Porgy & Bess

I went to see this marvellous, vibrant production at the Savoy Theatre yesterday. It was a matinee performance and so it was full of coach parties, mainly women from the Home Counties.

This is a period piece. The Gershwins were trying to produce a twentieth century opera dealing with modern themes. George Gershwin always wanted to write classical music but this is really just a popular musical play. That isn't to devalue it though, 'Summertime', 'I got Plenty of Nothing', 'I Love You Porgy' 'It Ain't Necessarily So' are all time popular standards. This is the usual love story of tart with a heart who is reformed by the love of a good man, but led into temptation by the bad guys. In this production there isn't really anything operatic, it is good American Musical through and through. None of the cast are duds. The dancing is superb, and the audience were engaged from the start.

However, this is a production written by whites and performed by a black cast. I became a touch uneasy at times because the roles were so stereotyped, and I wonder how comfortable some of the cast were in portraying these parodies of black lives - the great dancers, the negro spirituals, the language of subjection. Would it be performed in America nowadays I wonder.