OBEAH OPERA by Nicole Brooks, directed by Lezlie Wade, with Brooks, Divine Brown, Karen Burthwright, Janet MacEwen, Dana Jean Phoenix, Sabryn Rock and Singing Sandra. Presented by Culchahworks Arts Collective and Panamania in association with Nightwood Theatre and b current at the Young Centre (50 Tank House). Previews from Tuesday (August 4), opens Thursday (August 6) and runs to August 8, Tuesday-Saturday 7 pm, matinee Saturday 1 pm. $20.15-$40. 416-866-8666, obeahopera.com.
You probably couldn’t find two cultures more disparate than 17th-century American Puritanism and the African-influenced Caribbean world.
The way the two play off against each other in Nicole Brooks’s Obeah Opera excites director Lezlie Wade, who’s helming the project, a Culchahworks Arts Collective show presented as part of Panamania.
A tale of the Salem witchcraft trials, the piece is told from the viewpoint of black Caribbeans enslaved by white masters. Obeah refers to an African-Caribbean practice that some saw as witchcraft and others as age-old healing.
“The Puritans were staid, rigid and strict, while their Caribbean servants came from a culture that was loose, free, expressive and open to the magical and the mysterious,” says Wade, who recently directed The Twelve-Pound Look at the Shaw Festival.
But there are more ideas fuelling this work – Wade calls it “a blend of Paul Simon’s Graceland and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible” – which had a powerful workshop in 2012 with, as in this full staging, an all-female cast that here numbers 14.
“One of its key points is how women are perceived and treated, which includes issues of power and identity,” continues Wade. “At first, there are two factions of women, black and white, but at a certain point the universes collide, with one of the most powerful white women, Elizabeth, wife of Parris, the town’s reverend, realizing that Tituba has a power that could have saved lives, including that of Elizabeth’s daughter, Betty.”
Tituba, like most of the others in the opera, is a historical figure, and Brooks has carefully combed factual records to create her characters. Wade notes that the Salem trials were the most documented of such events, and Tituba figures significantly in the material. (She’s also a character in Miller’s play.)
“She was different from the others charged because she was a slave, and she probably did practise magic, whatever that meant. Maybe it was just medicine, but that action would have made her vulnerable and put her at the centre of the storm.
“I think the whole town was toxic before the trials began, only waiting for an incident to spark an explosion. That incident happened to be connected to Tituba, who worked in Parris’s household. He was insecure and not liked by the community, so he fortified his position by identifying those he believed to be witches.”
Brooks – who plays Tituba in this premiere production – has written an opera that’s sung entirely a cappella in a variety of styles ranging from country, blues and jazz to Caribbean melodies, traditional hymns and Gregorian chant.
“Yet every piece of music feels right for the character and the situation. Nicole offers her own twists on the traditional melodies, and musical director Andrew Craig’s incredible at giving each piece its own life to move the story forward.”
Wade, who’s directed a number of musicals for Acting Up Stage, admits she’s never worked with one that lacked a written orchestral score.
“I’ve had to learn 52 songs in my head,” she smiles, “and just become familiar with the melodies.” And she proves it, humming me one of the tunes that she says “just kind of fits into your mind.”
She’s found another challenge in this work, which, other than a bell, has no other sound but human voices: there’s no orchestra to play music during the dozens of scene changes.
“Usually there are musical transitions, and you can ask the orchestra to vamp a melody to get characters off and on the stage. The scene shifts have to be done in the body of the storytelling without drawing attention to themselves as transitions.
“It’s a real dance for everyone involved.”
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
