Theater review
Fats Waller’s wry, winking catchphrase — “One never knows, do one?” — perfumes any stage with a potent sense of possibility.
That sense permeates “Ain’t Misbehavin’: The Fats Waller Musical Show,” a musical revue now running at Taproot Theatre starring five fantastic Seattle singers: Alexandria J. Henderson, Sarah Russell, Yusef Seevers, Chandler T. Thomas and Erica Walker.
The revue’s book (such as it is), written by Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby Jr., strings together some 30 songs either written or recorded by the jazz piano legend throughout the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and ’30s (adapted, arranged and orchestrated by Luther Henderson). Maltby also conceived of and directed the show’s original 1978 Broadway production that won three Tony Awards, including best musical.
As directed by Bretteney Beverly, Taproot associate artistic director, a joyful first act of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” full of high-energy numbers like the title song, makes way for a more thoughtful Act 2, as Waller’s music hits the mainstream and moves downtown from its Harlem home. The cast, now robed in furs and formal evening attire (costumes by Danielle Nieves), delivers numbers like “Lounging at the Waldorf,” about this new locale’s uptight, extractive energy.
With the vocal talent onstage it’s no surprise that this cast sounds phenomenal, though too many lyrics were lost in muddy sound and an uneven balance between the singers and the show’s onstage jazz combo.
That said, Seevers reminds us why he’s one of the best actor-singers currently working in Seattle, because not a lyric or laugh was missed in the number “Your Feet’s Too Big,” from which Seevers wrings every ounce of good-natured derision.
Though a couple of cabaret tables in front of the stage give the cast some interplay with the audience, the show is mostly staged and performed like a presentational musical rather than a club performance, and thus the joint never quite gets jumpin’ the way that it could.
And it’s under no obligation to, though without those intoxicating highs the deeper lows lose some resonance: Getting the audience singing along to the goofy call-and-response song “Fat and Greasy” felt suddenly grotesque as the cast turned inward, toward one another, to sing “Black and Blue” — “’Cause you’re black, folks think you lack/They laugh at you, and scorn you too/What did I do to be so black and blue?”
Elsewhere, we’ve got hilariously suggestive songs like “Squeeze Me” and “Honeysuckle Rose,” which barely even bother with euphemism, and “Find Out What They Like” about how to keep a man, which I’m guessing landed a lot differently in 1978 than it does in 2026 (yikes!).
These songs were written 90 to 100 years ago, and “Ain’t Misbehavin’” debuted on Broadway nearly 50 years ago. It’s fair to say that the context around them has changed a great deal in the intervening decades.
Acknowledging that context without laying it on too thick is always a challenge, but these are the chronological and social realities of staging a classic. Beverly and her cast clearly know this, and while powerful ideas lurk in the shadows of “Ain’t Misbehavin’” they don’t quite break through the production’s jazz-hands, Broadway-style lacquer. But don’t sweat it! If you’re looking for a good time, you’ll find it. One never knows, do one?
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