When “The Life” opened on Broadway in 1997, the Times Square sex trade it depicts was no longer a notable feature of the area. Like an increasingly polished Midtown Manhattan, the musical, about the women and men who once made it a prostitution capital, was family-friendly enough for my parents to take me at 15 to watch it as my first Broadway show.
We came to New York to see ‘Rent’, Jonathan Larson’s portrait of la vie bohème, which had opened last year. After reading newspaper ads, my father chose “The Life” as another show for us to watch while in town. And despite its ostensibly R-rated subject matter (which we assume he somehow overlooked), it was perhaps no more mature in theme than “Rent.” Set around 1980, The Life is also about lovers and warriors who struggle to survive a harsh and unforgiving city.
But the Broadway production of “The Life” shared more DNA with droll Gotham fables like “Guys and Dolls” and “Sweet Charity,” another musical about dreams of escaping the sex trade, composed some 30 years earlier by Cy Coleman, whose score for “The Life” is filled with magnetic melodies and brass hooks. A hybrid comedy-drama, “The Life” was jazzy and perky, with touches of vaudeville and the blues.
With lyrics by Ira Gasman and a book by Coleman, Gasman and David Newman, The Life presented the sex workers who populated Times Square as showbiz types with fervor and moxie. (Vincent Canby’s critic’s essay in DailyExpertNews praised the production’s “go-for-broke pit.”) Powered by electric performance, “The Life” was nominated for 12 Tony Awards and won two, for best actor in a musical (Chuck Cooper) and for best actress in a musical (Lillias White, whose volcanic rendition of “The Oldest Profession” marked the first time I witnessed a breathtaking ovation).
While my life couldn’t have been further from “The Life,” there was a restlessness and resistance to the characters I recognized in my own character, as the gay son of immigrants growing up in a predominantly white suburb of Michigan. As I listened to the cast’s recording, I channeled my fear and alienation into songs like “My Body” and “Why Don’t They Leave Us Alone,” anthems of autonomy and self-determination.
And while I could easily empathize with the longing for love and escape, “The Life” wasn’t the lesson in hard truths—about racism, poverty, and carceral injustice—it could have been. Although the musical ended in tragedy, the comedy kept the so-called whores and pimps, and their need, at a wry distance. The characters seemed designed for entertainment, not for understanding their inner self and circumstances.
“The comedy did the stories a disservice,” said Billy Porter, who has conceived a new production of “The Life” for New York City Center’s Encores! series. The show, which starts with performances on Wednesday, will be his directorial debut.
Like most writers working on Broadway at the time, the creators of “The Life” were white males; their story didn’t ask the audience to consider why the mostly black characters, many of whom are women, were trapped in the first place — just that they wanted out. With his review, Porter, 52, said he intended to make “The Life” a darker and brighter drama, humane the characters and bring their social disadvantages to the fore.
Porter, who ended his run last year as Pray Tell in the FX series “Pose,” starred in the early development workshops of “The Life,” but was ultimately not cast when the show moved to Broadway. He says he believes in the purity of the creators’ intentions. “They wanted to be allies, and they were,” he told me over lunch at a recent rehearsal. “The music is extraordinary, that’s why we do it in the first place.” Still, he noted that this story was problematic for lack of more context.
encores! first approached Porter to direct “The Life” in early 2020; inequalities exposed by the pandemic and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement have only fueled the urgency behind his vision for the show. “We need to make sure that everyone understands that there are systems of oppression and erasure and caste, where if you’re born in a system, you stay in that system,” he said. “We can’t undo it anymore.”
The plot remains largely intact, but characters trapped in “The Life” are presented in more detail – not just with backstories and more vibrant inner lives, but with fate outside of the action on stage. Much of this information comes from the narrator, Jojo, originally played by white actor Sam Harris. In Porter’s iteration, the role has expanded and will be played by Destan Owens, who is Black. “I wanted the story to be told through our eyes and through our voices,” Porter said.
Looking back to the summer of 1980, when New York City was on the brink of bankruptcy, Jojo tells the audience, “We were all like crabs in a barrel,” scratching and clawing to get out. (Jojo reached Los Angeles, he says, where he now runs his own PR agency.)
There’s Fleetwood (Ken Robinson), a Vietnam veteran who succumbs to the city’s crack epidemic, and his beloved Queen (Alexandra Gray), who learns that her money from playing tricks didn’t go to their escape fund. There’s Memphis (Antwayn Hopper), the ruthless pivot who drives a wedge between them for his own gain. And then there’s the weary and weary Sonja (Ledisi, in the role of White), whose character has deepened from soulful comic relief to a tragic harbinger of things to come.
While the original subtly hinted that Sonja is suffering from HIV, the first cases of which were diagnosed around the time “The Life” is set, Porter brings out her declining health and adds a scene where the women receive support services at a community clinic. . There, Queen, who is transgender in Porter’s overhaul, also gets hormone treatments. For Porter, these aspects of the characters’ lives come with hindsight clarity.
The music of “The Life” also aims to be more reflective of post-disco New York, in new orchestrations and arrangements by James Sampliner. While honoring Coleman’s original melodies, Sampliner said the revival’s sound, which he termed “down and funky,” would be far from the original big band jazz, citing sonic influences such as Earth, Wind & Fire, the O’Jays, Chaka Khan and Isaac Hayes. “It just totally stunk about it,” he said.
The encores! The series, which began its first season under new leadership last month with “The Tap Dance Kid,” has long welcomed substantial revisions to the short-lived revivals of American musicals (because the book is often the problem with those rarely seen). But preserving original orchestrations and arrangements was also part of its mission, so “The Life” represents an artistic departure.
It’s also the first of what the Artistic Director, Lear DeBessonet, and the producing Artistic Director, Clint Ramos, refer to as an author’s slot, encouraging artists like Porter to revisit works from their personal perspective. Porter’s overhaul has the backing of Coleman’s legacy, as the musical is infrequently produced due to its mature content.
Will “The Life” Still Be Able to Laugh? “It’s going to be a complete joke,” Porter said, adding that he considers himself a hopeful entertainer. “Even when it’s dark, that’s our job.” The humor will not be applied to make anyone feel more comfortable, he added. It’s more likely to stem from the often painful truths of the situation (like Sonja asking for a doctor’s note to show her pimp).
The guts and perseverance that women like Sonja and Queen taught me at a young age also endure — lessons perhaps made even more poignant by a fuller picture of the odds stacked against them. And “The Life” can also speak with hard-won wisdom for hard times, to a city emerging from another hard chapter.
“We choose hope, not because things are joyful or hopeful,” Porter said. “But to live.”