“Fat and Greasy” is another song that the commercial song industry of 1939 wouldn’t appreciate as much as the black community. In the tradition of slinging insults on street corners, Perry and Jennings make fun of some poor guy who has hygiene as well as weight problems. “Mean to Me” is a song in the he-beats-me-but-I love-him-anyway tradition of the time, which knew no racial boundaries. Rheaume Crenshaw delivers that with requisite feeling and fine vocal style.
Most of the solo numbers are staged far too statically, but remaining immobile in one place underscores the power of “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue?” The ensemble starts out sitting on stools, under top spots, taking turns with the poignant lyrics by Andy Razaf about being black in a white society. The words “I’m white inside, but that don’t help my case” causes us to wince today, but the impact remains.
Ain’t Misbehavin’ is a fitting Diamond Jubilee opening for the new Theater by the Sea. And there’s plenty more where that came from.
Related:
Fats and Wilde, Spring awake, Let ’em sing!, More 
- Fats and Wilde
It’s no surprise that this show is such naughty, irrepressible fun.
- Spring awake
Head to the American Repertory Theatre's Zero Arrow Theatre for the world premiere of Christine Evans's TROJAN BARBIE (March 28–April 22).
- Let ’em sing!
Here, in no particular order, are some my favorite things from among the people, CDs, and performances I wrote about this year.
- To Hell in a handbasket
The epic poem The Wild Party is most famous for inspiring two musicals that appeared in the same millennial year.
- Armenian moves
Mark Harootian wanted to create a piece that would celebrate that music and his own Armenian heritage.
- The mind’s eye
Several Trinity Repertory Company actors sit before microphones in a WRNI studio.
- Erin McKeown
With Madeleine Peyroux and Norah Jones as ingrained in the cultural fabric as cockroaches in an Allston student flat, there isn’t much refreshing about yet another pop singer’s taking a whack at a few pages in the Great American Songbook.
- Local color
Bill Flanagan certainly had a lot of himself and Rhode Island to bring to his second novel.
- Implausible dream
Whether beaming optimism is a virtue of America’s collective character or a curse, it certainly looks like it’s here to stay.
- Being there
Ten years ago at the premiere of the Newport International Film Festival, you didn’t have to be a psychic to foresee that the event would prove popular.
- An awkward adaptation
Times change, but the frailties of the human heart . . . not so much. That overworked muscle can be haplessly generous or slammed-door shut. Nathaniel Hawthorne's mid-19th century novel The Scarlet Letter still stands as a perceptive examination of the eternal internal battle between love and hate.
- Less
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Theater
, Thomas Waller, Murray Horwitz, Andrew Smithson, More
, Thomas Waller, Murray Horwitz, Andrew Smithson, AIN'T MISBEHAVIN', Less
