LITT MAGAZINE

"I Wish You Love" "Mona Lisa" "Nature Boy" "Smile" -will never be sung by the any artists with the style or nuance of Cole. Even the fun songs "Kee-Mo, Kye-Mo (The Magic song) and "Get You Kicks On Route 66" were beautiful works of musical art when styled by Cole. So a difficult read and interpretation like "Non Dimenticar (T'Ho Voluto Bene) was an exceptional treat when sang by Spears, who carried it out and bought it back as smoothly as the master himself. The Director never allows this play to languish...it moves from scene to scene via song, and with prodding from the worrywart announcer/middle manager, Bill Henry, splendidly wrung out by (Michael Tezla), we feel the pressure of the time, and the social condition.

This play will make you want to find copies of Nat King Cole's recordings and reformat them for regular listening. There are no more romantic songs written. And a tip for current, or wannabe singers; take a listen to Mr. Cole’s annunciation, over the note, and diction throughout each and every song. That's style! You will be hard lookin' to find anyone, currently, with that clearly defined range of vowel and pitch. Dennis Spears matches up as cleanly as no other!

 The friendship and musical collaboration between Dennis Spears and Sanford Moore has yielded creative fruit for three decades. That professional relationship yields yet riper fruit in Dominic Taylor's "I Wish You Love" directed by Lou Bellamy. It is one thing to have an actor who can "act" singing-it is an entirely different ballgame to fake a singer into "acting". Dennis Spears was always, and is now, a wonderful singer-reference "Moore By Four"-but remembering lines does not necessarily make one an actor. In "I Wish You Love" Spears "acts"- and acts well. It is obvious that he has taken effort to grow and develop into an actor. He "listens" and gives space to other actors to re-act, and act off of him-one trademark of solid actors. Many instances of dialog between Spears (Nat King Cole) and Bill Henry character, (played impeccably by Michael Tezla) had Cole to give occasionally glib retort, capped with throw away sarcasm-throw away sarcasm only works with good timing. Spears (Cole) and Tezla (Henry) had the timing worked, so that retort and sarcasm flowed without effort, and the audience caught the nuance every time.

The stories and explanations by the Oliver Moore character played by Kevin West gave well-balanced comedic relief, and forced the audience to listen closely as weaved us through a bit of home-spinnin'. West has the dubiously skeptical, Oliver Moore character, down. Jeffrey, the Newby in Cole’s group played by Eric Berryman, displayed all the youthful enthusiasm and innocence of a puppy, and elicited the audience's empathy, at a key arc in the play. Mr. Bellamy-"heir director" the master Director, used the character as needle and thread to pull together an ugly social tear that may have easily been overlooked. Mr. Bellamy. The Director, exams-Mr. Bellamy, the master Director, does not over examine-story fabric weaved-flow maintained. Go, Mr. Bellamy, go! Because this play is about to leave us to hit the road and because it WILL be an unqualified success in every way-that success in its reach, grasp, and climb can be attributed to the "Director".

LITT Magazine refers to PENUMBRA THEATER, as the Twin Cities' special gift -and salutes Lou Bellamy as our Local Legend! RE

If you have not seen “I Wish You Love"-or-have not been lately to Penumbra Theater-you need to! Penumbra Theater is the most accessible theater with the biggest talent of all- and needs your support-get yourself, your family, and your organization to an evening at Penumbra Theater-you'll be glad you did.

For more information contact Audience Services Director Anita Baccus Robinson.

Courtesy of Theros group.com

With so many images to choose from in today’s tele-visual marketplace-we forget about a time when there were fewer than three major channels, and four major variety shows to choose from. In the late 1950's one of the more visible entertainers to head his own variety show was the late Nat "King" Cole. Cole (Nathaniel Adams Cole March 17, 1919-February 15, 1965) was not just an entertainer in a particular space in our collective history he was an icon prior to the current use of the term. Cole was a style, a look, a sound, and source of racial pride for Black people-before he declared himself a symbol for the civil rights struggle. To the rest of the world, Cole was just a masculine man who had "it"-all-looks, sex appeal, class, talent, acumen, and a hit television show. To most of us, what could be finer....?

As always in real life, there exists this not so small matter of race. (Oh, not that again...) In 1957 race was a hot button attached with a pre-selected mode of behavior, expectation, and gravity, all its own. It’s that space and gravity that as writer, Dominic Taylor confronts, and as director, Lou Bellamy examines. Dedicated to Phil Kilbourne-"I Wish You Love" was developed in OKRA, the Penumbra new play program with the assistance of the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays.

Its difficult for us to understand how a man with one of the more popular shows of the time would be required to pay for the production of his own show; racial gravity and the space in between makes for all manner unbelievably strange inequities. The problem faced by a modern-day storyteller is how to display, and explain the mindset of "the day" without exaggeration, or over-simplified heavy handedness. Dominic Taylor is down for the challenge.

Taylor takes us back to an era in civil rights history where a seemingly innocent package from an admirer-could just as easily be a bomb from a racial hater. Throughout the turbulence of the era Nat King Cole served as a proud and shining source of American Black pride for decades. His smooth demeanor never allowed the public to know the danger that he sometimes faced. The music alone is worth the price of admission- songs written long ago by master craftsmen/women, that were interpreted by the silky voiced Cole, in a style that captured them in time like no other songs.