‘Dandridge’ Lacks Appeal of Original

In Jamal Williams’ “Yesterday Came Too Soon . . . The Dorothy Dandridge Story,” at Los Angeles Theatre Center’s Theatre 4, the production doesn’t end soon enough.

Sloan Robinson’s performance limps along, and the only bright flashes are the spots before your eyes resulting from abrupt transitions in John Turner’s lighting design.

Williams’ script has Dandridge entertaining a novice reporter in her backstage dressing room on the night of her final performance. The journalist is played by thin air--a conceit that doesn’t really work. Director Erma Elzy-Jones tries to breeze past this issue by having Sloan overreact to Dandridge’s lapses--when Dandridge embarrasses herself by momentarily forgetting there’s another person in the room. But it’s still awkward, and Robinson makes those sequences too cutesy.

Robinson’s singing voice is thin, which might be effective in her first and last scenes as Dandridge in her decline. But in the flashback sequences, her voice doesn’t improve.

She also doesn’t project the sultry sexuality of a Carmen Jones. Dandridge’s performance in the film of that name was so powerful that it seduced voters to give her the first Oscar nomination for an African American as best actress.

This Do It Yourself Productions presentation doesn’t have the power to wow or sizzle, thereby dousing the flames of regret that theatergoers should feel for a life ruined by racism.

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* “Yesterday Came Too Soon . . . The Dorothy Dandridge Story,” Los Angeles Theatre Center, Theatre 4, 514 S. Spring St., L.A. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends April 9. (213) 485-1681. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.