There are a couple of recurring characters that we follow through time, space, and stories. Mainly Rose and her sister/daughter/lover Pearl. They appear in various forms, along with teenager Roxy and her baby, who may also be these characters. We also see Roxy’s brother and parents, in the Usher household. And then there's someone who gets pushed in front of a subway. It defies description, but the stories truly are woven together cleverly and beautifully. Or maybe that's just the whiskey talking; during one song, an ode to whiskey, shots are passed out to lucky audience members. There's also some audience participation in the form of the passing out of percussive instruments, which provides a community feel in the intimate space at Elision Playhouse.*
As the name of the show implies, previous productions featured a quartet of singer/ actor/ instrumentalists, accompanied by Music Director Harrison Wade on keyboard. In the last few years, they've added a couple of performers on background vocals, providing a richer, fuller sound. But this year they've gone all out with a cast of 12, so that it's more like Ghost Chorus. The cast includes performers from previous productions, not all of them, but "the ones that check their email regularly," as Harrison quipped before the show (also including Ani Tonoyan, Hawken Paul, Anna Beth Baker, Quinn Shadko, Emily Hensley, Billy Medina-Gleason, Abilene Olson, Jeff Miller, Kellen McMillen, Maureen O'Malley, and Vocal Director Christine Wade). They've been rehearsing together for less than a week, but the sharing of songs and stories across the much larger cast is beautifully distributed and smoothly accomplished. The performers are seated around the crowded stage (in a good way) in cozy mismatched chairs, surrounded by too many instruments to count. Each has a moment or three to come forward to the microphone and sing a featured part, but the whole cast is singing and playing throughout. The music is absolutely gorgeous, solos and duets and full group numbers, ranging in style from sad to spooky to funny. And all these individual performers also manage to create interesting characters that play off of each other in surprising ways.
It's been three years since I've seen Ghost Quartet; since they typically do it in October, the busiest month in #TCTheater, I often am unable to fit it into my schedule. So I'm glad they're doing this special reunion show in this post-Fringe pre-season quiet time. It almost feels like a staged concert version of the show; there are music stands at the mikes, and sometimes performers refer to a script, especially for the dialogue. But that doesn't take anything away from the performance, in fact it makes it feel cozier and more intimate, like we're all just sitting around someone's living room telling ghost stories. What could be better?
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| the Ghost Chorus (photo courtesy of Theatre Elision) |
