Paradise Blue at Studio Theatre

Paradise Blue at the Studio Theatre

The synopsis received from Studio Theatre about their current show, Paradise Blue is as follows. “The show takes place in Detroit, 1949. It is at a club called Paradise, a jazz club that’s seen better days. Blue, the club’s trumpet-playing owner, is ready to leave this town and his family demons behind. But his house band and his best girl have dreams of their own, so when hardboiled widow Silver enters the picture looking for some business—and some pleasure—love, lust, and legacy collide in the fight for Paradise. We've transformed the Victor Shargai Theatre into a jazz club for Dominique Morisseau’s (Pipeline, Skeleton Crew) music-filled drama about resilience, self-preservation, and community.”

Sounds great and I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the creative idea of turning the Shargai theatre into a jazz club, is a huge failure. It is a large space with a very high ceiling, which makes the acoustics for this idea really bad. There are small cabaret tables set up in the theater, with generally uncomfortable chairs around them. I was seated in Zone B Table 1. It was a table for two along the West wall. Most of the dialogue in the first few scenes seemed totally garbled, as the actress speaking them was walking around the tables in the center section, leaning over, so I couldn’t see where she was, while she spoke her lines. Add to that, there was a bassist playing near our seats, and that music was in our ears the whole time. There didn’t seem to be any reason for it. 

There are three stages in the set. The actors also often sit at tables in the midst of the audience when they are speaking, making it impossible to see them from many parts of the audience.  One stage is the bar, where you can get an actual drink before the play begins. There are bar stools in front which I think were occupied by actual patrons during the show. The actors would walk in front of, and behind, the bar, so again you miss a lot of what they are saying, and from my seat you didn’t always see them. Then there is a stage with a piano in one corner, and another with a big red curtain where we were sitting. When that stage is used, it was set as the bedroom above the bar. We could only see part of it from our seats so some of the scenes there were hidden behind the curtain that didn’t quite open far enough. 

All in all, and I hate so saying it, this was a really disappointing afternoon at the theater. I think if I had a chance to hear and see the entire play on one stage, with that set-up as a café, I could have really enjoyed it. When I did hear the actors in a particular scene, even if only part of one, they seemed to be really talented. But I am not going to write about them as I don’t think I heard or saw enough of them to make a judgement. To be fair, I think they were unfairly placed in this situation by the set designer and the director. 

I chatted with a few people who were sitting around me, and some others in the theater. Many of them seemed to share my thoughts.  There were some who thought the way the production was done was to their liking, but they were the ones sitting in the center of the theater where most of the action took place. The only agreement most everyone I spoke to had, was with the acoustics when you couldn’t see an actor when they were speaking, and the bassist was playing, which only made it harder to understand them. 

Hey, as I always say, people view things differently. So, if you want to make up your own mind about Paradise Blue, it will be at the Studio Theatre through June 8, 2025. Tickets are available online.  Just make sure you don’t sit in Zone B Table 1, or the tables against the wall near it.