CDs: We Are Descended

The Light in the Piazza appears to have lifted the curse that for a time seems to have plagued musicals presented by Lincoln Center Theater. In recent years, the company has flown in the face of the prevailing trend toward self-regarding musical comedy by admirably attempting to present serious, non-ironic musicals with often challenging scores. But Lincoln Center Theater musicals like Marie Christine, Parade, Thou Shalt Not, and A Man of No Importance were either weakly received or failed to find a sizable audience. Of course, one can't entirely overlook Lincoln Center Theater's big hit with Contact. But Contact was a dance-based piece rather than a traditional musical, and had neither a new score nor live singing.

While Piazza was preparing to open upstairs at the Vivian Beaumont, running simultaneously downstairs at the Mitzi Newhouse was another new musical, Dessa Rose, which, opening just a few weeks before Piazza, found itself still a part of that unsuccessful LCT musical cycle. It opened on March 21, 2005 to largely negative reviews, with critics finding the show earnest but unconvincing, with Lynn Ahrens' book receiving the heaviest criticism. Dessa Rose played out its limited run and closed on May 29.

Based on the novel by Sherley Anne Williams and with a score by Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, Dessa Rose, set in the mid-1800s, imagined a relationship between two real-life characters, one a pregnant slave who escaped and led a rebellion, the other a Southern belle who took in runaway slaves. The story was presented as an oral history, with the actresses playing the slave Dessa Rose and the Southern woman Ruth shifting back and forth from embodying their characters as young women and as eighty-year-olds. The show was directed by Graciela Daniele, who had previously worked with the authors on Once on This Island and Ragtime. Playing the title role was LaChanze, who had previously appeared in the same two Ahrens and Flaherty shows.

JAY Records has in the past shown its commitment to Ahrens and Flaherty with recordings of Once on This Island London cast, Lucky Stiff York Theatre cast, and A Man of No Importance, Lincoln Center Theater's previous Ahrens and Flaherty show. But what must be noted immediately here is that JAY has recorded Dessa Rose in its entirety, dialogue and all, and the show thus ranks as one of the few non-sung-through shows to receive a complete recording.

And for such a short-lived production, the CD packaging is remarkable, with a slipcase containing a small, hardcover book with flaps holding the CDs along with notes, a detailed synopsis, the complete script, and color photos.

The decision to record the show complete may at first appear questionable. The two discs JAY has accorded Dessa Rose run over two hours, which may limit the number of replayings, particularly as a great deal of the recording is dialogue, most of it underscored. But in Dessa Rose the score is seamlessly woven into the book and the show shifts constantly from music to dialogue. So a single-disc version would have been choppy and difficult to pull off.

And there's little reason to complain when one has such an excellent-sounding recording of every note and word of a show that disappeared fairly quickly but deserves to have a future. Dessa Rose may contain Ahrens and Flaherty's most complex score, not as overtly tuneful as the team's other work, and not possessing a great many extractable songs. But certain numbers do stand out. In the first act, a stirring ensemble opening, "We Are Descended," is followed by Ruth Rachel York's lonely "At the Glen," Dessa's touching "Twelve Children," and "Capture the Girl," sung by the writer Michael Hayden who becomes involved in Dessa's story. In the second half, there's "The Scheme" for Nathan Norm Lewis, the slave who becomes Ruth's lover; the quintet "In the Bend of Your Arm"; and "White Milk and Red Blood" for Dorcas Kecia Lewis, Ruth's nanny.

If the score of Dessa Rose is ultimately less memorable than several other Ahrens-Flaherty scores, their work is never to be dismissed, and, like all of their shows, Dessa Rose is consistently intelligent and intriguing. And the cast is uniformly fine. There are strong contributions from Lewis and Hayden, but the show is inevitably carried by its leading ladies, LaChanze in a role almost as large as her current one in The Color Purple and York, who are both superb.

This recording makes an excellent case for a show that could very well see life in regional productions.

DEBBIE GRAVITTE: DEFYING GRAVITY JAY

Here's another one of those enjoyable career retrospectives that JAY gives us from time to time. The artist in question is the dynamic Debbie Gravitte, and she's singing songs from most of the shows she's done on Broadway. We get her long-awaited first recording of "Junk Man," a song she performed in the Frank Loesser revue Perfectly Frank; Gravitte stopped the show cold with it, thereby getting her first major recognition. She was one of the three female alter-egos in They're Playing Our Song and also understudied star Lucie Arnaz; it's good to at last hear Gravitte sing the leading lady's big ballad, "I Still Believe in Love." And we get the title song from the songbook revue Blues in the Night.

From Jerome Robbins' Broadway, Gravitte naturally includes the song that won her a Tony, "Mister Monotony." Gravitte recalls her limited engagements on Broadway in Les Miserables "I Dreamed a Dream" and Chicago "When You're Good to Mama". Gravitte appeared to good effect in Encores!' The Boys from Syracuse, and here she pulls off the considerable feat of singing all three voices featured in the trio "Sing for Your Supper." The singers in the number are billed by the three names Gravitte has gone by in her career: Debbie Shapiro, Debbie Shapiro Gravitte, and Debbie Gravitte.

Stretching the concept a bit, she sings "Only Love" she was a principal in the Broadway revival of Zorba, but didn't sing that song in the production and "Time Heals Everything" she was in the London concert version of Mack and Mabel but didn't get to sing that one either.

From shows she hasn't done and roles she hasn't played, there are "Memory," "Some People," "Don't Rain on My Parade," and "If He Walked Into My Life." She begins the recital which includes a couple of previously-released tracks with an arresting rendition of a major current Broadway number, "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. And most of the selections are heard in their original orchestrations.

This disc is notable for big renditions of big songs. From a terrific "Some People" to a still-grand "Mr. Monotony," Gravitte is fully up to everything, delivering it all in that sizable, creamy belt. The songs are sung to a fare-thee-well, and it's a pleasure to hear her.