Review: Emotionally immersive ‘Last Night at Mikell’s’ at Robey Theatre Company
- Anita W. Harris
- 13 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Having its West Coast premiere at the Robey Theatre Company, “Last Night at Mikell’s” — written by Larry Muhammad and directed by the Robey’s co-founder and artistic director Ben Guillory — is an emotionally immersive production highlighting Black artists near the close of the last century.
An ensemble of four fine actors — Julio Hanson as activist writer James Baldwin, Nick Gillie as jazz musician Miles Davis, Raquel Rosser as poet Maya Angelou and James T. Lawson II as James’s brother David Baldwin — bring to visceral life an imagined final night at New York City’s jazz club Mikell’s, which closed its doors in 1991.
Nearly equal in brilliance to the acting and directing is set design by Grant Gerrard, with lighting by Benedict Conran and projections by Vanessa Fernandez, recreating the smoky atmosphere of Mikell’s and maximizing the potential of the Robey Theatre’s intimate stage.
The audience is immediately immersed in the scene, practically sitting in Mikell’s bar with its wooden tables and chairs, the air infused with water-based haze. In the darkened space, black-and-white projections of major Black musicians, writers and other artists populate the walls while the smooth voice of singer Cydney Wayne Davis croons, creating a languorous mood and adding further dimension to the venue.
On one side of the stage, James Baldwin emerges under a streetlamp against a projected city at night, wearing a topcoat (costumes by Naila Aladdin Sanders) and smoking a (water-based) cigarette. Hanson thoroughly embodies his character both in appearance and cadence, speaking to us in a sharply refined, somewhat haughty but humorous and occasionally biting way, while waiting for his friend Maya Angelou to go to Mikell’s.
Though resembling her character less than Hanson does his, Rosser infuses her Angelou with rich warmth, fierce passion, verbal force and physical grace. Her delivery of Angelou’s “And Still I Rise” is a work of art by itself and will bring a tear to your eye if you haven’t already been crying.
For Angelou’s fears about Baldwin’s art taking a toll on his life are so intense that she forbids him to write — his very art — which escalates to emotionally epic proportions when he decides to sit down then and there in Mikell’s basement to type an essay about the bar’s final night. We see him drink and smoke though he’s not supposed to, coughing and occasionally slumping over in clear signs of ill health.
Adding humor and roguery to the mix is Miles Davis, brought to life both in raspy voice and trumpeting genius by Gillie (trumpet performed by Nolan Shaheed). Seeing Angelou fend off the musician’s sly advances is fun, as is a scene between him and James Baldwin in the men’s room, ending with James incredulously asking Miles if he washed his hands.
Grounding the group with a soulful, down-to-earth demeanor, Lawson as David Baldwin serves up drinks and starts packing up the bar to close. He observes and listens to the others but also supports his brother James by fielding a call from the New York Times to publish James’s essay on Mikell’s, steadfastly countering Angelou’s zealously angry objections.
In this way, the play makes us feel the value (and cost) of creating art and the need for safe and supportive spaces for artists to gather and celebrate. But it’s also a story of mortality — not just of James Baldwin placing his craft over his life, and not only of Mikell’s as an institution, but of generations of Black musicians, writers and other artists who could share their voices and visions with each other over decades in such a space of respite and communion.
Though “Last Night at Mikell’s” is inevitably somewhat didactic in portraying these real iconic lives who imaginatively come together one night, the actors’ vibrant and emotional deliveries of their characters — along with the moody, languid staging — make it mesmerizing, such that we don’t want to leave Mikell’s any more than they do when it closes.
“Last Night at Mikell’s” continues through May 11 at the Robey Theatre Company in the Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, with performances Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. For tickets and information, call the Robey at 213-489-7402 or visit TheRobeyTheatreCompany.org. Run time is 1 hour and 30 minutes with no intermission.