A night of song and dance that is pure revelry: a joyous voyage
with the Spring Revels
Directed by Patrick
Swanson
Musical direction, George Emlen
Set, Jeremy Barnett
Lights, David H. Rosenburg
Sound, Bill Winn
Sanders Theatre, Harvard University
Scott Alarik, Globe correspondent
Does a centuries-old Cornish celebration actually have its roots
in an even older, African rite of spring? That is the provocative
springboard the Spring Revels uses to mount one of its most gentle,
fanciful, and altogether merry productions.
The show begins in the Cornish fishing
village of Padstow, where villagers are preparing to welcome spring
with their annual "Old 'Oss" celebration. As always,
Heidi Hemmiller's costumes were gorgeous. Men in tri-cornered
hats and knickers toasted women in puffy bonnets and flowing country
gowns. Robust drinking songs alternated with charming country
and Morris dances, and children's games, which were all deftly
done.
English folk singers John Roberts and
Tony Barrand were chief ringleaders in the first act, displaying
an exquisite knack for transporting us into the ambience of ancient
songs without seeming the least affected. Their singing was lusty,
pleasantly reedy, and melodically crisp. Derek Burrows and Norah
Dooley added some colorfully told folk tales, though it was sometimes
a bit hard to hear the spoken portions of the show.
Through the ingenious device of two children
invoking the ghost of Sir Francis Drake in a quest to replace
the missing head of the "Old 'Oss" figure used for the
Padstow ritual, the cast sails to Africa. Using a handheld masthead
and ship's ribbingı the cast transformed the set into Drake's
ghostly galleon. Songleader David Coffin prepped the crowd to
join in the sea chanties with broad hollers and precisely timed
grunts.
Once in Africa, De Ama Battle's Art of
Black Dance and Music troupe took over, welcoming the visitors
with muscular dances and buoyant, pulsing songs. Dancer Zucan
Bandele was the hands-down highlight of the show with his wonderfully
realized Bagutai, a mythic figure from North Guinea. Looking like
a haystack with a pointy head, he began squat, otherwordly, resisting
the enticements of the other dancers, then rising to increasingly
more commanding heights, first to threaten, then to join the dance,
before shrinking back to original form and stealing away. The
illusion was marvelously held.
Nigerian poet Ifeanyi Menkiti was a charismatic
and convivial figure as chief welcomer of the English visitors,
and the one who paternally delivers a new "Old 'Oss"
head to the children. His throaty, vibrato-rich baritone was riveting,
whether singing or reading his own moving poem, "Before a
Common Soil."
The chorus singing was lovely especially
the 18th-century hymn "Poole," which began hushed, almost
sad, then rose to ebullience, and "The Padstow Mayers' Song,"
with which the cast led the audience out to the lobby after the
first act, and, in the end, outside to a maypole in front of Sanders.
The similarities between the African creature
and the Padstow "Old 'Oss" were striking, but, of course,
there is no way to know how these rituals began. What is more
important is understanding how similarly all our ancestors viewed
the world around them; how they worshipped and welcomed the changing
of the seasons with the same sense of hope, fear, and longing.
And at making that point, Revels has no rivals.
Copyright Scott
Alarik
