Another reason was that the show is a passion project of Colman Domingo, who we theater lovers have claimed as one of our faves long before he became the twice Oscar-nominated actor that he now is. One other reason was that it stars Dulé Hill, a triple-threat performer—can act, can sing, can really dance—returning to the New York stage for the first time in a decade.
And yet another reason—sadly relevant in this historical moment—is that the show focuses on the final episode of Cole’s pioneering TV show which ran for just one year between 1956 and 1957 because national advertisers wouldn't sponsor a show starring a black entertainer because they were afraid that doing that might alienate their white southern customers.
So I think you will understand how much it pains me to have to say how disappointed I was by Lights Out. Domingo has recruited Patricia McGregor, the artistic director at NYTW and one of the few black women to lead a major theater company, to co-write and direct the show (click here to read about their collaboration). But despite years of workshops and tryouts (earlier versions were done in Pennsylvania and L.A.) the show remains a work in progress.
Domingo and McGregor have imagined Lights Out as a fever dream that Cole has in the minutes before he goes on air for his final episode and is trying to decide whether he should bow out with the elegant graciousness that has become his trademark or let loose all the anger and frustration he's felt at both the major slights and micro-aggressions he’s had to endure throughout his career.
The subject of how black celebrities were mistreated in mid-century America—selling out at nightclubs around the country but only allowed to enter them through the back door—is a fascinating one and the idea of framing that experience as a fever dream is terrifically intriguing. But the storytelling here is convoluted and McGregor’s direction is so additionally muddled that it’s hard to keep track of what’s going on.
And there is a lot going on in the show's 90-minutes of running time. Cole’s celebrity friends Eartha Kitt and Peggy Lee pop up to duet with him. Parodies of period commercials are performed. Ghosts from the singer’s past, including his mother, appear to give him advice. Openly racist versions of his white agents and producers turn up to harass him, even hurling the n-word at him. And all of this is set, juke-box-musical style, to a playlist of Cole’s greatest hits, from “Mona Lisa” to “Unforgettable.”
The actors do what they can. Hill deftly mimics Cole’s smooth vocal stylings and as a former Tap Dance Kid, he brings both the noise and the funk during a dance battle (tap choreography by Jared Grimes) that is a true showstopper. The other challenger in that battle is Daniel J. Watts, who plays Sammy Davis Jr. as the mischievous trickster orchestrating Cole’s fever dream, daring him to stand up for himself and for black people as a whole.
Cole and Davis were friends in real life (click here to watch them make fun of one another) but the show never makes clear why Davis, who proudly allied himself with the otherwise all-white Rat Pack lead by Frank Sinatra and later endorsed Richard Nixon for president, has been assigned the role of Cole’s black conscience.
Still, I’m very glad they gave him that role because Watts runs with it and is hands down the best part of the show. He not only mimics Davis perfectly but brings both a much needed energy to the antics he’s called to perform and a sharp edge to the questions about race that I had hoped the entire production would more ably explore.
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