“Would you care to look at me?” Happy to oblige, but then it would be hard not to.
The statuesque performer Jomama Jones was wearing a sleeveless gold sequined number while she formulated that question, which was also a demand.
“I give you all permission to take me in,” she continued with the noblesse oblige of an entertainer fully aware of her glamour.
Mind you, that outfit was just one of the five, all equally fabulous, she changed in and out of during her show, “Black Light,” a Public Theater offering at Joe’s Pub.
Making her way among the tables, the singer gently teased the audience. To the gentleman who said he was from Mexico, she asked of his country, “Do they have the animal the cougar?”
A grand diva in the lineage of Lola Falana and Diana Ross, Jomama Jones is the alter ego of playwright and performer Daniel Alexander Jones. She has figured in some of his earlier shows, including “Jomama Jones: Radiate” (2011) and “Duat” (2016), in which Jones delved more directly into his own life and made the transformation into his character explicit. In “Black Light,” though, Jones lets Jomama take over.
Besides ad-libs, she alternates, cabaret-style, between songs and convoluted stories. Her show incorporates biographical elements familiar to longtime fans. When she brought up her “dear, sweet friend and rival Tamika,” savvy members of last Thursday’s audience let out hoots.
Most likely, they were in on the constructed backstory, the same way people clap in delight whenever the decrepit chanteuse Kiki DuRane, a creation of Justin Vivian Bond, brings up her estranged son, Bradford. Jones even lovingly fabricated press coverage for Jomama, including a terrific reproduction of Jet magazine from the mid-1980s.
Paradoxically for a concert, the energy distinctly falls when Jomama sings. The star has quite the pipes and is backed by an adept band, but the songs — written by Jones with Laura Jean Anderson, Bobby Halvorson, Dylan Meek and Josh Quat — tend to be pallid, hook-free lite funk and R&B. Considering that Prince loomed large over Jomama’s life, or at least her childhood, the sexy needle stays stuck in a safe green zone. Even Oana Botez’s glittery costumes are relatively demure. More surprising, the songs lack the wit and humor of Jomama’s banter.
At first the stories appear unrelated. One involves Jomama hilariously fighting Tamika over Prince’s body (as pictured on a centerfold poster) back in 1979; another is about the singer’s Aunt Cleotha and her trusty shotgun.
By the end, the two narrative arcs meet, sort of, for a piercing conclusion that plays onthe title’s reference to ultraviolet light. As Jomama explains, “If you look into the dark long enough, all manner of things will be revealed."
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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