the rolling stone: get tickets, don’t delay

So this will be brief.  After seeing THE ROLLING STONE tonight, my advice? Read no more, just get yourself tickets.  It will sell out for sure.  This production is political theatre that strikes with a charm and intelligence that never lets you look away.  Multi-themed and superbly delivered, it is a work which collides matters around sexual orientation, human autonomy, religion and women’s education for one’s immediate contemplation and later disturbs your sleeping with considerations of grief and loss and hatred .

We meet Dembe.  He’s 18, it is Uganda and he is a devout Christian worshipping at the altar of his older brother, Joe, who has just been made a pastor.  He and his sister Wummie have been left poor after their father’s death but their neighbour, Mama is adopting of the 3 and has Dembe picked out for her daughter Naome.  But Dembe knows himself, he feels the presence of God and just as clearly understands that he is homosexual.  When he enters a relationship with Sam, an Irish born doctor it is a dangerous time. A paper, ‘Rolling Stone’ is publishing, based purely on hearsay and rumour, the names and photos of local men who are suspected of being gay.  And they are being murdered by mobs.

British playwright Chris Urch has created a play which brings richly developed characters into a bare space and lets them talk.  And sing.  This production is infused with music, ‘Let It Shine’ hymns to cleanse the palate before the horror of hate speech escapes some lips.  Other mouths are meant for love and Dembe and Sam’s first date is so delicately constructed as to be joyous watching.  Just two men talking … floosy flirting, sharing, growing toward each other.  With some delicious comic moments.

Elijah Williams makes such a lovely Dembe here.  Young yet certain, discomforted but courageous his character work is delightful to watch.  Through the play, his Dembe will be sure in places, conflicted in others but always with a true heart and an empathetic spirit.  He is well matched by Damon Manns as Sam who brings us a loving and faithful man to stage.  The relationship is beautifully written, sexually jubilant without being graphic and the rapport between Williams and Manns is most enjoyable.

Also powerfully drawn is the character of Joe played by Mandela Mathia.  Right from the first scene where he is controlling the other’s grief at their father’s funeral, he is powerful and commanding.  And his voice work is thrilling to listen to.  He can pound the bible and raise the roof or come down into a whisper that any old time preacher would be proud of.  Equally exciting to enjoy is the work of Nancy Denis as Mama who lights up the stage as soon as she hits it.  Easily dismissed early as a mother ‘type’, Denis imbues her creation with intricacy such that the reveal is believable and emotionally confronting.  And she has a killer a capella.

Also bringing complexity to her role is Zufi Emerson as Wummie.  It’s not just race or orientation or the poor treatment of the female in her speech about love, it’s everyone who was ever betrayed by another in inequity.  The cast is rounded out by Henrietta Amevor as Naome, a pivotal but background role which Amevor handles with charisma and a wicked smile when she finds something attention-grabbing.

Directed by Adam Cook, THE ROLLING STONE keeps its finger on the audience’s pulse by cleverly balancing the lighter moments with the intent of the piece avoiding any one-note ‘worthiness’.  The movement around the bare set impresses but it is in the final scene of the play that Cook’s steady hand is most evidenced.  It is a long scene, but modulated to foreground our own responses rather than overlay an emotion.  I went out of my way to bring tissues with me to the show on the assumption that the themes of the work were going to be upsetting.  It’s upsetting right enough but the intellect is required to fully immerse in the production’s conclusion.  Left and right brain engaged equally.

A lesser director might have thrown a musical underscore at the emotion but here there is simply, elegantly, a cicada hit of the outside world.  Just one of the stunning elements of Nate Edmondson’s audio design.  Completely eschewing any cultural appropriation the audio, music and soundscapes both, simply sneak in under events to highlight emotion or response. “Do you love me?” comes with a slight sound effect to render the answer ambiguous.  A boat on a lake barely surrounded by noise, an ‘I’m outside’ hit of cicada and masterfully, a sudden cessation, a pulse and a fade in the music score at important moments.  Not to mention the evocation of cello and strings into the second act after interval.

Similarly restrained is Sian James-Holland’s lighting.  Blue booster and warm ambers in the main, to envelop the cast or, on occasion,  smoothly isolate or set them aside on the deceptively bare stage.  Isabel Hudson’s set is amber sand shining below blue walks streaked with mould for sure, the centre section raised on pallets and floored with burlap.  A shanty by any other name.

So not as brief as I may have lead you to believe early on.  My enthusiasm for THE ROLLING STONE has got the better of me.   It is blindingly good … impassioned and compassionate, intelligent and emotional.  Go see for yourself, but get your booking done soon.

THE ROLLING STONE is playing at the Seymour Centre until July 21st.