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Concert review: 'Nativity' warms spirit like holiday tradition

Ann Marsden, Star Tribune

From left, Aimee K. Bryant, Ansa Akyea, Thomasina Petrus and Cameron Hughes perform in the scene “Little Drummer Boy.” In “Black Nativity,” a family returns and leavens the grief of a widow.

New director Austene Van has tweaked and deepened the Christmas musical.

By Rohan Preston, Star Tribune

Last update: December 2, 2007 - 8:16 PM

BLACK NATIVITY: TWENTY YEARS OF HOLIDAY CHEER

What: Created by T. Mychael Rambo and Lou Bellamy. Directed by Austene Van.

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. Ends Dec. 30.

Where: Penumbra Theatre, 270 N. Kent St., St Paul.

Tickets: $35 with discounts for students and seniors. Call 651-224-3180 or go to www.penumbratheatre.org.

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In one of the most touching moments of "Black Nativity," whose 20th anniversary production opened this weekend at St Paul's Penumbra Theatre, Ginger Commodore trills "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" as fleet dancer Alanna Morris performs the role of Mary.

The dance, a solo choreographed by Uri Sands, is one of celebration for Mary, who, after being rejected at the inn while she was pregnant, has given birth anyway and is now reveling in new life.

Commodore's charged a capella singing sets the emotional tone for Morris, who, twirling and falling, spinning and floating, becomes a spirit-filled embodiment of joy.

This tear-tugging turn by Morris and Commodore comes just after the half-way point of "Nativity," which, under new director Austene Van, has been liturgically deepened, with more Pentecostal elements and more dancing, including in the aisles.

In the last 10 years, "Nativity" has moved among different venues (the Fitzgerald and Pantages theaters), styles (including avant-garde jazz) and versions. Several years ago Penumbra jettisoned Langston Hughes' meager script and retained the Christmas songs. Book-writers T. Mychael Rambo and Lou Bellamy used the nativity story to frame a contemporary one of a recently widowed matriarch (Greta Oglesby) whose grief is leavened by her returning family of grand singers.

Family coming together around the hearth is not an original story line. But it is what the holidays are all about. And in "Nativity," this is a family gifted with song.

Conducted by Sanford Moore, who has done a jazzy, scatting arrangement of "Silent Night" for Commodore and Thomasina Petrus, this "Nativity" boasts some of the best company of singers that I've seen in its recent history.

When Jamecia Bennett, a singer who puts everything from quavering voice to stomping feet into her performance, starts getting down on "Mary Had a Baby," you can feel yearning and deliverance. (It helps that as she pours her heart into song, Brazilian dancer Marciano Silva dos Santos commits his sinewy body into showing the happiness of Joseph.)

This "Nativity," which also features spotlight moments by Tonia Hughes Kendrick, Aimee K. Bryant, Dennis Spears and Cameron Hughes, is a stirring reminder of the joys of the holidays.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390