Theater

‘Lady Day’ sings the blues away

On the one hand, we have Audra McDonald, poised and elegant — a classically trained soprano and five-time Tony winner.

On the other, there’s the raspy-voiced Billie Holiday, who lifted herself from the gutter to achieve fame as a jazz singer, only to crash out on drink and drugs.

Talk about casting against type.

And yet as soon as McDonald opens her mouth in Lanie Robertson’s “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” it’s Holiday we hear.

In summoning a singer who was all about emotion, rhythm and phrasing, McDonald gives a performance as technical as anything she’s ever done — and she knows from technical, having mastered both the operatic trills of “Master Class” and the melting-pot influences of “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.”

The irony is glaring, and if you don’t mind it, you’ll get a kick out of this show.

The central concept of this new play with music recalls that of “Lady Day,” the Dee Dee Bridgewater bio-musical that ran off-Broadway last fall. In both shows, we’re at a Holiday gig, though in this one she’s just four months away from death.

At the start, the singer puts up a brave front. In a strapless white gown and matching gloves, she wafts past the bar and tables set up on the Circle in the Square’s stage — we’re at the Philadelphia nightclub of the title.

Flashing a glistening, confident smile, McDonald’s Holiday rides a jazz trio’s beat with ease on “When a Woman Loves a Man” and “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.”

But even early on, there are cracks in the good-humored veneer.

“I’m glad to be back in Philly, and that’s somethin’ for me,” she tells us. “I used to tell everybody, when I die, I don’t care if I go to heaven or hell, long’s it ain’t in Philly.”

It’s the first allusion to a story long in tragedy, retraced in jumbled anecdotes that include remembrances of her mother, a poor woman nicknamed “the Duchess” — “she wasn’t too much older’n me an’ she wasn’t a hell of a lot smarter neither.”

Drinking steadily through her set, Holiday alternately flatters and picks on her stoic pianist, Jimmy Powers (Shelton Becton), accusing him of being her keeper — who’s supposed to make sure she doesn’t forget to sing the songs the crowd wants to hear, “‘Strange Fruit,’ ‘God Bless the Child’ and all that damn s–t.”

This Holiday is a basket case of contradictions: profane and girlish, sentimental and clear-eyed. McDonald nails all of this, including the combination of death wish and incredible talent.

Yet, as with the recent “A Night with Janis Joplin,” it’s also hard to forget we’re watching expert mimicry, a performance of a performance. Perhaps these glorified tribute concerts aren’t the best way to crack the mystery of self-destructive genius.