Sunday night’s opening at MetroStage was a fanfare affair. Not only did the press come out in full force (not always easy to get in the crowded local theater market,) being in the audience felt like a reunion of sorts, with some of Washington’s big performing talents gathered who have graced MetroStage over the years. It felt like downright royalty entering when William Hubbard, homegrown Alexandrian and composer of the work, was walked in to take his seat.
The show was mounted in part to mark 35 years of Producing Artistic Director Carolyn Griffin’s service in the theater community and before the intimate up-close-and-personal space is bulldozed in the name of condo-progress. To date, Three Sistahs has been produced four times by MetroStage. That’s how much Griffin loves this work.
When people are talking about diversity (and you can bet they are in the local theater community as elsewhere,) and specifically a commitment to telling the stories of people who identify as African Americans, you need to look no further than Griffin’s track record. One can look around at many major theaters scrambling to put up programming that reflects stories of such representation. Griffin’s been doing this all along. And with many original productions featuring local African-American composers and performers. And in Old Town Alexandria.
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I saw the other productions of Three Sistahs, and this one may have outshined them all.
A chief reason is Roz White, recast in this version as the oldest sister Olive. If Hubbard is King, she may be rightfully called “Queen” – as in she’s got that singing thing coming from down in her toes like the Queen of Soul, Aretha herself. White anchors this work not only with a voice that has matured into magnificence, but she has the emotional depth to deliver a journey of transformation and reconciliation. White also demonstrates here she is a comedian of fine instincts and timing and doesn’t shy away from getting down, and I’m saying way down. Let’s just say she set the house roaring with laughter in a song stuffed with physical clowning about adolescent exploration at a sixteenth birthday party (“Basement Kind of Love”) followed by a true exhibition of female libido getting unleashed with peak sexual initiation and liberation (“Barely Breathing.”)
Three Sistahs as a work gets its foundational strength from the collaboration and no- holds-barred experience of a female perspective (Idea for the book by Janet Pryce) plus male perspective (the work is written by Thomas W. Jones II.) Pryce knew to mine the dramatic relationships of a family of sisters and hone the conflict of Anton Chekhov’s Russian drama Three Sisters. Jones knew instinctively to “dress” that inspiration in the 1960’s, driving the story with a fluid text and choreographic style of the then popular girl-group trios with their tight harmonies, synchronized gestures, and carefully manicured personas.
Jones integrated choreographic style is stamped all over the show, and his direction has never been honed more sure or seamless. The fast emotional shifts and nuanced tone changes are shaped, each and every beat so clearly set out, that though the piece moves like a roller coaster of dramatic highs and plunges, the audience can follow the thrill of the ride without once getting lost.
Set in 1969 in DC, the three sisters have gathered a year after their father, a veteran of WWII, has passed, coming together again to bury their brother, a victim of the Vietnam War. The storm that was American society at that time feels palpably real in this recreation –- when the civil rights movement, the nascence of the female liberation movement, and the Vietnam protests were all colliding and being played out in homes across generations and politics.
Costume Designer Michael Sharp has created a wonderful look when the three women at the top of the show first appear in the audience, dressed in black for mourning. Their elegance and solidarity make for a memorable moment, as the women sing the stirring “In My Father’s House.” It’s a strong start to the show. Inside the house, the women change their shoes for slippers and pajamas and that’s when they let their hair down. Things spoken get careless and downright nasty. (In other words, it’s a family.)
Like in Chekhov’s play, the eldest sister, Olive, has dedicated herself to the unglamorous life of teaching. The character is modernized, no longer a country mouse schoolteacher, instead she has the brains (and the degree) of a professorship. What we learn in the show however is that she would have traded it all in for “a baby and bassinet.” More importantly, in setting up the dramatic conflict that drives the work, she is the one who came home and took care of Daddy during his long illness and feels it’s her prerogative therefore to make the family decisions. White doesn’t shy away from showing the bitterness and reined in frustration of the woman.
The other two sisters are also strongly cast. Their characters are, to my mind, mined farther afield than Chekhov’s sororal characteristics. (Masha, the middle sister, was after all written for and played by Chekhov’s wife, a Moscow actress, and the centrality and complexity of that role in unparalleled.) Marsha in this work is more superficial and as someone who has sold out to achieve the suburban middle class security. Kara-Tameika Watkins has grabbed this less sympathetic character, filling the role with a jumpy “hissiness” like a cat on a hot tin roof. You recognize in the gifted actress’ portrayal the very real repercussions of making the choice of a compromised life.
Ayana Reed is delicious as the headstrong activist Irene who seems to her sisters to have gone “Angela Davis” on them. Reed navigates well the back-and-forth quest for identity, one moment being strongly “in your face” about her political and gender role convictions and the next being emotionally a puddle and sexually naïve. Reed has a powerfully expressive vocal instrument, but I do worry in this show as in Marie and Rosetta, the show I saw her in last (at Mosaic Theatre,) that she is often asked to create a sound that is manipulated and well below her healthy voice range. When she is given the higher register in the harmonies, or a song as featured in the second act, she seems more at ease, and we get to hear her authentic, breathtakingly beautiful voice.
The small quibble aside, when the three talented singer-actors come together with their gorgeous harmonies they just nail Hubbard’s rich score, moving the audience through a journey of gospel, soul, R&B, bebop and funk. As enjoyable as the show is taken as pure musical entertainment, the way the music advances the story and provides the glue for the dramatic conflict makes structurally a superbly sophisticated work of music-theatre with fine musical direction from William Knowles.
Although there are scenes of dialogue, so compressed and at times underscored, the show moves and feels almost through-composed (and choreographed.) I might make a case for Hubbard & Jones having successfully adapted the form into a “ hip” modern opera. What you will, it’s a show you’ll want to stamp, stomp, “swim,” and “do the mash-potato” for!
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Three Sistahs. Music by William Hubbard. Story by Janet Pryce. Written, Directed and Choreographed by Thomas W. Jones II. Music Direction by William Knowles. Set Consultant by Carl Gudenius. Light Design by Alexandre Keen. Costume Design by Michael Sharp. Sound Design by William G Wacker. With Roz White, Kara-Tameika Watkins, and Ayana Reed. Produced by Metro Stage. Reviewed by Susan Galbraith.
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