‘SCENE’ AND HEARD

Masterpiece Season’s latest production creates an operatic tragedy, includes impressive vocal ability

by Maya Cantu, contributing writer

“Ain’t it awful, the heat?” sings a quartet of ethnically-diverse women at the start of “Street Scene,” the operatic urban tragedy presented by JMU’s school of music.

For the Italian, German, Jewish and Irish immigrants whose interwoven stories the show chronicles, the oppressive tenement heat is the least of their worries.  There is poverty, crime and the shifting morals of the modern world to deal with — all of which come together in a murder that shatters one little corner of New York City’s melting pot in the 1930s. 

The show’s focus on all kinds of Americans is what makes it relevant today, said senior ensemble member Colleen Pettie.

JMU’s production of “Street Scene” lacks dramatic power and friction, but director Don Rierson has assembled a vocally talented cast that makes the challenging score soar.  The score features music by the German-born Kurt Weill, lyrics by poet Langston Hughes and a book by Elmer Rice (who adapted it from his own play). Rierson also has added touches of Bertolt Brecht in the show’s staging, set and expressionistic lighting design. Brecht, a former collaborator of Weill, is known for his socially conscious and emotionally distancing works. 

The show’s set would have made Brecht proud. The bottom half is a realistic representation of a tenement, but the upper story is comprised of pipelines and window frames. Despite some ramshackle upstairs furniture and two garbage pails, however, the house seems too cleanly pretty — as if there was a Home Depot next door. The desperation of its denizens’ lives is missing from “Street Scene,” although the show, which is sometimes quite charming, fares better in its lighter moments.

Some of those residing in the cramped house are the Fiorentino, Olsen, Kaplan, Jones and Maurrant families. It is the latter around which the plot hinges. Married to an abusive drunk (played by junior Thomas Florio), Anna Maurrant (senior Erin Crowley) is having an affair with milkman Steve Sankey (sophomore Nathan Shropshire). Meanwhile, her lovely daughter Rose (senior Shelley Milam), a secretary who yearns for a life of love and freedom, is torn between the smooth-talking Harry Easter (junior Matt Duré) and sweet law student Sam Kaplan (senior James Meyers). Everything ends in tragedy, which forces Rose to leave the tenement to pursue her dreams.

Vocally speaking, just about everyone in the cast is up to par, and a few are standouts — Milam, who has a gleaming voice, sings a ravishing ballad called “What Good Would the Moon Be?” and Meyers’s tenor richly conveys the emotional weight of “Lonely House,” in which Sam expresses his alienation amid gossipy, nosy neighbors. Sophomore Jacob Odmark and junior Laura Yanez bring sexy vivacity to the stage with “Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed,” (and they dance professor Suzanne Miller-Corso’s swinging choreography with flair). Crowley, as the tragic Anna, gives the most nuanced performance and brings depth as well as a gorgeous mezzo-soprano to “Somehow I Never Could Believe.” At times, however, the skilled orchestra overpowers the singers.

Despite its flaws, “Street Scene” is worth seeing if only to hear its glorious score performed by such fine vocalists.