. Virtually a Roman triumvirate. That many voices go away the staging with no discernible model or perspective, and makes laborious choices even more durable. 

And I believe to myself … that’s too many administrators.