Religion is not my personal cup of tea (with or without honey) in any form. Watching the new musical The Secret Life of Bees, I was surprised how powerfully the case was made for fervent belief. It’s 1964 in the American south. Not being white is a troubled proposition. A century after the Emancipation Proclamation, people are still being murdered for the color of their skin. A movement expanding civil rights and eliminating discriminatory voting barriers like literacy tests is encouraging people to do their part. That environment can be dangerously toxic.
Imagine a country where governmental leaders use threats to suppress a group of people based on their racial profile. What about providing unequal and inadequate education to those same citizens? While parallels can easily be drawn to the harshly racist conservative movements in today’s America, this fictional tale is a cousin to Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Set in the same general period, all three are reminders of our very recent history. These trials and tribulations may not seem new but the necessity of telling them has clearly not abated.
Which brings me back to the religious angle that passionately separates this particular tale from the others. August lives in her grandfather’s home with her sisters. They are in the business of making honey. The label on the jar is a picture of a black Madonna. They have a statue of her carved into wood which they use during their Sunday ceremonies. They are joyously devoted yet desperately seeking healing and guidance to see them through difficult days. You can palpably feel their spiritual connection to generations of their ancestors. Clinging to hope that salvation from oppression can and will arrive. The strength to live each and every day until that freedom shines.
When these ladies come together to raise the roof, the score by Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening, Alice By Heart) and lyrics by Susan Birkhead (Jelly’s Last Jam, Working) soar. The gospel tinged “Tek A Hol A My Soul” and the second act showstopper, “Hold This House Together” dig into deep wells of emotion. Escaping their own personal troubles together, Lily and Rosaleen will learn about love, life, compassion and beekeeping from these women.
Unfortunately, the director Sam Gold has staged this musical like a reading with a few chairs and some props. The shiny wooden floor doesn’t make any sense. I cannot think of a show which had lighting as harshly unflattering as this one (Jane Cox was the designer). I presume they were going for hot white sun in the south. Or perhaps, like the Oklahoma! revival, they felt a need for super bright lighting to starkly illuminate the evil lurking in America (a new theater trend?) Instead, real moments of intense emotion were bizarrely devoid of any atmosphere whatsoever. In addition, cast members sitting around on stage watching scenes rarely added anything but I guess they were needed to move the tables and chairs around.
Amazingly, the cast is so strong and Sweat author Lynn Nottage’s book is so well told, I was able to see past the visual disjointedness and be drawn into the emotional core of the material. LaChanze (Once on This Island, The Color Purple) is astonishingly fine as August, the matriarch of this clan and soul of this story. With her gorgeous singing voice and fully developed characterization, all of her interactions and conversations felt organically believable.
Lily is the young white girl who arrives and is taken under August’s wing. Critical to this success of this show, Elizabeth Teeter (The Crucible, Mary Poppins) nailed her complicated persona. She’s the Scout of this story and hers is a much darker tale. The chemistry between her and Zachary (Brett Gray, excellent) from early friendship development to more significantly complex yearnings were beautifully handled.
Manoel Feliciano plays T-Ray, Lily’s abusive father. The performance is ideal in its ability to make this evil man multi-dimensional. Nathaniel Stampley’s Neil woos and woos June (Eisa Davis). Their exchanges fuel the beating heart of hope and the dreams of perseverance. This entire cast is stellar, including Saycon Sengbloh (Eclipsed) in the juicy role of Rosaleen, the character who seemingly grows the most as events unfold.
Importantly, the music is extremely tuneful and nicely varied from full throttled gospel to quiet piano ballads to dramatically executed a cappella. Even the lighter, more musical comedy number “Fifty-Five Fairlane” was fun. If the lyrics occasionally seem a tad generic in a self-help style, that feeling gets washed away by these exceptional performances. The Secret Life of Bees can be even better than this production. Given how much I enjoyed this musical, that is something to look forward to experiencing.
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