Seattle Public Theater's ‘Aviatrix' celebrates aviator Bessie Coleman
Theater review
Bessie Coleman worked miracles.
She had to. In the early 20th century, Coleman, also known as Queen Bess, fought her way through incredible odds to become the first Black woman and the first Native American to earn an international pilot's license.
In their world-premiere musical "Aviatrix," now running at Seattle Public Theater, Angela Poe Russell (book and lyrics) and Dionne McClain-Freeney (music and lyrics) set out to tell Coleman's story.
Directed by Amy Poisson, who also helped develop the work, "Aviatrix" has a lot going for it: a magnificent ensemble of voices, fabulous design from Parmida Ziaei (sets) and Carlisia Minnis (costumes), and a standout star in Haley Dortch as Bessie.
What it has most of all is Coleman's story. A smart, curious child of Texas sharecroppers, she became a manicurist in Chicago before earning the money and community support to travel to France for pilot training, a door that was closed to her in America. When she earned her license in 1921 (two years before Amelia Earhart), she became a star and a symbol and was a stunt flyer and an inspiration to future aviators until she was killed in a crash in 1926.
The context in which she achieved all this is literally incredible, as Black Americans fled the Jim Crow South for a conditionally welcoming North, as women fought for the right to vote, as communities like Tulsa, Okla., suffered horrific violence as retribution for Black achievement.
It's unfortunate to hear the story of such a pioneer told in such a pedestrian way: a this-then-that recounting of events that felt more like a book report than a rich portrait of a complex person.
Overall, the show leans a bit too heavily on cliché (imagery like birds and wings) and rising, major-key melodies cresting victoriously over and over again. But McClain-Freeney's joyful, wide-ranging score bops from comic bits to spoken word to jazz, gospel and traditional musical theater ballads.
Dortch's clarion, musical-theater voice navigated all of it with ease (though her splashy sibilants became distracting), and she wasn't alone. As Black entrepreneur Jesse Binga, Tommie Burton's voice soared on a song that served as a prayer. Other standouts included Crystal Hairston as Coleman's mother, Susan; Samara Jeffrey as Young Bessie; and Shana Emile as Josephine Baker, whom Coleman befriended in Paris.
Angela M. Thomas as Pearl, Coleman's friend and boss at the Chicago salon, had the audience in stitches, talking back to a radio announcer introducing Bessie. I love a show that has a sense of humor about itself, and some deeply goofy, self-aware moments - a tap dance number introducing Coleman's airshows, a Paris number full of berets - gave it some lift.
As written, Coleman pursues everything with such single-minded, upbeat certainty that flaws barely exist, and what conflicts do arise are introduced and resolved in record time. Bessie and her brother Walter (a charming Gerald Germajesty Price) butt heads and make up in one short song. Claude, the husband Coleman leaves behind to follow her dreams (Donovan Mahannah), was remarkably chill about it.
Even if all this is true to her story, it's not dramatically interesting. In this way, "Aviatrix" falls into the trap that's caught so many bioplays and biopics before: focusing too broadly on a lifetime rather than zooming in on a cohesive story.
Since you can't actually fly a plane onstage, those visceral chills must come from elsewhere, and that's not a nut this show has yet cracked. But it can! I'd love to see the next production of this musical, after it's had a chance to cull songs that retread the same emotional or narrative ground, flesh out relationships and trim clunky expository language. Because what's in between is captivating, and deserves its time in the spotlight.
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