The Lady and the Empress is a stage play, a one-woman show written and performed by Doris Fields (Lady D).
The performance is based on the life and music of blues legend, Bessie Smith who was also known as the Empress of the Blues. The performance runs approximately 90 – 100 minutes including a 15-minute intermission and features many of Smith’s most popular songs such as “T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.”
About Bessie
The stage play, “The Lady and the Empress” was written and is performed by multi-faceted West Virginia artist, Doris Fields also known as Lady D. In channeling the spirit of Bessie Smith, Fields melds past and present, old and new to create a fully self-aware Bessie Smith. Since there is only one known video of the singer performing and speaking, liberty was taken in creating a persona that meshes the personalities and talents of both Smith and Lady D.
The play setting is clearly in Bessie’s boudoir among her stylish clothes and accessories but we are unaware of the year. Bessie, however, is fully aware that she is no longer among the living but she is eager to share a little about the amazing life that she lived. Covering the Jim Crow era, the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Depression, Bessie’s life was much to big to fit into 90 minutes but add to that a modern era band literally posted up in her bedroom to help her tell her tale and you get a scene that comes across as totally reasonable.
As people evolve, so does the show, as Bessie has no problem interacting and ad libbing with her audience that she has allowed into her intimate space. She shares much, but also leaves much unsaid. Questions about her love life and sexuality are left rather vague, however, she was known as much for her singing and bawdy performances as she was for her bisexuality. She never learned to read or write but she was a savvy businesswoman and bandleader. She never had children of her own, but she adopted the son of one of her chorus girls’ niece. The Lady and the Empress leaves much to the imagination without downplaying the “bigger than life” character that was Bessie Smith.
