GHOST QUARTET – Music, Lyrics and Text by Dave Malloy; Directed by Amanda Berg Wilson; Music Direction by Jeejay Maccariella. Produced by The Catamounts (presented at the Dairy Center, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder) through February 8th. Tickets available at TheDairy.org.
I have been mentally comparing this production with the lively amazing presentation of NATASHA, PIERRE, AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 in my mind ever since I saw it and just noticed in tiny print on the front of the program that both scripts were created by the same composer. Mr. Malloy seems to have been writing random songs for some time and somehow found a way to connect them all in a rambling and rambunctious set of stories about a family through several generations and centuries. What a treat this was! You never know what you’re going to get from a Catamounts production, but you can always count on it being different, unusual, thoughtful, and professionally put together. This show is no different.
First of all, the setting. The Scenic Designer Gleason Bauer and Prop Coordinator Linda Lea seem to have robbed the back rooms of most of the theatres along the Front Range to gather together an assembly of furniture, rugs, set pieces, and tschotske’s to create a glorious mash-up of a comfortable hoarder’s salon. It has a wild abandonment about it that captivates and intrigues. The audience sits on sofas, giant poufs on the floor, at cabaret tables and chairs, or pretty much wherever you like. A hint: To see all the performance, sit in the back center or sides on the raised platforms. The performing spaces are divided and if you’re too far front, you’ll miss some of the antics of the performers in the center. I learned the hard way.
Secondly, the music and stories. It’s a convoluted set of stories that follow – more or less – the members of a family that come back together generation after generation in new personas through reincarnation. One character explains to another “I was your sister, your lover, your daughter.” Starting in 14th century Persia and progressing forward in time through 17th century Germany and Japan to 19th century England, finally landing in modern-day New York. It’s perhaps not as important to dwell on the details of how this is accomplished and just enjoy instead the journey and the music. Trust that it all comes together on stage and in your mind. You are strangely moved by these divergent stories and family myths that do not have to come to any conclusions or resolutions to be intriguing and enjoyable on every level.
I wish the program could have included a listing of the songs; I was so intent on listening to the lyrics that I missed writing down the gist of the songs. The melodic way they blended and weaved in and out of the stories was mesmerizing. Some were mournful, some jaunty, some purposeful in the story of the moment, some just downright fun. A delightful homage to the healing powers of four types of whisky comes to mind. It had to have been “Four Roses – Maker’s Mark – Jameson’s – and (maybe) Loch Lomond” as drinks were poured into tea cups for the audience. And some songs were just sad as the characters went through a growth of understanding and depth of recognition of the transitory nature of life. It was easy to build sympathy for these characters on their separate journeys as they connected and then broke apart.
Thirdly, the performers. Jeejay Maccariella plays many of the male characters, but gender is unimportant within these stories; Courtney Navarre, Neyla Pekarek, and Maggie Tisdale share the load of seventeen story-tellers. Through solos, duets, and quartets, all the while playing instruments as they sang, their expressive voices brought you along with them through the centuries. Even when they weren’t actively involved in a song, their expression while listening to another person singing added to the story. Director Amanda Berg Wilson corralled the bits and pieces of this strangely wonderful find of a script into a meaningful experience.
I’m not describing well the experience of this production. I think that’s because everyone will take away something entirely different from the person sitting next to them based on the personal experiences they have brought into the theatre with them. Just as most of us found NATASHA and company the liveliest production they saw last year, most of us left the theatre opening night believing this would be the most lively show they would see this year.
A WOW factor of 9!