Joplin’s music itself defies categorization. Esie Mensah’s choreography more than fills Camellia Koo’s evocative sets (with additional designs by Rachel Forbes), which covers the floor with sand and features dangling ropes twisted together to evoke the dense Arkansan forests. The terrific 23-member company is aided by some vibrant staging by Mengesha, who again proves she is one of the few directors who can tame the unwieldy Bluma Appel Theatre. Fantastic, too, are Baker as Monisha and Kristin Renee Young as Treemonisha’s sister, Lucy. Canadian singer SATE, with her earthy and soulful timbre, is also a revelation as Nana Buluku, the leader of the Maroons, from whom Treemonisha seeks counsel. Could she, too, be a Maroon, the very people she is taught to despise?Īs the title character, Bickersteth is a standout in a brilliant cast, setting out on Treemonisha’s journey of self-discovery with starry-eyed conviction and delivering her multiple arias with shimmering beauty. Treemonisha’s conflict grows after she learns about her origin story on her wedding day: when Treemonisha was born, her birth mother also left behind a bag of luck, almost identical to the one gifted to her by Zodzerick. While in Joplin’s original story, Treemonisha is abducted by these conjurors, she is afforded more agency by Bowen and Davis, instead torn in a love triangle between her unlovable fiancé Remus (Ashley Faatoalia) and the Maroon Zodzerick (Cedric Berry).
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She lives among the freedmen, a group of farmers and tradespeople hostile to the neighbouring Maroons, feared by Treemonisha’s people for their Hoodoo beliefs. Adopted by Monisha (Andrea Baker) and her husband Ned (Nicholas Davis), Treemonisha is raised unaware of her birth story and biological mother. The backstory of the titular character remains largely untouched: as a newborn baby, Treemonisha (Neema Bickersteth) is placed in a hollow tree by her mother, Priscilla, who is shot and killed after fleeing a nearby plantation. “Ambitious” seems too light an adjective to describe their work, which injects “Treemonisha” with a timeless universality and adds complex themes of self-hate, Black identity and intergenerational trauma. No one, however, has attempted to rewrite the story of “Treemonisha” to the scale that Bowen and Davis have done. Too simple, too obvious, his story of a young, educated Black woman who becomes leader of her community in the post-Reconstruction South was boldly feminist for its era, but lacked nuance and thematic depth.
While Joplin’s ingenious score has been rightfully lauded, critics and audiences have historically effused less praise for his libretto. The success of this “Treemonisha” begins with Canadian playwright Leah-Simone Bowen, who penned a new story to accompany Joplin’s music and co-wrote the libretto with Cheryl L. At the very least, director Weyni Mengesha’s landmark production proves the opera belongs among the seminal works of the modern era. Lawrence Centre for the Performing Arts.įeaturing a new libretto and a winning cast, this version of “Treemonisha” makes a strong case that it should be the definitive one. It’s taken another 50-odd years, however, for “Treemonisha” to come into its own.įor at Toronto’s Luminato Festival, Joplin’s long-forgotten masterpiece has been ravishingly reborn for the 21st century in a triumphant production that opened Saturday at the St. Only in 1972, some five decades after Joplin’s death in 1917, was the opera first staged. Yet his multiple attempts to mount the opera were futile. The King of Ragtime’s 1911 composition is arguably his most enterprising work, a foray into grand opera that draws on classical music influences along with folk, blues and his signature ragtime style.
That Scott Joplin never lived to see a fully staged production of “Treemonisha” is one of the greatest blights in American music. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front St.
By Scott Joplin, with a new story and libretto by Leah-Simone Bowen and Cheryl L.
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