- OTHER MEDIA
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- Jesus and his extraordinary Mississippi moonwalk
- by Chad Jones in TheaterDogs.net (March 21, 2010)
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- Quilts and buttons are stars and stories in Marcus Gardley’s deeply
lyrical, undeniably beautiful …and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi,
now at the EXIT on Taylor in a co-production of The Cutting Ball Theater
and Playwrights Foundation.
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- On the theatrical spectrum, this is the exact opposite of the sitcom-ready
Sunset and Margaritas now at TheatreWorks (read my review of that play
in the Palo Alto Weekly here), which is to say this is challenging, thought-provoking
material given the kind of sharply etched production that inspires curiosity
and wonder. There’s nothing easy about Moonwalks, and that’s
a good thing. Gardley, working with director Amy Mueller, weaves myth,
folklore, American Civil War history, personal family history and musings
on race in this country.
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- That’s a lot to fold into a nearly 2 1/2-hour production, but
Gardley and Mueller do it with the assistance of a fantastic set (by Michael
Locher) that represents the night sky with buttons and plants an ominous
hangman’s tree in the planks of the floor. The small but versatile
stage (beautifully lit by Heather Basarab) is a battlefield after the siege
of Vicksburg, a shattered Louisiana plantation and, most amazingly, the
soul of the mighty Mississippi River.
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- Nicole C. Julien plays Miss Ssippi, the embodiment of the river that
wends its way more than 2,300 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. She sings like
a soulful angel (with sterling backup by her chorus, Rebecca Frank, Halili
Knox and Erica Richardson), and she refuses to take sides in the divisive
war raging around her. But like a goddess in the Greek tradition, she does
take an interest in human lives and isn’t afraid to lend a helping
hand (wave?) and assist in leading folks to their fate.
- In Gardley’s story, a freed slave named Damascus (a riveting Aldo
Billingslea) is searching for his beloved, a slave named Poem (pronounced
po-EMM). But Damascus is captured by Confederate soldiers and hanged from
that terrifying tree. Jesus (in the form of David Westley Skillman, who
occasionally tries to moonwalk to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”)
decides to resurrect Damascus so he can continue his quest, but now the
strapping man will be a woman named Demeter (echoes of the Demeter-Persephone
myth here), and she has an extremely limited time to find Poem before death
comes calling for real this time.
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- Damascus/Demeter is led to the ramshackle Verse plantation, where Cadence
Marie Verse (a fierce Jeanette Harrison) is attempting to keep her daughters
(Erika A. McCrary and Sarah Mitchell) and home together even though all
her slaves have fled except for house servant Brer Bit (Martin F. Grizzell
Jr.), who has a grand plan of his own (and it’s not good for his mistress).
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- There’s a tangled tale of romance and betrayal coursing through
this plantation, so it’s hardly surprising that Damascus/Demeter’s
fate lands her at this particular front door, where a Confederate roamer
(David Sinaiko) and a shamed Yankee soldier (Zac Schuman) enter the fray.
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- It’s the story that compels, but it’s Gardley’s writing
that fascinates. Interspersed amid some gorgeous spirituals, Gardley pours
poetry over the drama and lets it cascade like water down a fall. The rhymes
and images are so plentiful it would take a second viewing to appreciate
them all.
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- Powerful, mesmerizing and complete with bolts of humor and tragedy,
…and Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi is an intimate epic that pulses
with power and beauty.
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