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Theater review by Raven Snook
Is there anything more dispiriting than a séance where the ghosts don't show up? That's how I felt watching the Signature Theatre Company resurrection of Heather Christian's breakthrough opus, Animal Wisdom, a musical-memoir-requiem that introduced audiences to this sui generis composer-performer-pianist. The piece's 2017 world premiere at the Bushwick Starr heralded the arrival of a bold and ambitious artist descended from a "matrilineal line [of] New Orleans Catholics who are also musicians who suffer migraines and talk to dead people." Thankfully, Christian's conjuring of her own origin story was filmed in 2021. (You can watch excerpts from it on PBS.)
Animal Wisdom | Photograph: Courtesy Ben Arons
The Signature’s version of Animal Wisdom marks the first time that someone other than Christian has performed the work, which is delivered directly to the audience with no fourth wall in sight. Kenita R. Miller acknowledges from the outset that these are Christian's stories, not hers, but that she'll be "stepping into them." With her warm, welcoming presence and powerful, throaty vocals, Miller seems well-chosen to make the material sing in a different voice. But instead of transcending into the divine, much of the evening remains stubbornly earthbound.
Animal Wisdom | Photograph: Courtesy Ben Arons
That isn't for lack of vision. Director Keenan Tyler Oliphant has gathered impressive collaborators: Emmie Finckel's in-the-round scenic design transforms the space into a lush garden festooned with twinkling Christmas lights, keepsakes and curios, such as bronze baby shoes, a Coca-Cola machine and religious statues; Masha Tsimring's dramatic lighting evokes the heavens. The excellent six-piece band provides harmonious support throughout, and a few members even play small but pivotal parts.
Animal Wisdom | Photograph: Courtesy Ben Arons
Yet the most important piece of the experience is missing from the center. As a conduit for the spirits (mostly kin) who have haunted her, Christian was the one who connected us to the next plane and made sense of her nonlinear and frequently difficult-to-follow narrative. Although she sings beautifully, Miller never shakes the sense of being a stand-in, especially when sharing Christian's most personal stories about her granddaddy, her grandmother and her godfather.
Animal Wisdom | Photograph: Courtesy Ben Arons
Animal Wisdom improves as it moves away from autobiography and embraces Christian's obsessions with time, space, existence and the cosmos, which she later explored so compellingly in her masterwork Oratorio for Living Things. The final section, a mass for the dead performed in disorienting darkness, is glorious. As Christian's pop, blues, gospel and liturgical score washes over us; we're transported somewhere sacred. In those late moments, at least, I became a true believer.
Animal Wisdom. Signature Theatre Company (Off Broadway). By Heather Christian. Directed by Keenan Tyler Oliphant. With Kenita R. Miller. Running time: 2hrs 10mins. No intermission.
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Animal Wisdom | Photograph: Courtesy Ben Arons