Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill (Belvoir) ★★★★1/2

Written by Lanie Robertson. Belvoir St. Theatre 14 Sep – 15 Oct, 2023.

Zahra Newman steps into the role that won Audra McDonald her 6th Tony Award and an Emmy nomination. These are big shoes to fill, and she is more than up to the task.

We open at Emerson’s Bar & Grill in Philadelphia in 1959. Billie Holiday (Newman) is scheduled to appear in what will be one of her final performances. This isn’t a performer at the peak of her popularity, but a woman fighting with her ghosts, her legacy and the world around her. Weaving Holiday’s songs with stories from her past, the show paints a picture of a complex woman crumbling under the weight of her life.

Pro tip: Get the cabaret seating if you can. Don’t worry, this isn’t an ‘interactive’ show, but it is all about nuance and the closer you are, the more you’ll be immersed in the tale. 

I was lucky enough to see McDonald perform the role in London, and she was dynamite. Newman is an equal match. There is a rage behind the voice (which Newman mimics well) and it seeps out over the course of the evening. This is Holiday at a time when she was struggling to keep the facade up. A life littered with rape, racism, prison and drugs, she is in danger of falling apart at any minute. 

This is how you do a “jukebox musical”. There is no awkward weaving of songs into a forced narrative. Here the tunes are bookmarks to moments, crystallising the emotions into poetry. But this is more of a play, with songs, than a traditional musical. The theatrical conceit of a live gig makes each stumble more immediate, you know things aren’t going to fade to black when something bad happens. 

Ailsa Paterson’s tiered stage elevates and reflects Holiday back to us, letting Newman rise above on a pedestal and step down into the crowd. Govin Reuben’s lighting makes things look luscious and subtly focuses us on the right moments. The band (Kym Powers, Victor Rounds and Calvin Welch) bring the heat.

But this is Newman’s showcase and she doesn’t waste a moment. She is a master of playing stoic women on the verge of breaking and here she gets to crumble and decay before our eyes. It’s a lesson in pace and determination. If her recent roles in A Raisin in the Sun and Fences form the start of a trilogy of African-American women standing strong, Lady Day is the third act finale – and it is a bitter one.

Beautifully concise (90 minute shows are a godsend), and both deeply emotional and entertaining, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill is a jewel of a show, and a fitting crown for Zahra Newman, one of our best stage performers.