Oh, there is nothing like an old spiritual or traditional when it is sung with deep feeling.
It can break your heart, soothe your soul and open your eyes.
That’s what happens when To-Ree-Nee Wolf sings in Invisible Theatre’s production of “Black Pearl Sings!”
Music, it’s ability to connect us with the past, express what words can’t, elevate us, is at the heart of this story about Pearl and the music that shaped her life. And it’s been a hard life; her grandparents were slaves. She was dirt poor. The love of her life died of cancer. Then the man she lived with clearly did something untoward with her 12-year-old daughter, so she took a knife and castrated him.
That last mishap landed her in prison. Which is where Susannah (Katherine Byrnes), a musicologist for the Library of Congress, discovers her. Susannah is looking for old, undiscovered traditional songs to preserve them and possibly bring her the fame she wants in order to be the first female professor at Harvard. And there’s a tinge of revenge in there, too: She once uncovered some long-lost music and a male colleague took all the credit for it.
Pearl is willing to help her only if Susannah is willing to help her locate her now 22-year-old daughter.
The Frank Higgins play at times comes off as a lecture. And it’s a stretch to pull parallels between Susannah’s struggles as a woman who fights to get the respect she deserves in a male-dominated world and the great injustices that have framed Pearl’s life.
But throw all that aside and listen. Wolf sings the bulk of the songs, most done a capella, and each note reveals unfathomable grief or glorious joy or profound belief. Much of that is inherent in the songs, such as “Hard Times in Old Virginia” and “Do Lord Remember Me.” But to hear Wolf sing them is an incredibly moving experience.
She was so present, so completely immersed in the character, that there was never any doubt: That was Pearl on stage, not some actor portraying her.
In contrast, Susannah is a bit strident and focused to a fault. It was a difficult character to portray. Still, Byrnes was able to humanize her and give her a life the script seemed to have denied her.
Susan Claassen directed this production with an eye toward allowing the actors the space they needed to drive the story home. As a result “Black Pearl Sings!” has the time to seep into our hearts. And it does just that.
As the audience prepared to leave the theater, you could hear pockets of people singing “This Little Light of Mine,” one of the better-known songs in the show. It was clear the music and its message had taken hold.
Invisible Theatre lets “Black Pearl Sings!” shine. Well done. Very well done.
