|
| |
|
| |
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
Cross Tides: Getting the picture
I knew "Cross Tides" was going to be a different experience for me right from the get-go: Before this community performance, director Richard Geer introduced me to a cast member with the phrase, "She's a critic," and the response was, "Lord be praised." I can say with fair certainty that in the history of drama, that was a first.
The rare surprise of being in this audience went on unfolding itself layer by layer for the next hour, and when I say being in this audience, I also mean being in the play, because I, along with a dozen others, held a "standing ticket" allowing me to move with the cast as it flowed through the piece from one small stage to another in Yoder Barn. We were able to get very close to this community of Christians from Newport News, Va. And it wasn't just proximity that delivered this intimacy, it was the relaxed openness in the faces of the people, the direct delivery of their song and dialogue, the graceful energy of their movement as their currents rippled past us. "Cross Tides" tried and succeeded in so many ways to bring us inside the shared life of these people on the banks of the James River in southeast Virginia. Reaching back into mid-century, "Cross Tides" focused on two legendary characters from the community memory, a black junk man-cum-preacher and a white, alcoholic fisherman. Through remembered episodes from the lives of Preacher Taylor and Captain Jack and the rest, "Cross Tides" sketched this place and its values, its joys and griefs, its pride and its regret. This is community performance of the variety pioneered in 1993 by director Richard Geer and writer Jo Carson in their groundbreaking work "Swamp Gravy," a play of, by and for the citizens of Colquitt, Georgia. This method demands a rigorous authenticity unseen on stage until now, a new folk-art form. Because the script is taken directly from oral histories, often in the very words initially spoken into the tape recorder, and because the cast and crew have complete control of the work, we see and hear what the community wants us to see and hear: who they think they really are. And because Geer and Carson and company ask their collaborators to face the dark side of their history too, there is a chance for a new kind of community self-discovery. The picture presented by "Cross Tides" is that of a people deeply concerned with community, with social justice, with life as they believe Jesus would have lived it, with salvation and second chances for all. Many of these values are expressed in the philosophy of the Mennonite congregation and other fundamentalist Christian churches in Newport News, and it is refreshing to experience these people as different from the harsh, oppressive religious extremists so vocal in the South. Preacher Taylor's playful gospel metaphors guide his flock to empathy, understanding and forgiveness. The people's vigorous, generous outreach to marginalized folk like the unredemptive Captain Jack, and their unquestioning inclusion of people of all races and creeds paint a more human picture of American Christianity than we have had in recent decades. The gentle humor and deep pathos in this portrayal of family life invite the viewer inside a world we have come to believe no longer exists. The emotional depth of the piece comes through in a scene where Captain Jack finds a family at the dinner table with their black hired help. He curses them, becoming particularly abusive with the women in the family. This event leads to a lawsuit against the captain, but even this does not keep the community from helping him in times of need and ministering to him as he approaches death.
Carson's spare selection of dialogue and lyrics from the oral histories creates a poetry; Iega Jeff's simple movement (choreography, by the way, for Mennonites, whose religious tradition prohibits dancing) reveals a body language; Geer's creative staging offers a glimpse through the crack of everyday life and into the heart of the place. In one sweet, domestic scene drawn directly from memory, a mother dresses her son for baseball practice, and sends him forth with the Mennonite prayer, "Joy go with you, peace follow behind." The boy briefly objects to having somebody he can't see go with him or follow behind, but she reassures him, and he walks right off the edge of the stage and onto a plank literally resting on the shoulders of his adult neighbors. As he steps from one plank to another on his way to the next stage, the message is unmistakable: Trust that we will be there for each other. But what opens this work so wide is its glorious musical harmony. "Mennonites are born singing four-part harmony," stage director Jules Corriere told me, "and the minute a baby comes out of the womb, it's dubbed bass, alto, tenor or soprano." In this particular community, song is a potent natural resource for theater. During the four-year process of mining that resource, the community dubbed it "folk opera" because it blends traditional hymns and indigenous song forms like shape-note singing with new instrumental and vocal works arising directly from the oral histories gathered during the process. The combination presents an extension of, or complement to existing traditions of the region. And a rich tradition it has become. Whether a creaky little ditty by four bonneted older ladies asking us to "Consider the Oyster," or a sea chanty about a stormy struggle at "The James River Bridge," or a deeply affecting call to worship like "O Healing River," the songwriting of Sally Rogers, the choirmastering of Marvin Miller and Jackie Hall and the friendly acoustics of Yoder Barn conspire to wring tears from the most jaded watcher. Ultimately, it is the authenticity produced by the Geer-Carson method of community performance that is so satisfying to audiences, performers and artists alike. It's what we're all after: a true picture of life in the age of spin control and special effects. A picture of, by and for the people. Watching the people of this play melt happily into the audience of their friends and neighbors at its end, we got the picture. Cross Tides: Stories from the river's edge Linda Frye Burnham is a codirector of Art in the Public Interest Original CAN/API publication: December 1999 CommentsPost a comment Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out) (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
