"His Eye is on the Sparrow" @ PCS

"His Eye is on the Sparrow" is a an ambitious, likely grueling endeavor for Maiesha McQueen.  It is a one-woman biography of Ethel Waters.

I will briefly compare and contrast it with "Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin" because they were both both one-person shows about musical icons. What I enjoyed most about "Irving Berlin" was being told about the tragic and triumphant life of someone most of us probably know only from his songs that became Standards, so many that it's not common knowledge that he wrote them all. Ethel Waters has some tragic moments as well, most interestingly terrible treatment despite her star-status during tour-dates in the South, but the play spends a little too much time on the incompatibility of fame and love, and McQueen singing is so rapturous that I would have preferred an extra song or two instead of the romantic subplot. Seriously, McQueen could sing the ABCs and I'd be enthralled. As further proof of her magnetism, I offer that circumstances demanded I take my father along,  a man who defines "reluctant theatre-goer, and he enjoyed himself as well. All that's left to say is that I can't wait until she graces the stage again.