Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies

Sophisticated Ladies was playing at the Lincoln Theatre though it is run by Arena ReStaged. This is probably a good exampl of poor expectations management. I was expecting something with more plot, a traditional musical, interspesed with dance and song. What we saw was more of musical revue, a lah Smoky Joes Cafe. Maybe if I went in expecting that, it would have been all right, but I didn't and it was really just ok. I mean the music was ok, all jazz numbers, some of which I recognized as they are just really famous, others I did not. The vocals were mostly pretty good though the acoustics of being in the upper tiers of the Lincoln dampened the effect. Tap is definately something better seen in person than on TV on So You Think You Can Dance, though I think the youg dancers just blew away Maurice Hines. Its just that by the time intermission came around there was not really any tease for me... I did not really expect to see anything in the second act that I had not already sort of seen inthe first. So we left. Ah well.