Theatre in Review: Black Light (Joe's Pub/The Public Theater)I've seen many great performers at Joe's Pub, but few, if any, have taken over the room like Jomama Jones. The creation of writer-performer Daniel Alexander Jones, Jomama is an elegant black songstress of the sort that was popular in the 1960s, but she's outfitted with a thoroughly 2018 sensibility. She's a woke Leslie Uggams, a Diahann Carroll for the Black Lives Matter era. With her great-lady-of-show-business manner she can be a bit of a camp, but make no mistake: She is a woman on a mission, intent on guiding us through the current era of political turmoil and yawning social divisions. The friend who attended with me suggested the term "black rage cabaret," and that's about right, although in her serenity and self-assurance Jomama often seems like an alien visitor from the planet Civility, urging us all to take a deep breath and hold on tight. She's a spoof diva, a real diva, a subtle political commentator, and a spiritual director all rolled into one: How many nightclub acts give you all that? Black Light begins with a voice in the dark -- Jomama's, of course -- asking a series of questions, among them, "What if I told you it's going to be all right?" That gets a big laugh, because we all know what she's getting at. She continues, "What if I told you not yet? What if I told there are trials ahead beyond your deepest fears? What if I told you you will fall down, down, down? What I told you you will surprise yourself? What I told you you will be brave enough? What if I told you you are not alone?" There are several more queries, but you get the idea: Without stridency or naming names, she cuts right to the heart of the matter, addressing the disaffection and fear that are the constant companions of so many in the audience these days. Before I make it sound too much like a sermon for the already converted, let me add that Black Light is pure entertainment, a sly evening of songs and stories that catches you in a web of humor, real feeling, and contemplation. Jomama works the room with assurance; at the performance I attended, she flirted amusingly with a handsome young visitor from Mexico and riffed on another audience member's sweater, which was bedecked with images of firebirds. She toys hilariously with stereotypes, recalling how, as a child, she and her little sister played games with "a sweet, dusty little white girl." And I rather liked her assertion that the main events of 1979 -- the Iran hostage crisis, the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel -- paled in comparison to the release of Prince's second album, the one, she adds, with the photo of his "little chest hairs," adding, "I counted them: 47." Jomama is also blessed with faultless timing, finding a laugh simply by inserting a pause into an otherwise unremarkable sentence; her silences are often brilliantly calculated, suggesting that the madness of today's world is simply beyond her ability to comment. Yet even when she appears to ramble -- about an incident in eleventh-grade science, when she and her friend Tamika ran afoul of their teacher by making up a Prince poster instead of mapping the shape of a black hole, or recalling her childhood visits down South to her grandmother and her mysterious, forbidding Aunt Cleotha -- she of the withered arm and the shotgun -- she draws us ever more deeply into her universe, making eloquent points about the need, now more than ever, for self-affirmation and vigilance against evil. She also discusses the concept of witnessing, "in the black tradition, being an active participant, taking responsibility for what you see." This causes her to ponder, "Am I a living witness? Or a passive observer? There is no ritual without sacrifice. Have I grown unwilling to make that sacrifice? And what will it be? My comfort, my invisibility, my shame, or my name?" When not pondering the mess we're all in, Jomama -- who is in excellent voice these nights -- delivers a series of numbers -- by herself, Laura Jean Anderson, Bobby Halvorson, Dylan Meek, and Josh Quat -- that wed probing, allusive lyrics to a distinctive jazz/funk sound, with a touch of Joni Mitchell tossed in as well. The opener, "Black Light," sets a thoughtful, slightly melancholy tone. "Shattered" comes to grips with "language made to liberate/Now used to assassinate/The freeing impulse of the soul/And shame us into silence." "Gabriel's Horn" laments those "always pointing fingers at the other man/Shouting that nobody else can understand/Gonna get mine that's what you saw/Step on anybody just to have your way/We should hang our heads in shame/This ain't why they overcame." In "Unknown" she wonders, "Must we break a heart to see inside it? And watch the reasons trickle down our palms?" She gets fine support from her backup singers, Trevor Bachman and Vuyo Sotashe, and her band, which consists of Tariq Al-Sabir, Sean Dixon, and Michelle Marie Osbourne, under the musical direction of Samora Abayomi Pinderhughes. The always-glamorous lighting design -- except for a calculated moment when the house lights are turned up for a moment of harsh reality -- is by Ania Parks. Jomama packs more costume changes than you might think possible into ninety minutes; every spangled creation has been smartly designed by Oana Botez. Of course, Jomama has no definitive solutions to offer, but her entertainment is inspirational, a balm for troubled souls that also manages to be tuneful and often wickedly funny. Before Black Light is over, she has turned Joe's Pub into her own living room -- and we have become her dear, dear friends. I've enjoyed both Daniel Alexander and Jomama Jones in his/her previous two pieces, even if neither jelled perfectly. At Joe's Pub, it all comes together, and then some. At one point, Jomama asks us to close our eyes. "Do you still see me in your mind's eye?" she asks. "You see, I've left an impression, no? Much like the stars above leave an impression." Jomama Jones is indeed a star, and she leaves a big impression. -- David Barbour 
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