'La Joie de Vivre': A disorganized look at the 'Paris Noir' period

La Joie de Vivre

, Cheyney University's entry in the sprawling Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, has a unique take on the event's thematic Francophilia.

Cheyney theater professor Jann Ellis-Scruggs created the piece (billed in the program as "an educational music-theatre work") to highlight "Paris Noir," the period between world wars that drew African American artists and intellectuals to the City of Light, where they found unsegregated audiences and acceptance.

As the nation's oldest historically black college, Cheyney is in a privileged position to round out the fest with a well-researched, illuminating look at this Franco-American creative alliance. Quelle dommage (too bad), then, that Scruggs patches together a confusing mishmash of characters (fictional and nonfictional), skits and songs, projections of historic still photos, and a brief videotaped interview with a historian about jazz musician Louis Mitchell. Finally, there is a third act that ostensibly takes place entirely at Le Grand Duc, a nightclub belonging to Eugene Bullard (a very real and fascinating impresario who won France's Croix de Guerre for his heroism as a World War I fighter pilot), its stage populated by performers who may or may not actually play their instruments, and who may or may not have actually appeared at Bullard's storied boite.

It is also odd that a scene featuring a former prostitute-cum-chanteuse who calls herself "Madame Angelique" - the program doesn't attribute any of the roles to any of its performers - should end with "La Vie en Rose," a signature song of Edith Piaf, and not, say, the oft-mentioned Josephine Baker (who, by the way, was also awarded the Croix de Guerre, though the show never mentions this).

By the time Wade Fulton Dean appears as saxophonist Sidney Bechet, playing an unnamed composition (Is it Dean's? Is it Bechet's?), it's clear the only real goal here is to toss out some facts, give a few kids the chance to appear onstage, and let Scruggs and her pals show off a little.

Luckily, her pals include Dean and the dynamic Osayande Baruti, who, as "Daddy B," lets loose a sly, tight "Hoochie Coochie Man" (first released as a single in 1954; an anachronism, but at this point, who's counting?), diverting attention from the disorganized spectacle behind him. The other good news? The show is roughly an hour long, and free. It's too bad Cheyney didn't just load Baruti with an armful of tunes relevant to the place and period, work up some decent program notes, and let him take the stage. That's a performance I would pay for.

(An African-American Artistic Diaspora - Paris 1910-1920) Performing at 5:30 p.m. April 19 and 20 at Cheyney University, Dudley Theatre, 1837 University Circle, Cheyney, Pa. Free. Information: www.PIFA.org.

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