Sport

Even though the humidity yesterday was as thick as a putrid boil that needed to be lanced, it was hard to stay inside with the light and shadow cloud show in the sky and the 30 mile wind gusts enveloping the Philadelphia International Cycling Championship.

Nothing can stop these cyclitaurs, half-human, half efficient, pollutionless, perfectly engineered machines. Actually along with the hot breezes, lap bells clanged, as cyclists took over the city that loops around the Parkway, careens around Logan Circle, up and down the drives capped with the notorious hill of death in Manayunk.

The elite racers bring out the esprit of scads city cyclists, their recreational commuters who were reveling in the closed off streets to ride their bikes without the usual sideglance at nearly being mowed down by suburbinites.

buddies everywhere

‘Fit to bust’ by Jan Carroll

MetroScape

Last night like a midsummer dream, so sultry all of the sudden and just as suddenly a breeze over a quiet crowd taking in the art show tents in Rittenhouse, also smart languishing in the cafe- the scene was otherwise chilled out. I was off to the Academy of Music for PABal’s performance of John Cranko’s Romeo & Juliet. In the pit Beatric Jona Affron appointing all dimensions of the great Prokofiev score projecting it so well (not easy in the Academy), The woodwinds were no less than triumphant and the brass was so horny (even with a wayward one or two.

There are a lot of slow deaths in R & J-Tybalt, Paris, and of course the love drunk couple, but Jonathan Stiles has the most convincing onstage death scene as Mercutio, the blood just drained from his face and his eyes.

Stab wounds aside, yes everything is beautiful at the ballet and for a moment going home there was nothing in the air but the echo of those Shakespearean oboes.

the buds have it

‘Me too’ by Jan Carroll

Botanicals

‘Bustin out’ by Jan Carroll

Stage

Fine cast, fine play

At the Philadelphia Theatre Co August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom reminds you of O’Neill in its psychological truths and Lorraine Hansberry in its theatrical courage. Less a play about the legendary blues pioneer Ma Rainey and more about the legacies of racism and its effects.

It is 1925 in a Chicago recording studio where blue legend Ma Rainey is taking a break from her successful tour to her legions of black fans in the south to churn out records for her white owned exploitive manager and record company. Sitting in for the track of ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ is Levee, a young, talented jazz trumpeter and three other veteran musicians.

The modest rehearsal room for the musicians turns into an arena of competition and camaraderie. Levee, a reluctant sideman trying to break out of what he call ’jug’ band music by writing hot jazz arrangements, won’t fall in line with the veterans who just want to play the gig and get paid.

Wilson’s dialogue cycles are full of period jargon and stories of the lives of these men coping in a racist America, we get to know them intimately. Pitch perfect performances from Earnest Perry, Jr. as the brassy bassist Slow Drag, who tries to smooth rivalries over and Ro Boddie, Rainey’s nephew who ‘Ma springs on the band to do the spoken intro to her song. But it is Thomas Jefferson Bryd’s touching, salty Toledo, who can’t help philosophizing and Maurice McRae’s volcanic Levee who go the bitter heart of Wilson’s drama.

Levee full of brio as a defense from the raw courage he endured as he exposes the violent truths of his life that have brought him to the breaking point of success or failure. Wilson writes it as high-wire dramatic part and McRae delivers a passionate, gutsy performance.

In contrast, Ma Rainey is played with blistering flair by E Faye Butler. The character is almost comic relief, with Butler as the consummate blues diva, who knows the score and is going to reign, so get out of her way.