We’ve come to that point in the adolescence of digitally based theater at which the yearning for its live parent becomes overwhelming. I thought about this curious enjoyment gap, between the virtual and traditional experiences of theatergoing, all through the watching of Signature Theatre’s new online version of “After Midnight,” a bluesy, Big Band musical revue from the 2013-2014 Broadway season.
Mind you, this slickly staged and filmed production, guided by mega-talented director and choreographer Jared Grimes — who was in the original Broadway cast — is a vibrant showcase for its 12-member cast. No question that the star power of Christopher Jackson, the “Hamilton” alum who anchors the show as a narrator quoting passages from Langston Hughes, gives this presentation some luminous heft.
It’s just that I continually wanted to be in the room where it was happening. To feel the crackle, not just try to imagine it. As the singers and dancers worked their way through more than two dozen songs by the likes of Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields and Irving Mills, I had the sense of viewing the polished demo tape for a sizzling evening out. Except that I was on the couch. Dang.
With coronavirus vaccinations making it possible for theaters to announce the return to in-person performances this year, one’s patience wears ever thinner for what has amounted to its placeholding substitute. A smattering of online productions over the 15 months of the shutdown has managed to use the Internet as an enhancing device: I think of the clever work of illusionist Helder Guimarães in Geffen Theatre’s virtual “The Present” and, more conventionally, the filming of four Adrienne Kennedy plays by Round House Theatre and McCarter Theatre Center.
There have been other effective uses of theater on video and film. But the possibility, now more tantalizingly within reach, of sitting in a room with hundreds people to see a work of estimable energies such as “After Midnight,” makes the digital version seem a bit stolid.
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As to the show itself: It features some great demonstrations of tap, as evidenced by the fusion of “Raisin’ the Rent” and “Get Yourself a New Broom” by Arlen and Ted Koehler, in Ellington’s superior arrangements. The number is tapped with a joyful dazzle by Jodeci Milhouse, Dewitt Fleming Jr. and Phillip Attmore, the last of whom also appeared in the Broadway production, which ran for 273 performances.
Photography director Justin Chiet’s cameras seem to be everywhere in Signature’s larger space, the Max, with close-ups of footwork and wide views of production numbers on a stage standing in for the smoky late-night of a Harlem club. Dede Ayite’s costumes are glittering tributes to the sultry glamour of mid-century chanteuses, embodied here by Nova Y. Payton, applying her trademark belt to Fields and Jimmy McHugh’s “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and Arlen and Koehler’s eternal “Stormy Weather.” Shayla S. Simmons infuses Sidney Easton and Ethel Waters’s offbeat “Go Back to Where You Stayed Last Night” with a juicy dose of manic comedy, and a haunting, wordless “Creole Love Call” by Ellington is sung in a gauzy, hypnotizing haze by Jennie Harney-Fleming.
Grimes distinguishes himself as a choreographer of lovely inventiveness, giving singer-dancers like Solomon Parker III and Andre Hinds the chance to summon their inner Gene Kellys. Sophia Adoum, Jessica Bennett and Kanysha Williams all get pleasing moments under Mike Baldassari’s lights, which manage to soften the sharp edges of the space. The most animated participant in the proceedings, though, seems to be the man at the piano — music director Mark G. Meadows — conducting six other musicians, including a standout player on a jazzy trumpet, Kenny Rittenhouse. Ryan Hickey’s sound design could not be sharper.
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Jackson, posed by the solitary set piece of a street sign denoting the corner of Harlem’s Lenox Avenue and 135th Street, sings a couple of songs — notably, Koehler and Arlen’s “I’ve Got the World on a String.” His is the toughest assignment, making Hughes’s poetry his own. It’s the most self-consciously theatrical aspect of “After Midnight,” and it comes across as a bit precious on film.
Maybe that works better when you’re breathing the same air as the actor — something that’s been impossible for a goodly while. I sure wish I had the chance to find out.
After Midnight, conceived, directed and choreographed by Jared Grimes. Music direction, Mark G. Meadows; costumes, Dede Ayite; lighting, Mike Baldassari; sound, Ryan Hickey; photography direction, Justin Chiet. About 95 minutes. $35. Through Aug. 4. 703-820-9771 or sigtheatre.org.
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