Every family has a story. Well, truth be told – a LOT of stories. But how many families have not one, but two Robins Hood to call their own? What are you waiting for? Open another browser window and order those tickets!
Meet the Sisters Clarke! Angelica Chéri’s real-life great great aunts were the American version of Robin Hood in the Texas of the late 1800s. Mary and Martha were twin sisters and their father was white. Their skin was very light, enough to “pass” as white, and when the family was in dire straits, these young women decided to make a virtue of their situation and take advantage of those who had long taken advantage of their family. These women are renegades and this musical is a fitting tribute, towering and monumental as Mary and Martha themselves.
It can be difficult to wrap our 21st-century brains around the 19th-century world rife with racism, classism, sexism – it’s when the “-isms” were becoming more solid, and less underground. Yet, much of the struggle the Clarke sisters had is still happening today. Collaborators Ms. Chéri, who wrote the book and lyrics based on family lore, and Ross Baum who created the music, have illuminated sepia-toned history books to full and vibrant color. Paper Mill’s opening night audience felt the susurrating waves of emotion radiating outward from the story unfolding on the stage. Spontaneous reactions burbled out from the audience like sporadic raindrops. One here. Two there. And as if it were a symphony for audience, the movements of reaction and love reached out to envelope us all.
Originally debuting immediately pre-COVID, this remarkable musical has a chorus of ancestors. These are the Kinfolk who clue us in that the bones of the story are based in truth. Tallulah Clarke (Jeannette Bayardelle) is the hard-working mother who keeps her children in line, for the most part, and her daughters Mary (Ciara Renée) and Martha (Liisi Lafontaine) follow their mother’s footsteps. They determine that their mother deserves better than the treatment she’s been receiving at the hands of Mr. Billingsley (Jason Sweettooth Williams) and thus is the spark that ignites the Gun & Powder.
Ms. Renée’s power and range get full measure in this music. She and Ms. Lafontaine have a near blood-harmony, that usually only heard in people actually relatives, and that alone is pure delight. Ms. Renée has an aching richness and haunting beauty on “The Way I Am” that reaches in and squeezes your heart, especially if you’ve ever had yours broken. Ms. Lafontaine’s “Trigger” is her Hamlet, the torturous machinations of the brain creating, then jumping, it’s own hurdles. Her heart is in every word as she contemplates the ultimate betrayal of one she loves. Both songs set up the lightning bolt ending of Act 1.
Songs like “Frenchman Father”, sung by Fannie Porter (Katie Thompson) and raucous good fun and “Dangerous” and “Invisible” with Flo (Zonya Love) and Sissy (Aurelia Williams) bring the house down. Flo and Sissy, with their dry, wry razor-sharp observations provide the subtitles of what we’re all thinking. Neither has a thought they didn’t say out loud. Always where the action is, you can count on Sissy and Flo to be in the know. And the love stories – each begging the question whether we love the actual person, or the person we believe someone to be. Mary is smitten immediately with Jesse Whitewater (Hunter Parrish). Mary is the more shy of the two sisters and she falls for the golden-haired smooth talking ne’er do well. The feeling is so obviously mutual when the lady killer is tamed by Mary’s gentle ways. But we know what Mary knows – there will indeed be a reckoning. The greater the love, the greater it will be. Martha lives in her lovely glass castle, until first Elijah (Aaron James McKenzie), then Flo and Sissy reveal Martha’s truth. And that gives Martha the germ of a plan. Elijah was intrigued when Martha first arrived in Jesse’s drawing room and he is drawn inexorably into her maelstrom both willingly and without power. McKenzie’s face shows Elijah’s every emotion as well as the contents of his heart. Beauty, love and truth. Truth to power. Phenomenal performances, from every member of the cast.
Memorable? Yes! Thrilling story? Yes! Unforgettable performances? Yes! YES! YES! Visit papermill.org and get tickets for your friends as well. This musical of outrageous fortune plays only through May 5 and you have to see it for yourself. Congratulations Paper Mill!