What becomes a legend most?
"Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Swing", now at the Repertory Theatre, pays tribute to the legendary pitcher who made his major league baseball debut at the age of 42 in 1948. Before that, of course, he was tearing up the Negro league teams and playing in Cuba, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. He also barnstormed with a group Bob Feller created, his all-black team against Feller's all-white, the two teams comprising some major names of the day – including Stan Musial.
The play focuses on him and on on several of his fellow players during a visit to Kansas City. Sports are difficult to depict on stage, and the opening scene at a field outside of town is almost modern dance. It's Jackie Robinson's rookie year and Paige is deeply, painfully aware that it was not he that broke the color barrier in baseball. But the rains come and the group of players reassemble at a boarding house in town.
It's a lovely place, run by the widow of "the first Negro dentist in northwest Missouri", as she proudly declaims. She's helped by her daughter, who has aspirations as a singer, and a cook. The widow and Paige were lovers in the past and perhaps are again. Rather surprisingly for the time, it's a mixed-race group this evening. Feller and a young up-and-coming player are white, the rest, who include Buck O'Neil and another young up-and-coming player are black. On the living room radio, Robinson is playing in the World Series, and he's just appeared in a Wheaties ad. In addition, hormones are surging in the young ones.
Paige was not a man unaware of his own talents, to be sure. In addition to his athletic ability, he was, by history, financially pretty sharp. In the play, we find him quoting Homer to his friends – although we discover that the widow quotes Homer, too. (Did he learn it from her or vice versa?)Still, someone else younger has been chosen to be the pioneer, and now his friend O'Neil has gotten an offer from the Chicago Cubs to be a scout – the first black scout ever.
Paige is Robert Karma Robinson, tall and rangy and mimicking Paige's distinctive pitching style pretty well. Robinson lets us understand that baseball is Paige's life; everything else is secondary. Widowed Mrs. Hopkins, Vanessa A. Jones, is absolutely in charge of things, elegant and deliberate and self-controlled until she hits a breaking point. The two young stags fighting for the attention of her daughter, Peterson Townsend and Sam Wolf, begin to almost reek of testosterone between the discussion of salaries and talent intended to woo the lady. O'Neil, Michael Chenevert, controls his excitement at his news very well out of respect to his friend but we can see he's thrilled. And Feller, Kohler McKenzie, treats Paige as a peer, with little if any racial condescension.
The play is described as a celebration of baseball and jazz, and the action is pulled together by Jazzman, a saxophonist who's also something of a griot. He's Eric Person, a hometown kid (Normandy High School!) made way, way good in New York. But there are only two songs in the whole show to add to the bars of Bobby Watson's original score that Jazzman gives us. Oh, the kids discuss the clubs nearby and Paige gripes about Charley Parker and his be-bop, but that's it.
It was difficult to assess the dialogue because opening night was one of the most difficult evenings for sound I've ever had at the Rep's Mainstage. Many of the lines were blurred, and it was mostly hard to tell if it was the actors or the mikes. I noticed people leaning forward trying to hear better. The tale of why O'Neil was called "Nancy" mostly worked very well, but the older woman giving the younger one a serious dressing down on the subject of men lost about the last fifteen percent or so, unfortunately, because it was an interesting speech.
Scenic designer John Ezell and lighting designer Victor En Yu Tan's work showed off well, and the clothing from Lauren T. Roark, costume designer, was a delight. The play is by Trey Ellis and Ricardo Khan and Khan directed it himself.
It's a baseball play, not a music play. And I'm sure they'll work on the sound.
Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Swing
through April 10
Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
314-968-4925