Back in 2015, I watched a Chicago actor named Kelvin Roston Jr. wrestle mightily with the troubled psyche of Donny Hathaway, the Chicago-born songwriter and soul singer who had a hit with “The Ghetto,” collaborated with Roberta Flack on hits like “Where is the Love” and “The Closer I Get to You,” and also worked for Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records on the city’s South Side.
The music business has more famous names than Hathaway, who reportedly died by suicide at the Essex Hotel in New York City in 1979 at the age of 33, but he is widely seen as a foundational influence on artists from George Benson to Elton John.
We were in a small studio at the Athenaeum Theatre, where Roston was working on his passion project for the Congo Square Theatre. I remember thinking that he was channeling his troubled subject so intensely, he almost was putting himself at risk.
Hathaway had an angelic voice and prodigious amounts of songwriting talent but also suffered from mental illness. In 1971 he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, which led to him popping a plethora of pills that may or may not have helped. He was dead eight years later.
Roston is still obsessed with Hathaway, bringing his solo show, dubbed “Twisted Melodies,” to the Northlight Theatre in Skokie a decade after Congo Square, following other stagings. As before, in the show we meet Hathaway alone in his hotel room, trying to play and work as he fought off demons that told him that others were coming to get inside his skull and steal his talent and his work.
That credible worry for Black artists over theft of their work is one of the themes of Roston’s piece, as is the question of whether neurodivergent artists are well-served by medication or whether the establishment’s attempt at normalization, so to speak, destroys their essence and their art. All good questions.
I sat in a relatively small crowd on Saturday night at Northlight, some of whom seemed to be ignited by this piece and some of whom did not.
Certainly, the work is a must-see for any big Hathaway fans who’ve not yet had the pleasure. Roston’s immersion in this character, and his commitment to re-creating his very particular sound, remains as intense as ever. But back when I first saw “Twisted Melodies,” I remember hoping that Roston would get the chance to expand the material beyond this blend of singing and necessarily meandering, introspective text, which can only take the piece so far. His Donny needs someone else to play off (Flack being the most obvious candidate), as budgetarily attractive as one-person shows can be these days. And, to be honest, I think a full accounting of Hathaway involves leaving this hotel room; there is no reason we cannot hear him with a bigger musical accompaniment, too.
I suppose this review reflects some disappointment that a show that I felt had so much potential had not been further developed for this run at one of our most important theaters, especially given the addition of Ron OJ Parson as the director. Then again, had I not been there in 2015, I’d most likely have been enthralled by this actor’s formidable level of insight for a genius whom Chicago often fails to remember. Hathaway, many readers will recall, could write, sing and arrange pop, R&B, jazz, gospel and soul, gliding from one to another with the ease he never felt inside his own head. I’ve been listening to him as I write.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Review: “Twisted Melodies” (2.5 stars)
When: Through Aug. 10
Where: Northlight Theatre at the North Shore Center for the Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Tickets: $46-$98 at 847-673-6300 and northlight.org