Bananas!! A Day in the Life of Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker isn’t very well remembered these days, but as a young African-American dancer/singer -- known variously in Europe as Black Venus, Black Pearl, and the Creole Goddess, reasonably embarrassing labels by today’s standards, but ones that helped make her a star back then -- she made a tremendous splash in Paris during the 1920s and ‘30s, lasting until her death in 1975. Due to pernicious racism in her native country, her fame grew mostly in France and throughout Europe, but did include a successful return visit to Carnegie Hall two years before her death. During the ‘50s and ‘60s, in repeated visits home, she became better known for her civil rights activities.
Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 3, 1906, she worked her teen-years in revues around the country and on Broadway, before migrating to France after WWI. What she is remembered for these days were her beginnings as a nearly-nude “exotic” dancer in a series of Parisian nightclubs and revues Boulevard (in shows labeled La Revue Nègre, Danse Sauvage, and, most importantly, La Folie du Jour at the Follies-Bergère Theater), baring breasts and covering her nether regions with a string of sixteen bananas (real or fake, no one seems to remember). She was a sensation, even with a thin, reedy voice, and became an extremely well-paid performer for decades.
In Sloan Robinson’s play, we find the artiste preparing for a performance while talking to a photo of Baker’s dead mother, a clumsy devise that brings necessary exposition to the audience. But because it is an ungainly set up, the emotional impact of being an ex-pat (due to persistent racism in America) is muted. We do learn an amazing amount of fact about Baker and her sensational European career, including having served her adopted country during World War II by performing for the troops and doing undercover work for the Resistance, in part by smuggling secret messages written on her music sheets. After the war she was awarded the Médaille d’la Resistance and the Chevalier d’Legion du Honneur for her dangerous work. And in her performance (a stately and statuesque beauty, somewhere we might guess in her late 40s), the lithe dancer is brought very much alive.
Robinson also touches on Baker’s adoptions: twelve children in all, of varying races and religions, what she labeled her “Rainbow Tribe.” This was a fascinating woman and Robinson is no slouch as an actress, but because of the problems with the construction of her one-woman play (84 minutes including an intermission), it is a fitful evening, not able to do full justice to her subject.
Certainly being introduced to this remarkable lady is of value, but in this truncated version of a life well-lived, it does scant integrity to her memory. One wishes Ms. Robinson either a new subject or a revisit to the work to better flesh-out her characterization.
Through February 29th at J.E.T. Studios, 5126 Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood, CA 91601. Tickets: 818.358.3453 or at http://josephinebaker.eventbrite.com.