BRIGHT LIGHTS
Luminato kicks off with Nicole Brooks’s epic opera and the culmination of Susanna Fournier’s trilogy,
Obeah Opera (out of 4) Created, composed and directed by Nicole Brooks of Asah Productions. Until Saturday at Fleck Dance Theatre, 207 Queens Quay W. LuminatoFestival.com or 416-368-4849
Multi-talented and multi-creative Torontonian Nicole Brooks brought her epic Obeah
Opera back to the stage for the 2019 edition of Luminato on Thursday. It is an awesome and awe-inspiring creation that is as frustrating as it is impressive.
The audience at the Fleck Dance Theatre inside the Queen’s Quay Terminal was treated to 165 minutes of singing and movement by a 20woman cast (plus 20-minute intermission). On top of being the opera’s creator, writer, composer and director, Brooks also played the central role of Tituba, a slave whose healing powers condemn her to death.
Obeah Opera has been in development and on occasional view for the past decade. The germ of an idea — depicting the Salem witch trials in late 17thcentury New England through the lives of slave women — has blossomed into a full, grand operatic spectacle.
It is all the more impressive that the fully sung storyline is performed a cappella, with the women’s bodies and period costumes colouring the air with percussion and swish.
The main voices, most of them local talents, are excellent and modulated with remarkable precision in a show that is all about ensemble work. Tu Nokwe, from South Africa, deserves a special shout-out for her charismatic presence as the elder figure.
Brooks has stitched together nearly every conceivable musical style in bringing her story to the stage. This includes gospel, jazz, R&B, pop, old hymns, spirituals and Afro-Caribbean genres. The whole is performed with spirit and confidence. Kudos to musical director Melanie DeMore, who is based in New York City.
Bonnie Beecher’s lighting is notable for its atmosphere and subtlety. Robin Fisher’s spare, flexible set and simple costumes help focus attention on the performers. But the stage is filled with movement that is a bit too constant, which is one of the areas where Obeah Opera falls short of greatness.
The work’s biggest failings are a lack of focus in the narrative and weak characterization. On the surface, Brooks is addressing the wretched injustice of the Salem witch trials, but her focus is really on reanimating and remembering the silenced and forgotten slave voices in American colonial society.
The slaves, plucked violently from their African villages, were not only separated from their families but also their cultures, languages and spirituality. They were denied their humanity. Obeah Opera restores that humanity to its rightful place.
Along the way, the witch trials become a sort of window dressing, the characters drawn as caricatures rather than real people with whom we can identify. In the end, Tituba is a strong symbol of endurance, but we are left with little idea of who she really is as an individual.
And the show is probably a good half-hour longer than it needs to be.
The printed program makes no mention of a dramaturge, very often the voice of perspective and reason when a creatorperformer gets caught up in their artistic dream.
Obeah Opera has the makings of greatness, and it’s a visually and vocally engaging evening of musical theatre. That is already an accomplishment.