ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΓΡΑΦΟΣ: Leslie Uggams "Hallelujah Baby" Broadway musical 1967 Life magazine July 1967 Θεάματα Θεατρογραφικά

Πέμπτη 8 Φεβρουαρίου 2024

Leslie Uggams "Hallelujah Baby" Broadway musical 1967 Life magazine July 1967 Θεάματα Θεατρογραφικά

Leslie Uggams

“Hallelujah, Baby” Broadway musical 1967

Leslie, a cool Bombshell by Tom Prideaux

Life magazine, July 10, 1967

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Θεατρογραφικά

In a detonating rock’n’roll ballet of the 1960s, Leslie Uggams in her miniskirt joins a bunch of jumping jills in mod togs.

Leslie, a cool Bombshell

Shaking her tail feathers or doing a svelte leap, Leslie Uggams is the cutest contradiction on Broadway.

In her first stage hit, “Hallelujah, Baby”, she conquers a long, grueling role, explodes brilliantly time after time like a string of firecrackers, and still keeps cool and calm.

Written by Arthur Laurents (West Side Story), the show is a 60-year cavalcade of Negro race relations, with Leslie rising from housemaid to nightclub star, without aging a day. With bracing songs by Jule Styne, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Hallelujah, Baby is sleek entertainment, but less spectacular than Leslie’s own rise from Quiz Kid to the Broadway bombshell she has now become.

Leslie (far left) leads a flock of “Congo cuties” in a Harlem hoofing number, evoking the Cotton Club revues of the 1920s.

In her dressing room Leslie rushes into her street clothes, not taking time to remove makeup. Briskly but warmly, she greets well-wishers who crowd in. Now she is not Leslie Uggams but Mrs. Grahame Pratt, waiting for her husband to take her home.