photo by Tim Fuller

This elegantly balanced, but always entertaining, quintet of splendid singer/dancers recreate the brilliance of Harlem's fabled Renaissance.

“Ain't Misbehavin', the Fats Waller Musical Show,” is one of the finest productions Arizona Theatre Company has ever presented. Ever.

Blessed with a quintet of performers packing Broadway experience, this show fills the ATC stage with diamond-sharp precision and supremely balanced poise. There is no plot, no dialogue, only music and dance – 30 fully produced songs filled with volumes of body language that would be understood in any language.

Though this music is nearly 100 years old, the rotund Waller (said to weigh almost 300 pounds) performed each one with such timeless brio his whole play list becomes irresistible.

Back then Waller's percussive stride piano style and ebullient singing were instantly popular and have remained so, even though he died in 1943, just 39, on the train to his next gig in Kansas City. During the decades that followed Waller has remained widely recognized as a key player in the Harlem arts renaissance of the 1930s.

This enduring presence was first celebrated by Richard Maltby Jr. and Murray Horwitz who stirred together the “Ain't Misbehavin'” revue, which opened on Broadway in 1978. Credit the current director/choreographer of this revival, Dell Howlett, with putting some meat on those bones.

His performers – all equally excellent singer/dancers – are Taylor Colleton, Wilkie Ferguson III, Keirsten Hodgens, Anthony Murphy and Aerie Williams. Their tightly woven work is a complete ensemble effort.

Adding to the implied humor of that title song comes the accompanying “Tain't Nobody's Business (If I Do)” and the more philosophical “Keepin' Out of Mischief Now.”

Purely romantic in its sentimental appeal are “Two Sleepy People” and maybe “Your Feets Too Big.” But also dedicated to a fantasy fiesta is the super exaggerated “The Viper's Drag,” when one roll-your-own enthusiast figures if a giant smoke is really good, then a way humongous one is even way better.

At the performance I attended, this number seemed to be the audience favorite.

But the real kicker comes at the end, after presenting a most endearing two-hour showcase of Waller's music, as the five singers combine forces to remind us how racism was so rampant in the 1930s, when Waller first performed “(What Did I Do To Be So) Black and Blue” with the lyric “I'm white inside, it don't help my case, 'cause I can't hide, what is on my face.”

“Ain't Misbehavin'” continues through Feb. 14 with performances Tuesdays through Sundays in the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. For details and reservations, visit atc.org or phone 833-ATC-SEAT (833-282-7328).

As a theatrical performance, the conversations between turbulent Marjorie and mechanical Walter are brilliantly performed. Playwright Jordan Harrison has constructed “Marjorie Prime” so cleverly, and director Christopher Johnson puts so much attention to the most subtle details, we come away believing reality can indeed exist in many shades of imagination.

Completing the cast are Carley Elizabeth Preston and Matt Walley as Marjorie's tense daughter Tess and her goodhearted husband Jon. Tess is equally as mercurial as her mom in abrupt mood shifts. Slipping into middle age Tess faces her own dystopia that she never had a warm relationship with her mother.

Every conversation between the two always ends in a bickering, sputtering argument. For both women, family life exists more in their head than in their hearts. In one series of short bursts, Preston brilliantly leaps from crisis conclusion to crisis combustion.

So we in the audience are left to ponder, does it really matter what happened in the past? Or does what we remember become more important than what actually happened?

ing in various combinations deliver one intense rendition after another filled with their personal hopes for some relief, offering 27 blues flavored pieces straight from the 1930s gut of Depression Era struggles in gritty cities, nearly 100 years ago.

Award winning Sheldon Epps first conceived of this revue in 1980, opening a successful Broadway run in 1982, followed by an equally popular London production in 1987.

Epps found ways to blend the music of such established composers as Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer with the popular blues success of marque names like Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, Bessie Smith and others.

From the evergreen favorites “Lush Life” and “Stompin' at the Savoy” to the sly double entendre of “Take Me For A Buggy Ride” to the equally defiant “Wild Women Don't Have the Blues,” no heart left wanting goes unexamined.

Think of this indigo journey as a musical confessional so convincing in its search for sweet release, the capacity audience on opening night at the downtown Temple of Music and Art jumped to its feet in a standing ovation of the joyful discovery to learn what is meant by making it hurt so good.

This remarkable metaphor of a religious experience is carried out in the soaring stage design of Edward E. Haynes Jr. A towering church-like arc is filled with patterned columns that could also represent endless towers of faceless apartment buildings in a shadowy urban setting.

Included in the stage design are setups representing four generic apartments flaunting their ordinariness in cold concern for these star-crossed performers.

Each is given a descriptive title rather than a name. They are: The Lady from the Road (Roz White), The Woman of the World (April Nixon), The Girl with a Date (Camryn Hamm) and The Man in the Saloon (Darryl Reuben Hall). As the titles imply, each of these women represents all women at different stages in their lives.

The man, presumably, stands for all men who end up by themselves in a bar.

There is no dialogue or plot per se but each song is self-contained, telling its own story, adding another chapter to the challenging life of being female.

“Blues in the Night” runs through Feb. 15, with performances at various times Tuesdays through Sundays in the downtown Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. Run time is approximately two hours, including intermission.

Tickets are $33-$113. For additional details and reservations, 833-ATC-SEAT (282-7328) or online, atc.org

Gaslight photo 

Another eager audience settles into the pine paneled theater to start their new  year with comic western history and free popcorn.

This Gaslight Theatre classic has returned in a new production that flaunts its soaring wiles across a curtained stage of high notes and evil intentions.