Janis Joplin lives and breathes and sings out hit after hit after hit in her gravely gift of a voice as Mary Bridget Davies revives her Tony-nominated performance as the Queen Of Rock-&-Roll in A Night With Janis Joplin at La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts.

 Imagine a late-1960s retrospective concert with guest appearances by five of the women who influenced Janis’s rise to blues-singer stardom—Bessie, Odetta, Nina, Etta, and Aretha—and you’ve got what writer-director Randy Johnson and his vocal dead-ringer of a star took from the Pasadena Playhouse to Broadway and now on national tour to La Mirada.

 Not that Janis gets into anything too personal in the two-hour stroll down memory lane, so if you’re interested in knowing about her love life and/or drug use, you’ll have to look elsewhere. (A Night With Janis Joplin is after all authorized by her estate.)

We do learn that it was Broadway cast recordings and not the blues that accompanied Joplin clan during housework down in Port Arthur, Texas, everything from My Fair Lady to Hello, Dolly! to Porgy And Bess, the latter inspiring the first of several song sequences where one singer’s original performance leads to a Janis-style reprise, an operatic “Summertime,”  Odetta’s “Down On Me,” Aretha’s “Spirit In The Dark,” and Nina Simone’s “Little Boy Blue” all proving that no matter who originated it, you could leave it to Janis to make you feel you were hearing it for the first time.

 And if you’ve ever wondered just where exactly “The Blues” came from or what made it Janis’s musical genre of choice, A Night With Janis Joplin will answer that question, if not who precisely took “Another Piece Of” her (shhhh!) bisexual heart.

Above all, A Night With Janis Joplin is about music, music, and more music.

Aurianna Angelique (Odetta, Bessie Smith), Ashley Tamár Davis (Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone) and dance captain Tawney Dolley (Etta James) may not sound precisely like the legends they’re portraying, but they are all three sensational vocalists and backup singers.

 L.A. treasure Jennifer Leigh Warren’s “Blues Singer” has the advantage of not being asked to imitate, and she earns her own deserved mid-show standing ovation for a breathtakingly, gut-wrenchingly performed “Today I Sing The Blues.”

 Still, this is Janis’s show all the way, and though others have taken over for Davies on tour (including Paige McNamara, who plays Janis at certain La Mirada performances), it’s hard to imagine anyone topping her charismatically pitch-perfect performance as the ball of fire that was Janis Joplin.

Johnson directs with pizzazz and Patricia Wilcox choreographs with flair as musical director Brent Crayon leads a rocktastic onstage band* on scenic designer Brian Prather’s ‘60s-reminiscent set enhanced by Darrel Maloney’s psychedelic projections and Terry Hanrahan’s nostalgic props, with sound designer Josh Bessom turning the volume up (but not too far up in deference to La Mirada seniors’ sensitive ears).

The cast looks fabulous in Leah Loukas’s eclectic, era-spanning costumes, hair, and wigs.

 Best of all is Ryan O’Gara’s spectacular lighting design, its admittedly anachronistic use of rotating stage lights as dazzlingly inventive as any I’ve seen.

A Night With Janis Joplin is presented by La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts and McCoy Rigby Entertainment in association with T&D Productions, LLC.

Hethyr (Red) Verhoef is production stage manager and Tawny Dolley is assistant stage manager.

You don’t have to be a Janis Joplin fanatic (case in point this reviewer) to be captivated by Mary Bridget Davies in A Night With Janis Joplin. If opening-night audience response is any indication of things to come, expect to find yourself up on your feet and cheering more than once before the sing-along grand finale “Mercedes Benz.”

Janis up in rock-and-roll heaven might have plenty more secrets to tell, but something tells me she’s joining in on the La Mirada hurrahs.

*Michael Abraham, Crayon, Blake Estrada, Chase Fleming, Sean Fran, PJ Holaday, Alex Prezzano, Aaron Smith

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Boulevard, La Mirada.
www.lamiradatheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
September 15, 2018
Photos: Jason Niedle

Tags: Janis Joplin, La Mirada Theatre For The Performing Arts, Los Angeles Theater Review, McCoy Rigby Entertainment