‘Shuffle Along’ Theater review

The full title of this extraordinary showbiz excavation-renovation masterminded by George C. Wolfe—”Shuffle Along or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed”—is very precisely worded. His first act concerns blackface vaudeville comedians F.E. Miller (Brian Stokes Mitchell) and Aubrey Lyles (Billy Porter) teaming up with debonair songwriters Noble Sissle (Joshua Henry) and Eubie Blake (Brandon Victor Dixon) to create the groundbreaking musical “Shuffle Along.” Among other things, the show ended the romance color barrier by depicting African-American characters in love scenes. After intermission, once their baby has become the toast of Broadway, we learn about “all that followed.” The first half is sensational; the second is difficult, in terms of our heroes’ postsuccess fates and how engagingly their narratives play out. But with a cast this incandescent (I haven’t even mentioned Audra McDonald’s tender, guarded brilliance as diva Lottie Gee) and Wolfe staging a constant flow of miracles, there’s an overflow of joy and style that smooths over stylistic rough edges and knotty stitching of history to myth. Is it bizarre that we leave this passionate homage humming Sissle and Blake’s dreamy standards—“Love Will Find a Way” and “(I’m Just) Wild About Harry”—but with almost no sense of Miller and Lyles’s book?