There's a hard note of cynicism running through Frank Higgins' strong, interesting play, "Black Pearl Sings," which opened Friday night at the Grandel Theatre as a St. Louis Black Repertory Company production. The author's point seems to be that whether the goal is as crass as money, fame and power, or as noble as motherhood and equality, someone out there will lie, cheat and steal to reach it first.
Higgins' two-person drama covers a couple of major flaws with bright, intelligent performances from Denise Thimes as the title character, Alberta (Pearl) Johnson, and Shanara Gabrielle as Susannah Mulally, the scholar and musicologist who discovers her in a Texas prison. It has been playing the regional theater circuit for almost two seasons, with stops in Washington, D.C.; Sarasota, Fla.; Kansas City, St. Paul and San Jose, Calif., among others. Higgins lives in Kansas City and is on the faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
The play, with its characters' genders reversed, is admittedly based on the story of the great Texas singer and songwriter, Huddie Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly. He was discovered by John Lomax, who traveled the nation in the 1930s, finding folk singers and recording their songs. A 1976 movie, "Leadbelly," written by Gordon Parks, with Roger Mosley in the title role, covers similar ground.
This version, set in 1935, offers Thimes as Johnson, serving time on a Texas prison chain gang (even in Texas, women did not serve on chain gangs) for performing what can be called Lorena Bobbit surgery on her husband-lover-friend. Being a victim of abusive behavior may be sufficient reason but I got the impression that the man also was a sexual threat to Johnson's daughter. And the daughter has recently gone missing, leaving Mom distraught.
Gabrielle, as Susannah Mulally, is an excellent contrast to Thimes, both physically and as a character. She's from a wealthy family, though the relationship is splintered, and she has similar problems with men, though hers are more professional than personal. But in 1935, when Harvard had no women students and almost no women faculty, it seems odd that she's involved with a university research project, and that she could get a grant from the Library of Congress to travel to south Texas.
We can put them in the file labeled "willing suspension of disbelief," however.
After a rocky and suspicious start, certainly understandable on the part of Johnson, they begin to see the mutual benefits of working together. Thimes' rolling, sumptuous voice, under perfect control by sound designer Robin Weatherall, is a great St. Louis treasure, and the slender, sometimes-perky Gabrielle, driven by ambition, is a fine balance. By the way, this is her third local production in four months, following the title role in Upstream's "Cooking With Elisa," and an appearance as a Witch in the Rep's "Macbeth."
As trust grows, and Johnson begins to see advantages like money, contacts, help in seeking her daughter, she expands her singing, offering–mostly bits and pieces–a range of song selections including "This Little Light of Mine," "Hard Times in Old Virginia," "Don't You Feel My Leg" and "Do Lord Remember Me." A duet on "Little Sally Walker," with demonstrations of some classic bumps and grinds, is fun.
Mulally helps arrange a parole and takes Johnson to New York, just as Lomax did with Leadbelly, where they stay in a gorgeous Greenwich Village apartment, part of Christopher Pickart's scenic design. It's an interesting play, nicely performed under calm, excellent direction by Andrea Frye, but the warning remains–how true is altruism?
Black Pearl Sings, a production of the St. Louis Black Repertory Company, is at the Grandel Theatre through May 15
—Joe