“How many more?”
That simple, chilling question became a continuous heartbreaking refrain Thursday night, a common thread weaving together the tragic stories of multiple, everyday, archetypal, modern Black Americans (and the people who love them) in Marble City Opera Company’s passionate, life-affirming production of Leslie Savoy Burrs’ and Brandon J. Gibson’s “I Can’t Breathe.”
The opera’s opening night debuted to a sold-out crowd at Beck Cultural Center and ended with multiple rounds of bows to a thunderous standing ovation.
Gibson, the managing director of MCO and the librettist who penned the story, says that a major focus in most of the scenes for each character is on their individual lives and the richness of the their relationships, experiences and inner thoughts – the time before the encounter that often makes a victim into a two-dimensional headline, distorted by media reports and bad-faith commentary which distracts the casual reader or viewer from considering their inherent humanity.
The show soon goes on the road, as the company reports that “an agreement negotiated by MCO founding executive artistic director Kathryn Frady will allow three other companies, Opera Columbus, Cleveland Opera Theatre and Pacific Opera Project, to present separate productions of the opera following the Knoxville world premiere.”
The sold-out crowd Thursday night was buzzing in anticipation as Beck Cultural Center filled to the gills with local artists, politicians, academics, activists and opera fans who have followed Marble City Opera Company’s unique offerings in the past, as well as folks who have been closely engaged with Gibson’s creative process, as he often publicly self-reported on his own mental struggles on social media in the wake of the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd deaths at the hands of police officers, among others in a concentrated period, as he was also quarantined at the beginning of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.
Gibson says that the compassion and love from his friend and colleague Frady for him and for the victims in the cases – along with her and other white friends’ desire to help and to understand the systemic issues at the root of the problem – was the inspiration for focusing the opera on just how relatable these victims are when viewed through the lens of a whole person with hopes, dreams, regrets, beliefs and more, as opposed to the sterile and reductive way they are often described on the news and in police reports.
The series of vignettes came to life Thursday night with a dynamic score by composer Leslie Savoy Burrs, as conducted by Garrett McQueen, host of the “Trilloquy” podcast. The exceptional 10-piece orchestra and house pianist/resident music director Brandon Coffer brought to the proceedings a dynamic classical, operatic, symphonic and avant-jazz energy. The music roiled and rollicked, creating intense friction and tension and characterizing alternately playful and tender moments with jaunty and soothing melodies, respectively. The collective then would swell to intense crescendos in each vignette and in the finale, evoking strains of agony, defiance and joy into one harmonious, emotional chord.
These characters’ lives are “forever changed when innocent interactions with law enforcement go wrong,” according to Gibson’s press release for the event. “The opera highlights how things like good manners, a clean-cut appearance and compliance with orders too often can’t protect people of color from being treated as inherently dangerous.”
The characters, as Gibson shared in an interview prior, as well as opening comments delivered by video before the show, are archetypes, and are named as such: “The Mother” (soprano Jayme Alilaw), “The Athlete” (tenor Breyon Ewing), “The Thug” (bass-baritone Jacob Lay), “The Scholar” (Benjamin Burney), “The Father” (tenor Maurice Hendricks) and “The Lover” (mezzo-soprano Laura Thomason), and a heartbreakingly silent performance from “The Child,” the stage debut for Avery Clayton. Each of these characters bears a resemblance to an individual who faced a similar situation in real life in recent years, including Trayvon Martin, Botham Jean and more.
The cast, joined at the introduction and finale by amazing chorus members Michelle Clayton, Robyn Maker and Teyah Young, carried stakes with their names etched on them, defiant and unified in voice to end the show with the title and mantra, which the audience sees throughout the production as not just a reference to these characters’ deaths but other vital, poignant moments in their lives that took their breath away – falling in love, starting new ventures, grieving loved ones.
Another striking observation was the toll these scenarios take on the characters’ mental health. The titular phrase often was used when a character experienced intensely painful grief or anxiety. Even if the audience members all were not necessarily experienced in the topical matter, the painstaking details Gibson included in rounding out their personalities, as well as the human moments they shared in their interactions, showed that, when a life is cut short, so much is lost to that person – but also to their family, friends, lovers and community.
The show was brought full-circle when the characters meet in the afterlife and realize they are on different timelines but had grieved or publicly commemorated or marched in memory of or in protest on behalf of each other. They all had become famous, much more than they’d ever wanted, and a striking line in the finale occurred when the cast adamantly expressed the sentiment that they “don’t need another martyr.”
Stage management team Jonathan Clark (stage director and executive director of Carpetbag Theatre), Sierra Hammond (assistant stage director and production director for Opera Huntsville) and a team of volunteers kept the changeover times minimal and the lighting and sound cues tight and effective, as well. They also coordinated the stream to those virtually attending the performance. Friday and Saturday night’s performances are sold out, but virtual tickets can be purchased at Marble City’s website.
