Created by Marion J. Caffey
Musical supervision, orchestrations, and arrangements by Joseph Joubert
Musical Direction by e'Marcus Harper
Arena Stage
Through Aug. 13, 2006
Jamet Pittman, N'Kenge, and Gretha Boston
By Alexander C. Kafka
On the heels of its Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, the one-woman show about Billie Holiday, 3 Mo' Divas sustains Arena's savvy summertime transformation into a turbocharged nightclub. While Lady Day was lushly melancholy, Divas is hard-driving and, for the most part, upbeat with a vengeance. While the former treated the source music with a careful, if not curatorial, care, this show treats its musical source material confidently but sometimes roughly in its variegated bright packaging. Fortunately, its stars and dashing production values play up its best qualities, making the revue a rousing summer treat.
The gimmick, echoing that of creator Marion J. Caffey's 2000 production, Three Mo' Tenors, is that the divas perform works from the last several centuries. But gimmick is really what that amounts to, given that the first of those centuries is handily disposed of almost by the time you're fully settled in your seat.
The demanding show is double-cast. To musical supervisor Joseph Joubert's piano accompaniment, Sunday's divas--Gretha Boston, Jamet Pittman, and N'Kenge--established their operatic credentials elegantly in such standards as "Quando M'En Vo" from Puccini’s La Boheme and "L'Amour est un oiseau rebelle" from Bizet's Carmen. And, in the Puccini, the stereotypical divas’ penchant for upstaging one another is nicely sent up.
Still, as if to confirm that this classical opening was the tasteful but dutiful braised asparagus to the satisfying tenderloin to come, lighting designer Richard Winkler’s cool blues warm to reds as Dale F. Jordan’s splendid deco-arch-framed set reveals, in scrimmed silhouette, a half-dozen band members. And only now, as the divas move from La Scala to Broadway, does the show fully shift into drive.
This is also when the women’s stage personalities blossom. For this show’s purposes—though we can be sure their ranges are miles broader—N’Kenge is the bright, brassy, cute and sexed-up soprano. Pittman is the earnest, lyrical, doe-eyed, emotive mezzo. And Boston—the evening’s musical and dramatic center point—is the supremely controlled low alto with a voice so casually and artfully powerful that, when she wants it to, it will toast your day’s distractions, then melt your heart and spread it over them. Often her opening gambit—and that of some of her best numbers here—is the simple declarative, so instantly persuasive that it’s sad and funny at the same time, like “You’re mean to me” from Ain’t Misbehavin’. Her “Downhearted Blues” was another Boston solo highlight, as was “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” during the divas’ rousing gospel sendoff.
Pittman shone most brightly in “Your Daddy’s Son” from Ragtime and “Solitude.” Though her self-accompanied rendition of the Oleta Adams hit “Everything Must Change” was not Pittman’s musical peak of the night, she so obviously enjoys the tune, is so clearly connected and comfortable with it, that Sunday’s audience lapped it up.
N’Kenge, blaringly versatile even in the context of this versatile trio, draws dashingly from 
Rent’s “Seasons of Love,” The Wiz’s “Home,” and even—so sportingly—from Cab Calloway’s “Minnie the Moocher.” She’s also a splendid model for costumer Toni-Leslie James’ superb lace-over-silver dress in the opening and a neo-Calloway zoot suit, among other items.
The trio’s harmonies were exceptionally sharp and vibrant throughout, particularly striking in “Harlem Nocturne” and “Moody’s Mood for Love.”
Joubert’s ensemble was tight in the good sense, and invariably sensitive to the divas’ pacing and intensity. But the instrumentalists were also sometimes tight in the not-so-good sense, hanging back, for whatever reason, when a blues or R&B number practically begged for, say, a collar-loosened sax or guitar solo. The synth strings would have blended better if they were a little quieter, and the synth horns were grating against the group’s overall quality. Where's a real trumpet player when you need one?
Some arrangements and song selections were also unfortunate. Maybe it’s because the more powerfully stark version of “Strange Fruit” from Lady Day still resonated in my mind, but despite Boston’s and Pittman’s faultless rendering, the pseudo-operatic version here sounded, well, a little pretentious. And I’m sorry, but giving a powerhouse like Boston “Memories (The Way We Were),” is like asking Mahalia Jackson to sing “Raindrops Are Falling On My Head” or a timpanist to do “Flight of the Bumblebee.” It can be done, yes—but for heaven’s sake why?
Unsurprisingly, the production pleases least when trying hardest. Medlies, which should perhaps be classified as a felony in any circumstance, serve these superb performers particularly poorly. A trace of “Seasons of Love,” for example, in the Broadway/Movies Medley doesn’t leave us wanting more in the classic showbiz sense—it just feels unfinished.
And the Divas S
oul Medley, if it weren’t for these amazing voices, would feel at home at a theme-park musicale. It’s simply unworthy of these women. The show’s self-promotional subbed lyrics in “Let the Good Times Roll” are forced and unnecessary, too.
If the show is tweaked, or followed with a Mo’ Tenors/Mo’ Divas combo production (whimsically but logically suggested by Paul Harris in a Variety news feature), let’s hope that Caffey and Company ease up on the high-concept throttle a bit and let their wonderfully cast stars shine in the way they shine best—by singing. They’re real divas, after all, so give ’em some space.
Photos by Scott Suchman, courtesy of Arena Stage
