Last of the Red Hot Mamas

Bucks County Playhouse, New Hope, PA, July 21, 2024

Reviewed by Chip Deffaa

The creators of Last of the Red Hot Mamas, a new musical about legendary entertainer Sophie Tucker (1886-1966) that is now having its world-premiere production at the Bucks County Playhouse, hope to eventually bring the show to Broadway. I, too, hope that this high-spirited but highly fictionalized biographical show will have a future life. Lord knows the remarkable Ms. Tucker is worthy of a big musical celebration. The current production has some terrific moments. Some of the elements needed for success are definitely there, and I like the authors’ desire to dig below the surface and show us a fuller, more inclusive picture of the show-biz world that Tucker emerged from than we usually see.

But this is, at present, a very uneven show, and it will need fixes in terms of content, structure, and historical accuracy to have the long-term success it deserves. This review may turn out to be the longest review I’ve ever written for a single show. Still, it’s unusual to come across a show that so freely mixes great moments with disappointing ones, a show that could and should be much stronger and more unified than it is.

There’s a lot of potential here. The score includes some enduringly popular songs from Tucker’s repertoire, such as “After You’ve Gone,” “There’ll be Some Changes Made,” and “Some of These Days” that still work their potent magic. I heard audience members saying happily, both at intermission and after the show, how much they enjoyed hearing those old favorites performed so well once again. The show includes some new numbers by Susan and Lloyd Ecker, who, along with Harrison David Rivers, also wrote the book., but their new songs aren’t nearly as good.

Despite its various flaws, I enjoyed this show more than most I’ve seen in recent years. The writing at its best is filled with life. Sometimes the writing sings and soars; sometimes, however, it simply falls flat, making me wince. I hope the creative team will do the needed work (and perhaps bring in outside help, if necessary) to make this show shine from beginning to end.

I also hope they will consider selecting a different title to avoid confusion with a similarly titled show about Sophie Tucker that already exists. In 2002, Sharon McNight starred at the Off-Broadway at the York Theatre in NYC in a show about Tucker that she conceived and wrote called Red Hot Mama. Both McNight and the show were excellent, and I gave the production a rave review. It remains one of the best shows I’ve ever seen at the York Theatre, which is saying plenty. From time to time, through the 22 years since Red Hot Mama opened in New York, McNight has starred in regional productions of it. Hopefully, she’ll continue to star in future productions of Red Hot Mama as well. It seems crazy to title this new show about Tucker Last of the Red Hot Mamas. That’s simply too close to the title of McNight’s superb show; both shows, incidentally, feature some of the same songs from Tucker’s own repertoire. To avoid confusion, the new show ought to have its own unique new title.

That said, there is much that I love about Last of the Red Hot Mamas. Ryann Redmond is sensational in portraying the brassy, sassy young Sophie Tucker. The show, I might note, covers only the first seven years of Tucker’s long career, from 1906 to 1913; it focuses on her emergence as an artist. Redmond is not yet well-known. I’ve seen her before in smaller roles in shows in New York, including If/Then and Bring It On. But this new show, if it is developed properly, could give her the kind of breakout opportunity she deserves. Her wonderfully big, booming, clarion voice is perfect for the material, and she has just the right look and personality, plus an innate likeability, that are needed for the role of Sophie Tucker. I enjoyed her immensely.

Redmond is a find, even if the people putting this show together don’t always seem to know how best to make use of her. A case in point: she’s electrifying singing the show’s first number, that ragtime-era favorite “Hello My Baby.” Her huge, ripe voice fills the house, and she has a great feel for this irresistible song. I was hooked from her first notes. (I sat up straight in my seat, riveted, thinking: “Boy! This is going to be a great show.”) But then, much, much too quickly, everyone onstage joined her in singing, and her outstanding voice wound up getting lost in a generic ensemble sound, and all too soon, the number was over. She had greater impact singing by herself rather than with the entire ensemble. It would have been wiser to let her sing solo in that first number to give her time to quickly wow and capture the audience and establish her dominance over it. Later on, the others could join in as backup singers, making sure that she remained prominent. The producers have got a star on that stage; they need to showcase her like one.

This production has two other very strong players, and I hope that they, too, will get to stay with the show’s future incarnations; they are Rheaume Crenshaw and Dewitt Fleming, Jr. I enjoyed their contributions tremendously as well. With its three terrifically appealing performers, this unusually well-cast show has a lot going for it.

Producers Alexander Fraser, Robyn Goodman, and Josh Fiedler have given us a handsome-looking production, with superb sets by Nate Bertone. Money has obviously been put into this production, and it has been spent wisely; the production sparkles. The sound design (by Jeff Sherwood) is as perfect as one could hope to find,; every word, whether spoken or sung, came through clearly and naturally. (I’ve seen too many shows, alas, that were marred by poor sound design.)

Director/choreographer Shea Sullivan has given us the most engaging tap-dancing sequences I’ve seen on stage in years. (I love tap-dancing; I’ve worked it in to virtually every show I’ve ever written or directed.) I delighted in the fresh, inventive way she seated tap dancers on board a train to tap out the sounds of the train picking up speed (during the “Bojangles’ Letter” number). I felt that I was getting my money’s worth just in that one well-staged scene. The dancing by Fleming is right on the money throughout the show. (Props to both the dancer and the choreographer!) He portrayed one of the greatest of all tap dancers, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and great care was taken to evoke Robinson’s style. We initially see Fleming dancing, keeping his upper body still and essentially moving only from the waist down, in the Irish-influenced way that Robinson noted he preferred during his early performing years. We also see Fleming doing the charming stair dance for which Robinson became internationally renowned and singing/dancing lightly to one of the songs that helped make Robinson famous, “Doin’ the New Low Down.” For sheer entertainment, I enjoyed Fleming’s moments on stage a lot. Curiously, much more care was taken to evoke Robinson’s specific style as an artist than was taken to evoke the styles of vaudeville star Nora Bayes (portrayed in this show by Stephanie Gibson) or of the long-popular comedy team of Willie and Eugene Howard (portrayed by Danny Rutigliano and Jonathan Hadley) or, for that matter, of Sophie Tucker.

Ideally, the show has to work well for both older audience members who may be fans of Sophie Tucker and for younger audience members who may know nothing at all about Tucker. It has to satisfy both types of audience members, providing entertainment and a bit of education about who Tucker was, what she contributed, and why she matters. The show, in its present form, succeds only partially.

I was bothered by the numerous factual inaccuracies. Every biographical show takes some artistic liberties; that’s understood and accepted. For dramatic purposes, it may be necessary to create composite characters, or to compress and simplify sequences of events. We readily accept such things if the story as a whole captures the essence of the artist whose life story is being told; we overlook minor inaccuracies if the overall show rings true. A period show works best if it’s anchored in historically accurate details. (The musical Ragtime, for example, is a work of fiction but contains so many precisely accurate historical details, it feels truthful throughout.) But Last of the Red Hot Mamas contains so many inaccuracies, big and small, that after a point it lost credibility for me.

I’ll name just a few examples off the top of my head; and I could name many more. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson is presented as an important mentor and influence, a good friend who helped enable Tucker to become a star. Robinson was a sublime artist. He eventually became, although this musical does not show it, the highest paid Black performer in show business. It is a joy to watch Fleming bring his classic routines to life. In real life, however, Robinson did not play any significant role in Tucker’s life. In the years covered by this show (1906-1913), he was often out on the road, touring in vaudeville as an up-and-coming performer trying to make a name for himself. (Part of that time, I might also add, he was in prison.) He was not hanging around New York City showing the ropes to Tucker, much less performing for her “Doin’ the New Low Down” (which Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh wrote for him in 1928). I’m not sure why the authors of this musical chose to have him as a major character, good friend, and prime influence in Tucker’s life. That was wholly inaccurate. It made about as much sense as it would for someone to write a musical about Taylor Swift and decide to write in Michael Jackson as a supposed best friend and major influence.

So many things in this show didn’t ring true. Some flaws could be fixed easily, others not so easily. Mollie Elkins, presented as another major influence on Tucker, refers to herself as having been in Williams & Walker’s show back in 1892. But Williams & Walker, important early Black stars, had not even met, much less begun putting together shows in 1892. For some inexplicable reason, legendary impresario B.F. Keith, who owned or controlled more important vaudeville theaters than anyone else when Tucker was coming up, was referred to throughout this show as “E. F. Keith.” The script, anachronistically, has vaudeville star Nora Bayes complaining in 1906 that others are now calling Eva Tanguay, not Bayes, “the It Girl.” But neither Bayes nor Tanguay (nor anyone else in 1906) was being called “the It Girl.” That term became popular only when Clara Bow starred in the film It in 1927. Bow was, as far as the public was concerned, the one and only “It Girl,” and the phrase remained associated with her for 50 years. In fact, the phrase conjures up the 1920s, not Nora Bayes and the ragtime era.

The show depicts Bayes, in 1913, wishing Eddie Cantor would hire her, and Bayes makes reference to Cantor’s five daughters. Here again, the authors are pulling us out of the period. Twenty-five years after 1913, audiences would associate Cantor with his then-famous five daughters. But in 1913, Cantor did not yet have any daughters; he was not yet even married; he was an “unknown,” struggling to get ahead in vaudeville, not anyone Bayes would have hoped would hire her. The show also has Bayes saying George M. Cohan was mad at her for publicly suggesting that Cohan “yanked his doodle dandy.” That was a cheap, tasteless, out-of-place gag line. Cohan thought the world of Bayes (after all, Cohan’s own mother had discovered her, back in 1902). He was proud to present her on Broadway and chose her to introduce one of his greatest songs, “Over There.”

Elkins is also presented as earning—as a maid in 1906—$50 a week. No maid in 1906 was earning anywhere near $50 (which would be the equivalent of over $1,700 in 2024 dollars); an average Black maid back then was earning about $3 a week. The show also has Tucker being fined $5,000 for singing a double-entendre song, but no one was being fined $5,000 (the equivalent of over $150,000 in 2024 dollars) for such an offense back then. There were indeed times when Tucker was arrested for performing double-entendre numbers (much cleverer and subtler than the blatant, obvious one in Last of the Red Hot Mamas). She looked upon it all as good publicity, not some great tragedy; if there was a fine to be paid, it was part of the cost of doing business, and you went on to the next gig.

The authors address the issue of blackface inaccurately as well. The script has Tucker, circa 1906, being “forced” by some theater manager to perform in blackface. It stressed that she felt guilty about this, as though she had punched Black friends in the gut, and she then worked hard to get out of having to perform in blackface. However, none of that rings true. The authors are inventing a Sophie Tucker who in 1906 had the enlightened attitudes of someone from 2024. We’re all a product of our times. In 1906, blackface was a commonplace part of show business, and no white performers were expressing guilt over using it. Nor were any performers, white or Black, yet raising objections to it. (Even in the mid-1930s, I might add, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was recommending to a movie producer that a white actress appear onscreen in blackface makeup with him.) If you’re going to write about the past, write honestly about the past.

The script repeatedly and inaccurately described Tucker as being forced to cover her face with black shoe polish. Shoe polish?!? No, she wore tan stage makeup, dressed beautifully, and sang songs written by Black songwriters (or by some white writers trying to work in a Black-created style); today that would be viewed as racist. But Tucker, performing the Black songs that she loved in the stage persona of a Black woman, did not think she was doing anything unusual. She was being advertised as a singer of Black songs and Black-influenced songs. (In the racist parlance of the day, she was billed as a “coon shouter.”) One early showbiz account, which I find credible, says she stopped using blackface simply because impresario Tony Pastor, who apparently felt she did not need it, told her to perform as herself without the makeup when he booked her into his theater.

Tucker drew upon both Black and Jewish musical traditions, which the show should have made clear. She also played an important role in bringing Black music into the mainstream. She properly credited the songwriters whose work she used. In one TV appearance late in life she stated: “As long as I live, I will bless Shelton Brooks,” the gifted Black songwriter who gave her such early hits as “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone,” “Darktown Strutters Ball,” and her beloved signature song for more than 50 years, “Some of These Days.”

Bizarrely and improperly, neither Shelton Brooks nor any of the other songwriters who helped make her famous are mentioned in the show or in the show’s program. The program credits Susan Ecker, Harrison David Rivers, and Lloyd Ecker with writing the show’s book. It credits Susan and Lloyd Ecker with writing “additional music and lyrics.” But it failed to credit any of the songwriters whose work provided the heart and soul of this musical. It used songs by some of the best writers of the era, including, in addition to Brooks, Joe Howard, Turner Layton & Henry Creamer, Nora Bayes & Jack Norwood, and Fields & McHugh. You can’t simply appropriate the work of such masters without crediting them. That’s not ethical. I hope the Playhouse will prepare an insert for the Playbill and identify the writers of all 28 musical numbers in the show. It’s only fair to give credit where its due, as Tucker herself did.