Der neue Merker

Vienna’s English Theatre: BLACK PEARL SINGS!

Vienna’s English Theatre hits the jackpot with the play, „Black Pearl Sings!“ by Frank Higgins; if Vienna truly is the theatre- and opera-capital it claims to be, this performance ought to be the hottest hit in town. The author achieves the impossible by wedding the many facets of the American colour problem to both a delicious humour and to a political awareness; the whole is laced with pointed wit and cutting edge and garnished with wonderful „black“ songs.
This sort of thing can, of course, only function if the role of „Black Pearl“ is realised in a first-class manner; here, Carole Alston proves to be a choice in a million. She presents us with a performance which is masterly both acting- and singing-wise, the like of which one doesn’t often see.

(…) The battle of wits between the two women is magnificent; during the course of it, we witness the gradual disintegration of the white woman’s stance who has, till now, regarded her black fellow-citizens with the arrogance of an ethnologist dealing with a species that is odd and, of course inferior. Pearl, for her part, makes it quite clear that black self-esteem is on the same level as white. Once she is being marketed on Broadway as a singer, we are witness to humiliating scenes out of which, not unexpectedly, Pearl emerges as victor.

This is most certainly a „well-made play“ with carefully considered effects which gets its intentions across whilst remaining unfailingly entertaining; this is achieved, firstly, through the discrepancy between the two characters and, secondly, through the quality of the musical inserts. Carole Alston sings superbly (a capella the entire evening, with a voice so rich and full that it obviates the need for any accompaniment); so, one has the feeling there can never be enough music during the evening which forces her partner to remain on her toes; Adrienne Ferguson, for her part, plays her spinsterish role very well indeed (…)

Matt Sykes-Hooban manages to transform the simple prison room of Act I into a New York artist’s apartment in Act II (…) and Akin’ Babatunde’ ensures a battle of wits of the very highest standard. Don’t miss it!

Renate Wagner
13.09.2012

Der Standard

English Theatre: Let go in the hips!

Frank Higgins’ „Black Pearl Sings!“, now running at Vienna’s English Theatre, is a play in which contrasts meet head-on. It is possible to be in chains and yet remain freer than anyone free to move about at will. It takes Pearl, a prisoner (Carole Alston) with an iron ball at the end of her chain, to show stiff, cramped-up and uptight Susannah (Adrienne Ferguson) how to get the hips swaying when dancing.

In Frank Higgins’ “Black Pearl Sings!”, directed at Vienna’s English Theatre by Akin’ Babatunde’, the contrasts clash head-on (…)

The play is, at times, somewhat melodramatic, but Alston and Ferguson give subtle character studies. They reveal the fears and the weaknesses of these two superficially so strong and resolute women. Ferguson’s Susannah is so determined in her ambition, so fiercely school-ma’am-ish that her voice turns to a shrill caterwaul when she sings. Alston’s Pearl, equally strong in will and voice, occasionally gets stuck in childlike obstinacy, thus barring her own way. In the last resort this is a play about a friendship through which the pair is able to grow close; and so let go in the hips.

14. September 2012

Wiener Zeitung

Black-white women’s power wins through!

(…) „Black Pearl Sings“, a play about emancipation, racial discrimination and the personal battle for one’s rights, is inspired by a true story. They were, in fact, two men, John Lomax and Huddie Ledbetter who caused a furore throughout the USA with their African-Folk performances.
At the English Theatre, actresses Carole Alston and Adrienne Ferguson give such convincing performances that many a member of the audience is moved to tears. The songs, performed by Alston a capella are worth a visit in themselves.

Alexander Mathé
26. September 2012

The Vienna Review

Black Pearl Heart Break

In the search for a cultural heritage, Frank Higgins’ masterpiece reveals a deeper passion through song

In the 1930s, America was a grim place of intense poverty and shattered dreams. But out of the dust and desperation a deep, low song arises, rich with history, pain and heart. This is what musicologist Susannah Mullally has been searching for, and it will change her life.

In Frank Higgins’ beautiful stage play Black Pearl Sings!, two hours of soulful folk and blues classics pour forth from a woman’s deep well of suffering through the glory of a human voice. These songs are born of bondage, and released through the provocation of opposites. But while the interaction alone makes for fine theatre, it is the musical gravity that truly packs the punch.

Susannah, an ambitious musicologist for the Library of Congress played by Adrienne Ferguson, is searching for African songs that arrived in America on the slave ships. She meets Pearl, a hardworking, black mother from South Carolina’s Gullah island people, imprisoned for murder. Sensing Pearl holds a key to true African song, Susannah tries to record her songs for the Library. An immense talent is revealed. But Pearl, in a heart-breaking performance by Carole Alston, will only participate if Susannah helps find her missing daughter. Pearl is granted probation, and Susannah’s dreams of bringing Pearl’s gift of song to the public is realised in a New York debut.

Inspired by the interactions between musicologist John Lomax and blues musician Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter, Higgins has crafted a story of a vanishing chapter of American musical history and the societal perceptions of it. Like Lomax, Susannah is intrigued by African folk songs, but her understanding is limited and her viewpoint condescending. Pearl sees this, and plays her own game. Under Akin Babatunde’s finely tuned direction, the women’s collaboration comes alive with crackling electricity. With their decisively different takes on “Little Sally Walker” (Susannah’s is lily white; Pearl’s is grunting and saucy), sparks fly.

Susannah is unflappable: Discovering a rarity could mean a scholarly coup, and score her a posh job at Harvard. Her star-maker relentlessness turns her every action into a strategic move, and erodes any trust Pearl might place in her.

If Ferguson’s Susannah has the unsettling slickness of oil, then Alston’s Pearl is the water, an unquenchable fountain of soul that gives the play its depth. Alston’s voice is a pool of light, shimmering and resonant. Her wit is sharp, her defence fierce, and her resolve unyielding.

Director Babatunde has staged a delicate social theme showing its complexities and rawness, and the music he layers into the production strike a chord that mere words never could. Pearl sings with very little instrumentation, and instead of pouring her heart into song, her heart pours out of it. She uses music to distract a jailer (“This Little Light of Mine”), to annoy Susannah (“Do Lord, Remember Me”), to avoid a difficult subject (“Hard Times in Old Virginia”), and to mourn (“Six Feet of Earth”). As emotion takes hold, her voice springs to life; songs are her emotions.

Susannah is a patient listener, taking in Pearl’s grim heartbreak. Yet she never seems affected by it. A Teflon Woman, her regard for Pearl’s memories and pain is uncompassionate:

“I’ll give you a cigarette for a song,” Susannah offers at one point. Pearl shoots back: “You don’t get my soul for a cigarette.”

It is heartbreaking to see Pearl work so hard for Susannah, and be belittled in return, including by a music critic who christens her “black Pearl” – and not as special or rare. “Black Pearl” slides off the tip of his pen like inky oil, smudged and thick with its own toxicity. Even Susannah doesn’t get it; she’s so engrossed by news coverage raising their profile, she doesn’t see that Pearl’s enthusiasm and energy have evaporated. Everyone sees this pearl as an oddity, a circus attraction, instead of “a speck of sand that stuck with it.”

It takes true heartbreak to shake Susannah out of her dream world. And here Ferguson and Alston really shine. Seeing a shattered Pearl, a stunned Susannah is finally compelled to reach out and touch Pearl for the very first time. Pearl now sings and finally looks at her as a friend. It is a reconciliation, the two women joined by song. However, it’s exhausting to watch: An Austrian man sitting nearby let out a deep sigh at the “rollercoaster of feelings.”

In the end, while Black Pearl Sings! weighs heavily, Pearl’s soothing, soulful soundtrack of memories are a sweet lullaby of hope – hope that people indeed can change, and the knowledge that pain can be transcended through music.

Jodi Keen
01.10.2012