'Big Maybelle' Is An Absolute Hit

I’m just going to come right out and say it.

Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor is currently staging the best show I have ever seen there. “Big Maybelle: Soul of the Blues” is a powerhouse and it boasts the single best performance of the year. Lillias White, the star of the show, blew me away!

I don’t want to take anything away from the other plays mounted at Bay Street this season. “My Brilliant Divorce” was good and “Men’s Lives” was superlative. Nor am I aiming to discount any of the wonderful theater we have here on the East End, as there are dozens of immensely watchable and entertaining plays and musicals staged here every year. But this show is the best of the best, a true knockout.

It’s as if Ms. White, a Tony Award-winning actress who gives one of the most powerful performances I have ever seen, was born to play the role of Big Maybelle. What makes the show even more compelling, aside from Ms. White’s peerless performance, is that it’s based on the tragic true story of real-life blues singer Maybelle Louise Smith.

Led down the squalid, not so garden-like path by her conniving paramour, Sully, Big Maybelle met with a bitter end. Struggling with food and heroin addictions, the singer of hits such as “96 Tears,” her final chart appearance, in 1967, sung originally a year earlier by ? & the Mysterians; “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” recorded two years before Jerry Lee Lewis made it a hit in 1957; and “Candy,”—which was definitely not the sweet song about a sweet boy as sung by Dinah Shore in 1945—died in 1972 at the age of 47 after slipping into a diabetic coma.

At Bay Street, it seems that every interesting aspect of Maybelle’s life is detailed on stage in the span of two or so hours, which zip by in the seeming span of a fraction of the time. More than 30 pitch-perfect musical numbers accompany the action, keeping the audience (including Barry Manilow who sat right in front of me on Friday night) clapping their hands, tapping their toes and sometimes shouting out and singing along throughout the show.

The musical starts with the spiritual “Up Above My Head,” sung by members of the six-piece orchestra on set and part of the action during the entire production. Drummer Eric Brown, who also plays that good-for-nothing Sully; trumpeter Kiku Collins, who serves as Maybelle’s romantic competition; bassist George Farmer; pianist Michael Mitchell; and guitarist John Putnam all take part in the story but the spotlight cannot veer away from Ms. White, who is on stage every action-packed second.

Enter the star of the show, who says, “I’ll tell ya what it is being a big black girl singin’ the blues,” before she tucks herself into her bed in a Cleveland psychiatric unit. The sets pivot (quite cleverly staged) between that bed, various nightclubs, Carnegie Hall and a few of Maybelle’s apartments.

The story becomes a riveting masterpiece when, about a minute in, Ms. White commands the stage while giving it her all with “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”—the first of many, many masterful vocal performances. This is a woman who can belt and squeak and growl and purr better than any singer I have ever seen. She’s a heck of a talent with the most unbelievable range. And boy, can she ever move!

Watching Ms. White become Maybelle Smith was mesmerizing. She was in the moment as the legendary blues singer every single second of the show, with nary a break.

It’s one thing to come out on stage and be playful, pretty, lively and likeable. But it’s entirely another to make a heartbreakingly personal journey into the depths of despair—to be ugly, weak, drug addled and pathetic—as Ms. White does so well and nakedly as Maybelle, breathing truth and life into a complicated character. Even at her darkest hour, audiences can’t help but root for the heroine felled by bad men, binge eating and heroin.

“Sully, he turned me on to the ‘H,’” Maybelle laments of her spiral into drug use. “He always said things tasted better with sugar.”

Standout songs in “Big Maybelle” include “Candy,” “It’s a Man’s Man’s World,” “Hair Dressin’ Women,” “What More Can A Woman Do?” and “Rockhouse.” But honestly, there isn’t a missed step or superfluous number in this show.

“Big Maybelle” is a true story of the blues. The tour-de-force that is Ms. White makes it an absolute can’t miss.

Bottom line: If it were up to me, Lillias White would win an Obie, a Tony, an Oscar and every other singing and acting award there is for this performance. Truly amazing!

“Big Maybelle: Soul of the Blues” stages at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor Tuesdays through Sundays, through September 2. Call 725-9500 or visit for reservations, show dates and times.