Love, peace, soul fill ACT’s joyous Hippest Trip

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ABOVE: The cast of Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical dances up a storm on stage at American Conservatory Theater’s Toni Rembe Theater through Oct. 8. Set design is by Jason Sherwood, projection design is by Aaron Rhyne and lighting is by Jen Schriever. BELOW: Amber Iman is Pam Brown and Quentin Earl Darrington is Don Cornelius. Photos by Kevin Berne & Alessandra Mello


For more than three decades, “Soul Train” was the “hippest trip” on TV. Soul, R&B, funk, disco and hip-hop music combined with the latest dance moves from young Black Americans fused into one of the longest-running syndicated programs in television history. And now “Soul Train,” perhaps inevitably in our jukebox world, is the hippest trip in musical theater.

Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical had its world premiere Wednesday and kicked off the new American Conservatory Theater on stage at the Toni Rembe Theater. Clearly this is a show with Broadway in its sights, and the news on that front is mostly good. Hippest Trip explodes with energy and joy. The score contains about 30 songs (mostly snippets) from the “Soul Train” era, which ran from 1971 to 2006. Orchestrated and arranged by Kenny Seymour and played by a sizzling hot 12-piece band (under the music direction of Sean Kana), the song selections feel more appropriate here than they do in a lot of other jukebox musicals.

Many of the songs underscore ferociously entertaining dance numbers choreographed by Camille A. Brown (who is not afraid to get out the rollerskates), and that’s when this show is at its dazzling best. If The Hippest Trip was just this extraordinary ensemble dancing singing through the evolution of ’70s, ’80s and ’90s music the way TV audiences experienced it on “Soul Train,” the show would still be a blast.

But book writer Dominique Morisseau and director Kamilah Forbes have more on their minds than just a nostalgic trip through song and dance. Their focus is “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius, who went from being a low-level Chicago TV journalist to the master of the “Soul Train” empire. The first act chronicles Cornelius’ struggle to get something on the air to represent Black America beyond the death and devastation that seemed to be filling screens in the early ’70s. Modeled after Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand,” “Soul Train” quickly became a hit in Chicago, so Cornelius moved operations to Los Angeles and took his show into national syndication.

By the end of Act 1, we’re getting into more typical show biz bio territory, with success and ego threatening to overwhelm Cornelius’ integrity (he’d feed his dancers, but he wouldn’t pay them) and taking a toll on his wife and two sons, who remained in Chicago.

While the show pays attention to some of the star “Soul Train” dancers and the artists who spun their time with the show into full careers – Damita Jo Freeman, Jody Watley and Rosie Perez among them – Cornelius remains at the center. Act 2 documents his troubled family life, serious medical issues and his reluctance to share his empire with his son, Tony.

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Scenes are fast and the pace is brisk in this 2 1/2-hour spectacle, but Morisseau, a noted playwright who also shaped Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations, manages to convey the weight of success and the toll it takes on a person even while fully representing the joy that Cornelius was so intent on documenting and sharing with the world.

Director Forbes revels in the fun of youth and the excitement of being on TV. She is ably assisted by the set (by Jason Sherwood), which turns the proscenium into an old-fashioned TV set and then sends those billowing steamy curls from the “Soul Train” locomotive into the theater in the form of wonderfully effective projection screens filled with the vibrant designs of Aaron Rhyne. I don’t usually dig projections on stage, but in a show about a classic TV show famous for replicating a dance club, the projections are perfect and seriously bolster the general feeling of elation that so often permeates the theater.

And here’s where we get into what might be addressed before heading to Broadway. To be clear, The Hippest Trip is a thoroughly entertaining experience full of sparkle and dazzle (just try to contain the exultation of costumer Dede Ayite’s creations). The parade of song, dance and fashion, combined with clips from the actual show, is simply splendid. And while Cornelius’ creation is justly celebrated and lionized, his life story feels fairly ordinary by show biz bio standards, so Morisseau pushes harder than she needs to convey a looming sense of his faults and the pressures he was under – as Cornelius says frequently, “You can let other people underestimate you, but you never underestimate yourself.” He was fighting to change the world but grew into a cranky old man who didn’t like disco or hip-hop and thought dancers with wild new moves were “weirdos.”

In the end, as much as I admired Cornelius, I found myself more interested in the dancers and the life of the “Soul Train” show itself. I kept wanting this Trip to erupt into a full-blown “Soul Train” dance party – and it felt like the opening-night audience, which happened to be one of the best-dressed audiences I’ve ever seen, wanted that, too. But it doesn’t really happen, even when the full-bore joy returns at the end.

Too many numbers are cut off or interrupted by dialogue. When the great Amber Iman, who plays Pam Brown, Cornelius’ most trusted associate, is singing a soulful song from 1990 (producers have asked we not divulge certain song titles to prevent spoilers), you do not interrupt her. The audience finally gets to let loose with their bottled-up hysteria after a New Jack Swing explosion of “My Prerogative” (that title we can share). But there should be many more ovations before that – the audience wants to pour love into this show and doesn’t get enough opportunity to do so.

What’s not to adore about this mighty, mighty cast? I’ve already noted that the ensemble is overflowing with talent, which is probably why their slice of the show (and a generous slice it is) packs such a wallop. Iman, who starred in the title role of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Goddess, is a forthright stunner in an underwritten role. Quentin Earl Darrington as Cornelius gives us a human-scale impresario, a man who wants to be The Wiz but is really just the flawed, hard-working guy behind the curtain. Darrington has a beautiful voice that he gets to show off in the Al Green song “I’m So Tired of Being Alone” and then in a duet with Sidney Dupont, who plays Tony Cornelius. In smaller roles, Kayla Davion, Rich James, Cameron Hah, Jaquez, Mayte Natalio, Alain “Hurrikane” Lauture and Charlene “Chi-Chi” Smith are marvelous as some of the breakout “Soul Train” stars.

As with most jukebox musicals, pop songs that were never intended to bear the weight of musical theater storytelling are nevertheless asked to do so. There’s less of that here because so much of the music is for dancing, and when the pop songs become character songs, there’s a higher success rate than usual. Still, when an optimistic mid-tempo 1970 tune becomes an emotionally fraught duet, the cringe factor is only relieved by the stellar performances.

While there’s still polishing that needs to happen, The Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical barrels down the tracks with style, spirt and, as we might expect, abundant love, peace and soul.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Hippest Trip – The Soul Train Musical continues through Oct. 8 at American Conservatory Theater’s Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco. Running time: 2 hours and 35 minutes (including intermission). Tickets are $25-$140 (subject to change). Call 415-749-2228 or visit act-sf.org.

Irresistible Temptations abound in Ain’t Too Proud

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ABOVE: The cast of the National Touring Company of Ain’t Too Proud includes (from left) Harrell Holmes Jr., Elijah Ahmad Lewis, Jalen Harris, Marcus Paul James and James T. Lane BELOW: Ain’t Too Proud tells the story of the Temptations’ rise to pop music glory. PHOTO CREDIT: EMILIO MADRID


A little more than five years ago, a new musical about a legendary musical group had its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations hit a few more cities before it landed on Broadway, where it ran from February 2019 to January of this year (with a Covid shutdown amid the blur of what we were told was 2020). Now the show is on the road again and back in the Bay Area, this time at the Golden Gate Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season.

[Read my review of the Berkeley Rep production here.]

It’s interesting to revisit a new show and see how it has evolved on its journey to Broadway. Ain’t Too Proud is definitely a stronger show than it was five years ago, although it’s hard to imagine a better cast than that original one (not to take anything away from the touring cast, which is terrific). The book by Dominique Morisseau is tighter and more focused, and the (Tony Award-winning) choreography by Sergio Trujillo is about as fun as it could possibly be as the Temps swoop and slide and do the splits in perfect gentlemanly boy band fashion.

Trujillo and director Des McAnuff also served as choreographer and director on another theatrical boyband biography: Jersey Boys. It’s interesting to see the similarities in the stories of two enterprising musical groups from humble beginnings begin their climb up the pop charts to superstardom and the inevitable drama of ego clashes, addictions, family turmoil and tragedies. There’s nothing new in either story when it comes to the depiction of fame. The climb is more interesting than the descent, and it’s amazing that so much good pop music came out of so much personal and professional chaos.

Jersey Boys is the better constructed show, with its careful balance of character, plot and jukebox musical nostalgia. But Ain’t Too Proud has much better music, though the production itself is overly slick with its many-layered video projections and the increasingly impersonal rush through the Temps’ history from solid quintet to fractured, battle-scarred Motown money-making machine with a revolving door of members.

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Given that the Temptations’ song catalogue is so rich with treasure, it can be frustrating when a song keeps getting interrupted for plot, and that happens a lot here. The song “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” for instance, is stretched about as far as it can be across years of exposition involving death and family strife.

But when tunes like “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” or “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” have room to land, they really land. The onstage band headed by Jonathan “Smitti” Smith, recreates that famous Motown sound with thrilling accuracy,

The cast, headed by Marcus Paul James as band founder Otis Williams (on whose book the show is based and who serves as one of the show’s executive producers), and he’s a solid guide through these “life and times.” The showcase singing (and dramatic fireworks) belong, as they did in life, to David Ruffin, played by Elijah Ahmad Lewis, and Eddie Kendricks, played by Jalen Harris. Both performers have electrifying moments, and the show definitely loses its oomph when their troubles – with Williams, with life, with substances, with health – begin pulling them in and out of the band.

But even as the story loses steam, the music keeps the energy level high and the entertainment value strong. Ain’t Too Proud may not have much new to say about the cost of fame and success, but it celebrates a legacy of great music that will keep the Temptations in the pantheon of our greatest music makers.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations continues through Dec. 4 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Running time: 2 hours and 30 minutes. Tickets are $56-$256. Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com.

Riveting drama in Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew

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Christian Thompson (left) is Dez, Margo Hall is Faye (center) and Lance Gardner is Reggie in the Marin Theatre Company/TheatreWorks Silicon Valley co-production of Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau. Photo by Kevin Berne

What an incredible talent to balance the dark weight of tragedy and the electrifying light of hope. That’s what playwright Dominique Morisseau does in Skeleton Crew, a powerful play now at Marin Theatre Company (in a co-production with TheatreWorks Silicon Valley). It’s a workplace drama set in a Detroit auto plant, so that pretty much tells you how bleak it is. But the four characters we meet here are not hopeless, nor are they whiny pits of despair.

The extraordinary Margo Hall heads a strong cast, and the show is definitely worth seeing. I reviewed it for TheatreMania.com. Here’s a taste.

For the play’s two riveting hours, director Jade King Carroll brings out humor and heartache in almost equal measure and works in concert with Morisseau to push the drama as far as it can go without tipping into melodrama. When a story deals with life and death, rage and resignation, the threat of violence and the spark of young love, things could easily slip into soap opera territory. But that never happens here. Carroll, Morisseau, and a quartet of fine actors focus instead on reality and dignity.

Read the full review here.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew, a co-production of Marin Theatre Company and TheatreWorks of Silicon Valley, continues through Feb. 18 at Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets are $22-$60. Call 415-388-5208 or visit www.marintheatre.org. TheatreWorks presents the show March 7-April 1 at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Tickets are $40-$100. Call 650-463-1960 or visit www.theatreworks.org.

Succumb to temptation and see Ain’t Too Proud at Berkeley Rep

EXTENDED THROUGH NOV. 5
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The cast of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s world-premiere musical Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations includes (from left) Christian Thompson as Smokey Robinson, Ephraim Sykes as David Ruffin, Jared Joseph as Melvin Franklin, Derrick Baskin as Otis Williams, Jeremy Pope as Eddie Kendricks and James Harkness as Paul Williams. Below: The Temptations – (from left) Sykes, Pope, Harkness, Joseph and Baskin – show off their moves. Photos by Carole Litwin/Berkeley Repertory Theatre

When Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations is in its groove, this world-premiere musical at Berkeley Repertory Theatre is absolutely electrifying. Featuring all or part of 30 songs from the ’60s and ’70s Motown era, the music alone is enough to make this a must-see theatrical event, but it’s clear that this musical biography is going places (namely Broadway).

It’s not surprising that the story of The Temptations, one of the most successful R&B groups in pop music history, is being given the stage musical treatment. Perhaps what’s surprising about this venture is that it involves two of the major talents behind another, incredibly successful stage bio: Jersey Boys. Director Des McAnuff and choreographer Sergio Trujillo return for another chapter of pop music history translated to the musical theater stage, and the results are similarly thrilling and tuneful. Here’s another story about a scrappy boy band that hits it big, suffers the usual success-related plagues (ego, drugs) and survives with the music (if not the original band members) prevailing. Think Jersey Boys meets Dream Girls to create Detroit Dream Boys.

What’s interesting about Ain’t Too Proud is that it begins in Detroit, with the eventual formation of the five-member band and its eventual acceptance into the stable of resident hitmaker Berry Gordy and his Motown label. After struggling to get traction on the charts, the Temptations finally break through with “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” and by the late ’60s and early ’70s, they’re struggling along with most of the country to adapt to rapidly changing times and tastes all the while dealing with some explosive personalities within the band, which leads to a sort of revolving door of members of the remainder of its existence. We’re told that from 1963 to the present day (there is still a band called The Temptations making music in the world), two dozen men have been in (and out) of the band. That’s a lot of guys to keep track of in a musical biography, so book writer Dominique Morisseau (a noted playwright and Detroit native) focuses primarily on the original five members for the first act and the first few replacements in the second act, which can’t help but lose some of its focus as years and members seem to speed by without much specificity.

The musical is based on the book The Temptations by founding member Otis Williams – the same book that served as a basis for the two-part 1998 NBC miniseries “The Temptations – so the story is told primarily from his point of view. As played by the charismatic and eminently likable Derrick Baskin, Otis is savvy and hardworking, a team player who makes up in reliable good nature what he may lack in showbiz pizzazz. He’s the through-line of the story, serving as its narrator and amiable main character (and at Thursday’s opening-night performance, the real Otis was in the theater beaming at his on-stage alter-ego).

A single song, like “Shout” can serve to rile up the audience (boy, does that song rile up an audience) and provide a lively backdrop while Otis gathers together other Detroit guys to form what will become The Temptations. Time is compressed into a single song as he recruits Melvin Franklin (Jared Joseph), Al Bryant (Jarvis B. Manning Jr.), Paul Williams (James Harkness), Eddie Kendricks (Jeremy Pope) and David Ruffin (Ephraim Sykes) into the band. Then the song “Get Ready” charts the rise of the band to major player on the American pop scene.

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By the time we get to “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” being performed on “American Bandstand,” it’s clear that the Temps are well on their way, and the story shifts focus in several ways. First, to Otis’ wife, Josephine (Rashidra Scott, who stops the show with her take on “If You Don’t Know Me by Now”), and their faltering marriage, and then to the bad behavior and ego flares of Ruffin and Kendricks.

Act 2 can be summed up in one line of dialogue: “The bigger we get, the more we fall apart.” Great songs like “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” (sung as part of a TV special with Diana Ross and the Supremes), “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today),” “Just My Imagination” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” attest to the quality of the music being made even while band members were quitting, being fired or dying and new ones were coming in and out. By the time Otis lets loose on “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted,” it’s easy to understand why (on top of his own personal tragedy) keeping the The Temptations alive and viable could be heartbreaking work.

The end of Jersey Boys was kind of a brilliant trick in that the Four Seasons’ induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame capped a fractious era in the band’s history and this musical itself, Jersey Boys itself was the actual final chapter for the band, and we in the audience were all part of it. The ending of Aint’ Too Proud hasn’t yet figured out how to play out on that level, but that’s what out-of-town tryouts are for.

If Ain’t Too Proud isn’t perfect, it’s in phenomenally good shape. Director McAnuff, using the conveyer belt and turntables of Robert Brill’s astonishingly efficient set (with subdued and artful projections by Peter Nigrini), delivers another finely tuned machine that seamlessly blends songs with action and some of the smoothest dance moves in recent memory (Trujillo is the master of in-unison band dancing). Howell Binkley’s lights and Paul Tazewell’s costume designs convey time and place with precision and panache, and the 12-piece band headed by Kenny Seymour kicks some serious R&B butt, capturing the texture and flavor of the Motown sound and giving it fresh zest. The moment the band is revealed on stage toward the end of this 2 1/2-hour extravaganza is a well-earned thrill.

In the end, though, it’s the extraordinary cast that makes Ain’t Too Proud such a rich and rewarding pleasure. They sing, they dance, they add nuance to a fast-moving story that doesn’t have time for a lot of character detail. The way they do the things they do makes us care about the success of the band and its part in Gordy’s goal of using Motown to break down racial barriers coast to coast (and making him gobs of money while he’s at it). The voices are simply glorious – especially Sykes’ Ruffin and Pope’s Kendricks – and the blend of the boys in the band feels true to the original Temptations sound while making feel alive and not overly polished.

There’s a repeated line in the show about not dwelling on the past – the only thing you can rewind is a song – but this whole exercise is essentially a rewind. Sometimes dwelling on the past is worth it when you get new insight into the music and are able – as you do with Ain’t Too Proud – to hear it with fresh ears and a bigger heart.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations continues an extended run through Nov. 5 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $40-$125 (subject to change). Call 510-647-2949 or visit www.berkeleyrep.org.