The real Josephine Baker — shown dancing wildly in a brief film clip — easily trumps the stage version in Cheryl Howard’s solo show. Though filled with details about the star’s life, from her hardscrabble childhood to her triumphant 1975 comeback days before her death, “The Sensational Josephine Baker” never lives up to its title.
Howard delivers a dynamic turn in such signature numbers as “Don’t Touch Me, Tomato” and “Paris Paname,” but can’t match Baker’s manic charisma and loose-limbed shimmying. And her costumes are a lot more demure than the real star’s near-nakedness.
While she plays other people in Baker’s life — her abusive mother, her loving grandmother and the legendary cabaret owner Ada “Bricktop” Smith — she’s best as an embittered former chorus girl who performed in Baker’s shadow.
“She was alone in making a sensational success out of herself by not being a good dancer, not being a good actress and not being a good jazz singer,” she acidly observes. “She didn’t give a damn about me or anybody else.”
Structured as a memory play, the show omits such key details as Baker’s work for the French resistance during World War II, her involvement in the civil rights movement and her adoption of 12 multiracial children. Ian Streicher’s bare-bones production relies on canned background music and a set filled with cardboard boxes, upon which old films and photos are projected.
Still, when Howard dons a series of lavishly sequined dresses for the final numbers, it’s easy to fall under her sway. If you really want to get into the spirit, go next door to Chez Josephine, the restaurant Baker’s adopted son Jean-Claude runs as an homage to his famous mother.