It was an event. It was a happening. It was a musical. It was a biography. Most of all it was a rock concert. The house lights dimmed, the stage brightened, and we time-traveled just over 30 years to the days of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll -- Janis Joplin style. Love, Janis is pure power.
Janis Joplin was on that stage of the Lyceum. Every utterance, every note, every look, every movement was Janis. Her enormous energy dominated the evening, an evening whose singing Janis was Beth Hart, a role also shared by Kacee Clanton-Iniquez. (The demands of the singing role require the two to alternate performances.) Both are backed up by a group of excellent musicians under the direction of Sam Andrew, co founder of Big Brother and the Holding Company, the band that gave Janis her start. The Lyceum rocked, the audience rocked, and the energy level on and off the stage was off the charts.
Hart's energy and power are exhausting. From the Janis-penned "What Good Can Drinking Do?" in Act One to her own "Mercedes Benz?" and interpretation of Kris Kristofferson's "Me and Bobby McGee" in Act Two, Hart's delivery was Janis at her very best.
Love, Janis is inspired by Laura Joplin's (Janis' sister) book of the same name, with Randal Myler's adaptation and direction quite interesting. Amelia Campbell is the non-performing Janis. Myler often has both Janises in dialogue scenes being interviewed by an unseen reporter (Wayne Tibbetts). At times the twin Januses even talk to each other, revealing inner thoughts, demons and dreams. The staging effectively melds the two Janises, giving a strange, but believable, reality to the production.
Biographical material is carried by Campbell and the many projections designed by Bo G. Ericksson. These give the audience locale as Campbell sets Janis' progression into and through the music scene in San Francisco. Campbell captures Janis through her many emotional phases, ranging from sympathetic and vulnerable to powerful, strong-willed, free spirited, and totally iconoclastic. And, sadly, Campbell touches us with the drugs that destroyed Janis after only five years on the music scene.
Trevor Norton's production design combined the central stage with downstage areas for the principal dramatic action. The backdrop of the set was covered with graphics, as well as being used as a projection screen in many scenes. Lighting and sound design were pure show rock and roll show, filled with the effects available in the period. The non-show lighting also worked well. Robert Blackman's costumes seemed to come right out of Janis' closet (the only detail lacking was her many chains of beads).
Love, Janis is a rock concert with bridges to help us understand this dynamic performer. They sell earplugs in the lobby, and you'll need them, either for Hart's or Clanton-Iniquez's replication of Janis' screaming style, or most assuredly for an appreciative audience's jet-engine roar of approval. The interaction between performers and audience is absolutely electric.
