Saturday, May 01, 1999
'Strings' comes alive when Andrews sings
BY JACKIE DEMALINE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
“Why are you always singin', Mama?” asks a character in Appalachian Strings. Her mama tells her, “Alas for those who don't sing and die, for they carry all their music with them.”
That's pretty much at the heart of Appalachian Strings, an agreeable collection of traditional songs, dances and personal stories (culled from the Smithsonian's Folk Life Center) that closes out the mainstage season at Playhouse in the Park.
Co-creators Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman move the action more or less chronologically from the Irish and Scottish immigration to America and the mountains and, a century later, from the mountains they love to cities where there is work.
Each of the eight performers is assigned specific duties:
Sandra Silva clogs up a storm, Melinda Deane does a lot of the narration that connects themes, Adale O'Brien and Bob Burrus play generic older folks. Tony Marcus, L.J. Slavin and Jason Petty play banjo and guitar, the pennywhistle and even a saw.
There's a patchwork feeling to Strings that keeps it from being involving. For all the stories of everyday courage in the face of hardship and disasters (a flu epidemic, a flood), for all the charm of tall tales and folk wisdom, for all the sense of embracing those rare moments of joy, Strings is only truly moving when Molly Andrews sings.
Her voice is the real thing. A lot of her songs are laments, and she makes you listen to the words and feel them.
The show is performed on a picture-postcard set by Vicki Smith. Misty morning light shines through the blooming junipers behind what might be a cutaway of a mountain cabin on the Blue Ridge. You can almost hear birds chirping and water rushing down a nearby creek bed.
Strings tells of moonshine wars and mining. It tells, too, of a people always forced from their homes, whether it's famine in Ireland or a flood in West Virginia that washes away the top soil (“a lot of Eastern Kentucky lies in the Gulf of Mexico”).
Lifelong farmers are suddenly taking the Trail of Tears north from the mountains they love to cities and work and loneliness and hostility.
One of those cities is Cincinnati (there's a nod to WCKY in the '50s and its Hillbilly Hit Parade). Our strong Appalachian heritage makes Strings feel like it's coming home.
Appalachian Strings, through May 28, Playhouse in the Park. 421-3888.
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