Satchmo premieres at Shakespeare & Co.

LENOX – When playing an internationally-recognized figure, the line between caricature and fully embodying the character can be fairly thin.

In Satchmo at the Waldorf, award-winning actor John Douglas Thompson toes that line and gives the audience a full embodiment of Louis Armstrong.

“John has the legs to get us through Labor Day,” said Shakespeare and Company Artistic Director Tony Simotes.

In the one-man show, which had its New England debut at Shakespeare and Co. last week, Mr. Thompson brilliantly portrays Mr. Armstrong and two of his counterparts, manager Joe Glaser and fellow/rival musician Miles Davis.

The play features Mr. Armstrong backstage at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in March 1971 after what would be his last performance, recalling his life and relationships.

“Satchmo at the Waldorf is a work of fiction, but is based on and informed by the facts of the lives of Armstrong and Glaser, and though I made up most of the dialogue, it closely resembles the way they talked in private,” said playwright Terry Teachout.

A first for everyone

The play marks a number of firsts for its three principal participants. Satchmo at the Waldorf marks renowned drama critic Terry Teachout’s first foray into playwriting, director Gordon Edelstein’s first production at Shakespeare and Co. and Mr. Thompson’s first one-man show.

“Doing a play on your own is a very lonely experience,” Mr. Thompson said, adding Mr. Edelstein’s direction helped him cope with how to deal with that unexpected loneliness.

All three men spoke at the reception after the Aug. 24 performance, thanking those who have supported them in this endeavor.

Mr. Teachout in particular thanked Elizabeth Aspinleder, an actress and head of publicity at Shakespeare and Co. Ms. Aspinleder attended an early reading of Satchmo in New York and immediately requested a copy of the script from him.

Mr. Teachout, who also wrote the best-selling book Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, based his play heavily on recordings Mr. Armstrong made of his private life.

“Between 1947 and his death in 1971, Armstrong taped hundreds of after-hours conversations with his wife, friends and colleagues in which he revealed a very different side of his personality,” he said.

“Some of these tapes are startlingly intimate, and many of them contain very strong language that Armstrong never used on stage.”

The play runs through Sept. 16 at Shakespeare and Co.’s Tina Packer Playhouse. Tickets can be purchased at the box office, by calling (413) 637-3353 or online at shakespeare.org.

Posted by Catherine M. Krummey on August 30, 2012. Filed under Arts and Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry