Miami Herald
Posted on Fri, Mar. 13, 2009
Review Sisters! A Celebration of the Human Spirit
BY CHRISTINE DOLEN
For the African American Performing Arts Community Theatre (AAPACT), every month is Black History Month. Thus Sisters! A Celebration of the Human Spirit began its run at the end of that specially designated month and is running until March 22 at Liberty City's African Heritage Cultural Arts Center.
Jerry Ayers' script, drawn from Dorothy Sterling's book We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century, is a kind of dramatic collage. It begins in the 1830s with the stories of enslaved women, and ends in the 1890s as free black women are becoming teachers, doctors, businesswomen, nurses and more. The women in its large cast play 68 roles, bringing to life both famous figures (Sojourner Truth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman) as well as slaves, students, preachers, singers and even members of the Ku Klux Klan.
The sheer size and scope of Sisters! make it a challenging undertaking for any company. AAPACT casts by the show, mixing professionals and students, and director Rachel Finley (who also appears in Sisters!) does a decent job of blending performers of varying abilities.
Both because of the sweep of its content and the simplicity of APPACT's production, the play doesn't make as strong an impression as a more focused, more fully realized work. But it does remind us of the sorrows, sacrifices and heroism of several generations of black women.
An elegantly dressed Gail Willingham anchors the play as Sarah Louise Forten, the narrator who does verbal scene-setting and offers running commentary. The other performers -- Ya-Ya Browne, Nerlynn Etienne, Gidget Friday, Dian Harris, Jodi Johnson, Shelah Marie, Ajahnae Mason, Janet ''Toni'' Mason, Ebony Morrison, Talia Pasqualotto, Crystal Renae and Stephanie Wong -- conjure scenes of tragedy and joy.
Morrison, for example, is a young slave named Mary who comes to her mother with the news she's about to be sold. Her mother (Renae) is both comforting and stoic: There is, she knows, nothing to be done. We learn that the women pick 150 pounds of cotton a day. That an infant can be bought for $100, a 5-year-old for $500. That slave women were considered the nucleus of the labor force and the producers of wealth: children born into slavery. It is all horrible, unfathomable. And it happened.
Johnson and the versatile Etienne play an amusing bride and groom. Playing a house slave named Alcey, Renae tells a funny story of vengeance, explaining how it took serving a long-dead chicken to convince her mistress to let her work in the fields. As Susan, Browne forthrightly rebukes a pair of women gossiping about her unwed motherhood.
The production also blends movement and music -- a capella renditions of such songs as Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, Balm in Gilead, Let My People Go, Down by the Riverside, Steal Away -- to underscore the meaning and mood of the women's stories.
The diffuse Sisters! frequently reveals its roots as a history lesson designed to remind or educate those watching. But the piece undeniably moves and connects with AAPACT's audience.
© 2009 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.http://www.miamiherald.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/arts/story/945340.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment