This scene evokes an identical motive from the musical.”Fun house“, in itself a grasp class in parent-child reasoning. Both approach, the viewers already is aware of the daddy’s will To go away too quickly, leaving the kid to consider unshared truths. As anybody who has been swept away by a beloved one after which misplaced them earlier than reconciling understands, the instant loss burns and the lingering guilt ignites. However whereas “Enjoyable Dwelling” emphasised that irreparable tragedy, “The place the Mountain Meets the Sea” comes subsequent. Dueling views and a story that transcends time towards emotional liberation.
Augustine penned this mild fantasy alongside the Bengsons, a married folk-rock duo whose elegiac interludes punctuate and ethereal gentle on the story with out overwhelming it. The music comes within the service of two interwoven monologues specializing in journeys separated by a long time: whereas the daddy, Gene, remembers a Florida-to-California journey he took together with his spouse when she was pregnant, his son, Jonah, 34, recounts making the identical journey in reverse earlier than prose… His father’s ashes.
Inhabited by Robert Cornelius together with his simple allure and honest sincerity, Jean finds a silver lining to undermine Scrooge’s each grievance. Certain sufficient, he traded his profession as a instructor in Haiti for making a residing dealing with individuals’s baggage on the Miami airport. He additionally laments his “monster” landlord, bemoans the US training system, and insists that the sands of Florida don’t have anything on the sands of Haiti. However with a smile and the occasional track, he enjoys the American dream nonetheless.
His son feels much less snug with the opposite. Performed by Isaac “Deacon Izzy” Bell – a DuPont Brass singer who made his stage debut in “Strange passage” On the identical Signature ship stage a yr in the past – Jonah is an eccentric man struggling to know his roots and connections when he decides to retrace his dad and mom’ steps. Alongside the way in which from Los Angeles to Miami, an encounter with a Nigerian lover begins to reset his fraught relationship with intimacy.
Cornelius and Belle are joined in director Timothy Douglas’s good stage present by musicians Awa Sal Sica and Rob Morrison. (They symbolize Abigail and Shawn Bengtson, the present’s creators, who carried out within the play’s 2022 premiere on the Manhattan Theater Membership.) Taking part in guitar, banjo and all method of percussion, the charismatic duo infuses the area with a sort of soulful Americana. This reminds Jean of Haitian people songs. Right here lies one in every of Augustine’s cleverly drawn traces: The effectiveness of sound, sight, and odor as stimulants that stimulate reminiscence.
Tony Cisek’s Rustic Assortment, a wood backdrop lined with an epoxy-like river design, is strikingly coloured in hues of blue and inexperienced. (Harold F. Burgess II is the lighting designer.) Dane Figueroa Edidi’s choreography imbues the motion with endearing embraces and parallel pictures in focus, as Jan and Jonah crisscross time and area with out interacting. If Douglas’s group of “Violet” Signature’s 2022 exhibition was a feat of the utmost emotion, and this disciplined endeavor is a tribute to the veteran director’s storytelling prowess.
Jonah’s wild trip ends with a poignant and comforting epiphany, however the easy ending made me want Augustine had laid out extra runway earlier than arriving at this inevitable destiny. Nevertheless, there’s something to be stated for the heart-pounding peaks of “The place Mountain Meets Sea” over the course of simply 80 minutes. It is a musical about fathers and sons, at the beginning. But it surely’s additionally concerning the immigrant expertise and their sexuality. Identification and self-reflection. Grief and launch. In different phrases, there may be lots of terrain. However is not that what street journeys are for?
The place the mountain meets the oceanby way of July 7 on the Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia, about 80 minutes. sigtheatre.org.
