The Cry Pitch Carrolls

The Cry Pitch Carrolls

Ruth Margraff's opera The Cry Pitch Carrolls is rich and poetic, replete with hyperbolic language and cursory epiphanies, and as I watch Salvage Vanguard Theater's revival of it, I become less interested in analysis and surrender to its imagistic pleasures, allowing the lure of voice, music, body, and light that enliven the space onstage to drown my greedy addiction to linear, cerebral, and logical understanding. It feels better to relax in this plush, cloudlike dream than to force meaning from it. It kinda happens organically.

The architecture of a manger is the set in this production. Inside this allusion to the nativity, an adult Small Christus curls below the outstretched arms of his mother, allegorically named the Amazing Bible Smuggler's Wife. As played by Dana Clark, she drips perpetual compassion tinted with abandonment issues; her cries are so beautiful that it is difficult for the impious to believe her desperation. When pretty things turn ugly, we tend to dismiss rather than invite. Director Jason Neulander, who uses alluring stagecraft here, is smart to revisit this show that addresses the darker shadows of religion and memory.

Three crotchety old widows in a small Michigan town upstage the perplexing duo, who seem to be homeless and yet mysteriously stationed in the snow-covered yard of Edith, one of the ladies. The other two, Norma and Alice, see that Edith's poodle has run off and try to fetch the creature. They discover the Wife and child in the process. When Small Christus, played by Bradley Carlin, throws snowballs at their bundled bodies, they laugh heartily and chatter like bystanders witnessing a marvel. Can this messiah's abnegation be forfeited for a little bit of fun? Must he always be the drab and bloodied body on the cross? Lee Eddy's comedic posing as Norma complements the forlorn depth of Elizabeth Doss' Alice. Shawn Sides cleverly uses varieties of vocal tremolos and wavering crescendos to enhance Edith's fragility.

Ruth Hutson's lighting colors the whiteness of the set in flashy bolts or intense curtains of red and orange when treacherous pangs of sad memories over dead husbands overwhelm the peaceful bliss of the blue wintry season. Golden Arm Trio plays succulent melodies lingering between nostalgic psalms and coarse vibrations that seem plucked from a soul's tattered past. The instability in physical movement of Carlin's Small Christus generates suspense and immediate curiosity. His honeyed voice easily transitions to raunchy rage, which prompts the question: Do I continue to sympathize with him when he seems, understandably, so emotionally volatile?

As the show slows to a tender conclusion, it appears there can be much joy in letting go of sacrificial traditions. Once the widows forgo their grief, they can be fresh and young again, with hearts burning cozily warm to keep the soul toasty during freezing times.