In Ella, a musical biography that turns into a concert in the second act, Tina Fabrique re-creates the peculiar mix of astonishing giftedness and personal diffidence that characterized this vocal legend. Conceived by Rob Ruggiero, the production’s director, and Dyke Garrison, the show opened Saturday at the Laguna Playhouse, and it’s easy to see why the work has become popular on the regional theater circuit.
An entertaining stroll through the American songbook, Ella doesn’t let its tame script by Jeffrey Hatcher get any bulkier than a sketch. The setup is a 1966 concert in Nice, France, in which Ella is asked by her indispensable manager, Norman Granz (Harold Dixon), the man who founded Verve Records, to offer a little more patter than usual to reassure her fans that despite her grief from recent losses, “Miss Ella” is ready to let it rip.
Her large frame habitually concealed in matronly dresses, Ella isn’t accustomed to sprinkling revelatory tidbits in her act. (Even her meek bouffant seems to be apologizing for its very existence). Nor is she interested in projecting herself tragically into the music the way Billie Holiday did. “All I do is sing the songs,” Ella timidly explains.
But this theatrical liability of shyness had an upside. With her pristine tone and unfussy delivery, she managed to turn blushing self-effacement into a sterling aesthetic.
With a four-piece band onstage to back her up, Fabrique leads us on a retrospective (and admittedly perfunctory) tour of Fitzgerald's career, starting with her hardscrabble beginnings, which took a dramatic turn when she won first prize at the Apollo Theater’s amateur night. From there, it’s a series of telegraphic updates on the bumpy road to fame, most of them having to do with unhappy romantic and familial relationships and the challenge of being a shrinking violet, a discriminated-against black woman and an international recording star.
