The History Theatre and Theater Mu take on a fascinating slice of history with a new musical about a jazz vocal quartet featuring a family of biracial siblings. Alice, Maggie, Jenée, and Bubbles (Patricia) Loo had a Polish-American mother and a Chinese-American father. They grew up in Minneapolis, and were quite successful as a vaudeville act, eventually making it to Broadway as part of a revue called “The Scandals” in 1939, and were in a number of Hollywood movies.
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With a book and lyrics by Jessica Huang and music by Jacinth Greywoode, the production, directed by Lily Tung Crystal, follows the sisters from right before they make their big break, through World War II, and eventually as they each decide to retire at the end of the story. Huang does a nice job unpacking the intricacies of the different relationships between the sisters, who each have a different attitude toward their priorities and career.
Bubbles, played with spunk and lovely singing by Audrey Mojica, is the diva of the group, and is understandably put out by her friend and rival Ann Miller (Audrey Parker) a performer of vague ethnicity (she says she’s Cherokee) who ends up usurping Bubbles’ spot as the lead singer in their breakout act. Jenée, played by Kelsey Angel Baehrens, meanwhile, seems to be the artist of the group, and leaves when her choreography gets disassembled to make it more palatable to a white audience. She ends up leaving the group to marry the son of a Chinese General, and moving to China. The other two sisters— Sophie and Maggie (played by Suzie Juul and Morgan Kempton), seem mostly interested in flirting with musicians and later soldiers.
Huang uses a light touch with the racism the sisters face. It’s definitely there— like when their Broadway act gets altered to include stereotypical elements, and also when they face racism as Chinese Americans, at one point getting kicked off a train. For the most part, though, Huang sticks to the inter-family dynamics between the young women as well as their mother (Ann Michels) and other family members (Ariel Estrada plays both their father and Jenée’s father in law.)
Quite a bit of the music is show numbers of the Loo singers performing, and that’s really the most enjoyable part of the show. Huang and Greywoode also use music to propel the storyline, with Greywoode infusing elements of Chinese and Polish music traditions into the score. At times, I felt these narrative-driven songs were the hardest for the production to pull off. Maybe there were just too many of them, when a bit of dialogue would have done the trick more efficiently than a song.
I did just enjoy learning about these talented women, and it made me want to read Leslie Li’s book, “Just Us Girls,” as well as the documentary she made about the family.
Sheila Regan
Sheila Regan is a Twin Cities-based arts journalist. She writes MinnPost’s twice-weekly Artscape column. She can be reached at [email protected].