Crossroads Theatre offers this improv session with two guitarists and one special guest.
By: Stuart Duncan
Passing the Blues Along, now at Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, really isn’t theater. It’s more like an improv session, with two guitar-playing musicians leisurely strumming through some of their favorites and adding dialogue that roams far afield and needs cutting.
The evening has the feel of being a pick-up replacement act and that’s, in truth, what it is, replacing the scheduled Walking With Ijapa.
It was written by "Mississippi" Charles Bevel and Chic Street Man, the two performers, both of whom are real charmers but seem to have very different styles of playing and talking. That makes for an evening that clashes rather than complements. By the second act, the pair introduces Jannie Mae Streetman, 78, who made her first mark at 15 years of age as a singer with Fats Waller.
Once she arrives, the rambling tales stop and we get down to some serious singing (she still has a terrific voice) and the second act zips along. Whereas the first act has plenty of hesitation: "What’ll we do next?" "Well, how about such and such." "Yeah, I guess that’ll work (pause). Sure, let’s try it," the second act puts it simply: "Do you know such and such?" "Sure." "Well, then sing it."
The audience is asked inevitably to sing along and we do: "Making love it isn’t magic. If you don’t know what to do, it can be tragic." But, along the way, we get no feeling for the blues, either history or purpose. In fact the closest we come is a note in the program by Bevel himself: "The blues does not mean black music. It means having the courage or audacity to speak what is in your heart without consulting your head."
Passing the Blues Along has neither courage nor audacity.
Passing the Blues Along continues at Crossroads Theatre, 7 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, through Feb. 15. Performances: Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 3, 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets cost $35. For information, call (732) 545-8100.<</i>br>