When Black Pearl Sings, Hampton Roads Should Listen
Black Pearl Sings, at the Virginia Stage Company, is marked by moments of memorable theatrical, emotional and musical beauty, plus a pair of impeccable performances guided by Patrick Mullins' fine direction. It's a purely fictional tale, thoroughly believable in its outline if not in every (sometimes predictable) detail, about a black woman whose blues and gospel signing lifts her out of prison camp in depression-era Texas. Jannie Jones, who plays the semi-literate, earthy Alberta Johnson, a.k.a. Pearl, doesn't quite walk away with the show, but only because Jessica Wortham is so completely on target as Susannah Mullally, the ambitious female musicologist who discovers her. Wotham has a worthwhile voice, but Jones is a truly impressive singer. Act 1 is a series of scenes in the prison warden's office. Nothing in the show surpasses, or even equals, the power of Pearl's stunning, powerful song that climaxes Scene 1. That passage in itself is worth the price of admission, as the phrase goes. Act 2 takes place in a Greenwich Village apartment, and in a New York City auditorium where Pearl gives her first public performances. Both sets, designed by Bill Clarke, serve the play well, though the warden's office looks a bit like a stage set, whereas the apartment is more convincing. No complaints about Victor En Yu Tan's unobtrusive and effective lighting. The sound design, by Elisheba Ittoop, seems flawless. Jennifer Caprio's costumes are likewise well chosen, though Perl's prison garb is just a mite too careful about being ragged. The plot - about arranging for Pearl's release from prison, about her search for the adult daughter with whom she lost touch during 10 years in prison, and about Susannah's academic ambitions - serves primarily as a frame for the songs. Playwright Frank Higgins relies on are more than a few contrivances and predictable events, but the cast and Mullins make those acceptable, or even believable. They also make good use of his humor, and of the genuinely dramatic elements he provides. This is not to say that Susannah's proto-feminist viewpoints - a goodly part of what she has to say - are not interesting, though they are hardly novel. One implicit point of the script, that 20th and 21st Century concepts of social consciousness owe much to groundwork done by women before World War 2, is well worth making. Commentary should not focus on the writing, which has easily perceived flaws and strengths, but on the emotional power of the songs, which are the foundation, and in fact almost the total substance of the show. The book is adequate, the singing extraordinary. That gives a weighted average of excellent. Black Pearl Sings is the first must-see of this Stage Company season.
Black Pearl Sings
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