Sean Power - Reviews & Interviews

Lady/Speak/Easy
14 Feb 2000 - The New Yorker:
"THE THEATRE: Lady/Speak/Easy"

THE THEATRE

LADY/SPEAK/EASY - A seductive evening in a speakeasy with Billie Holiday. The house is set up as a night club, where a seasoned band of jazz performers plays music of a quality rarely heard in the theatre. Sean Power's script is cleverly structured so that Holiday's patter from the mike alternates with bits of gossip passed on by other characters - friends, lovers, managers - and the audience gets a sense of Holiday's life without any of the distracting speeches or flashbacks common to this kind of show. It is, of course, a sad evening in the end, but there's a fierce energy and intelligence running through the production that makes you understand Holiday's desire and her gift, as well as her pain. Bemshi Shearer, as Holiday, is ravishing, and the rest of the cast are up to her standard (Kwana Martinez does a brilliant comic turn as a cigarette girl with ambitions). (La Mama, 74A E. 4th St. 475­7710. Closes Feb. 13.)