Joyful noise
American Stage's Crowns fills the park with on-your-feet gospel and show-stopping solos. Oh, and fabulous hats.
By JOHN FLEMING
Published April 9, 2006
ST. PETERSBURG - African-American church hats in all their splendor supply the rationale for Crowns, the Regina Taylor musical that launched a new era when it opened Friday night at Demens Landing on the downtown waterfront. The hats are terrific, but the best thing about the show is its vibrant mix of gospel songs.
With a cast that includes the amazing Sharon Scott, there is some major vocal firepower at work in exhilarating numbers such as When the Saints Go Marching In , Wade in the Water and I'm on the Battlefield for My Lord .
Scott and her talented colleagues also have a flair for raucous down-home humor. Moms Mabley, the great vaudeville comedian whose cornpone shtick was a staple of 1960s TV variety shows, could have been the muse for this production.
For the first time in 21 years, American Stage is presenting something other than Shakespeare in the park, so Crowns might be seen as having a tough act to follow. But trying to come up with a fresh take on Shakespeare every spring had become a burden to the company, and Taylor's gospel musical is a bold departure that brings back energy to the park.
The show was inspired by a photo book by Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry that documents some remarkable headgear as well as quirky, often hilarious social history and customs. Take the "hat queen" rules: Don't touch the hat, don't knock the hat and don't hug too close.
Nothing succeeds like excess, apparently, when it comes to hats. As an exasperated husband says to his wife, "You don't need another hat. You only got one head," to no avail as her hat collection expands into the hundreds and requires the construction of shelves in the basement.
More seriously, Taylor's play seeks to turn these tales about hats into metaphors for life, pointing out, for example, that "the idea of adorning oneself for worship is a holdover from African traditions."
Crowns is loosely constructed around the story of Yolanda, a hip-hop home girl from Brooklyn. After her brother is shot, Yolanda is sent to live with her grandmother in South Carolina. There she is taken under the collective wing of the black matriarchy, a community of hat-proud churchgoers whose spirit transforms the young woman.
Annie Lee Moffett gives a touching performance as Yolanda, ranging from rap numbers to a folk song about how she doesn't know "how to be one of them who clap and pray and sing."
The other women in the cast - Scott, Rose Bilal, LaDonna Burns, Yolonda Williams and Fredena Williams - play less individually defined characters, functioning as a kind of chorus, though each has a star turn or two. Scott is like a force of nature in sensational blues shouters, and her comic timing as a holy-rolling minister's wife is perfect.
Yolonda Williams, a peppery belter, has a showstopper with her spoof of a snooty church soprano in His Eye Is on the Sparrow . Bilal lays down a great groove in uptempo songs such as (This Joy) The World Didn't Give It To Me .
Ranney is the only man in the cast, playing minister, father, husband and other characters with appealing warmth. He has a soulful solo worthy of the Rev. Al Green, If I Could Touch the Hem of His Garment , with the women as a powerhouse backup group.
A highlight is the wailing harmonies of We're Marching to Zion , which replicates the sound of a backwoods church congregation praising the Lord. The score's funky arrangements are deftly played by music director Vince di Mura at the keyboard and Errol Wise on drums.
Todd Olson directed, and he went for the broad humor in Taylor's play, making it more of a party piece than the serious-minded slice of African-American history that it could be in a different staging. Olson knows that park audiences want to have a good time.
American Stage has a new one-size-fits-all set, designed by Olson and John Malolepsy to be used in park productions for years to come. The huge scale of the structure diminishes the impact of costume designer Amy Cianci's colorful, outlandish hats as viewed from a distance.
At times the stories dragged, such as one about shopping for a hat at a formerly whites-only store, or another about putting tobacco worms in a sister's head scarf. Normally , Crowns is performed without intermission, which probably wouldn't work in the park, but with a break inserted about two-thirds into the show, the second act felt truncated.
Like many a Shakespearean romance or comedy that ends with a wedding for no reason other than to wind things up in orderly fashion, Taylor's musical concluded with a ceremony, Yolanda's baptism. It didn't seem very persuasive.
But no matter. There was more joyous gospel music to bring the crowd to its feet at the end.