Ruben Santiago-Hudson was the Tony Award winner for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in 1996’s Seven Guitars by August Wilson. Five years later he opened his own show, Lackawanna Blues, at New York’s Public Theatre. The show earned him a Special Citation Obie Award. It’s a show Santiago-Hudson stars in and wrote. 18 years have passed since he first did the show and he is revisiting the work at the Mark Taper Forum through April 21st.
For this iteration of Lackawanna Blues, Santiago-Hudson adds director to his credits. The show allows the actor to play 20 different characters over the course of 80 minutes. Lackawanna Blues tells the story of his growing up in a boarding house in the mid-50s and it pays tribute to “Miss Rachel,” the woman who raised him (this wasn’t his mother.)
The blues play a big part of the show. Musician/composer Bill Sims, Jr. wrote and played the music for the original production. Sims earned an Obie Award for his music. Sims passed away in February at the age of 69. For the Taper, Chris Thomas King will be playing the music.
Bruce Weber, when reviewing the show for the New York Times in 2001, said, “…is an unashamed work of thanks, and it is so humble and warm that the honesty of its spirit is never in question.” He also raved about Santiago-Hudson’s performance saying, “…Mr. Santiago-Hudson does a virtuoso turn as a performer. Delivering anecdotes and testimonials from Miss Rachel’s boarders and friends, the population of a child’s world, he passes from one identity to the next so fluidly that you barely notice the flip of the switch.”
It remains to be seen if Santiago-Hudson has revised the play. And the absence of Bill Sims, Jr. leaves big shoes to fill. In a statement after Sims’s death, the actor said, “I once said to him, I don’t know if I could do Lackawanna Blues if you aren’t there.
And in his classic Bill Sims Jr. cool he responded, I’ll be there. You might not see me, but I’ll be there.
Photo by Craig Schwartz/Courtesy of Center Theatre Group
