Review: Penumbra's mystical, experimental 'Spittin' Seeds' hits in the gut

It's unusual to see a bottle tree onstage anywhere in the Twin Cities.

An African totem that came to the Americas via the Middle Passage, the bottle tree is placed outside of homes to capture spirits. It is a touchstone in Penumbra Theatre's "Spittin' Seeds," a mystical experimental work rooted in a hunger for wholeness and healing that premiered Thursday in St. Paul.

Staged by Penumbra president Sarah Bellamy, this courageous show is a departure from the strongly linear narratives on which the St. Paul playhouse has built its reputation. Instead, "Seeds" functions like a piece of music. Its themes and leitmotifs around resilience and memory recur in dance, in chorepoems and in compelling music delivered by composer and singer Queen Drea.

In the prettiest of tones, Queen Drea sings a witty tell-off song, the name of which can't be printed in a family newspaper, but her delivery of the tune is a highlight of the show. Because it's so pretty but with a caustic message, the song also gives new meaning to the phrase "Minnesota nice."

"Seeds" also occasionally feels like an impressionistic arts installation, with striking design elements, including Afro-futuristic masks and Miko Simmons' invitingly beautiful astral projections.

This densely poetic and visually arresting show portrays a slice of life in an urban community.

Crafted by playwright Erin Sharkey, Queen Drea and a cohort of artists commissioned by the theater in 2019, the one-act is a layer cake of artistic visions. The worlds don't clash but coexist, offering a kind of mirror of how some people live, with the past and present at once and with the earthly realm intersecting with the spiritual.

The images in the show include a young mother with a stroller (Kyra Richardson), who dreams of safety for her child, and the joyfully flirtatious dance duo of Orlando Hunter and Riccardo Valentine, who also move as masked ancestors. Most of the action is watched over by downhome Shoo Mama (Aimee K. Bryant) who, from her porch, offers a kind of protection for the youngsters.

In all, there are 11 performers onstage, including newcomers Michael Seye, Kalala Kiwanuka-Woernle and actor-dancer Tumelo Khupe. Together, they dance their way between the urban and the rural, the physical and the metaphysical.

Structurally, "Seeds" feels like it could be a daughter of Ntozake Shange's "For Colored Girls Who've Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf." At other times, it's a cutaway of a neighborhood streetscape.

If the production is not always clear about where it wants to go, it still shows promise as Penumbra, like other theaters, reemerges from this pandemic and social justice crucible.

The theater is charting a bold course with this experimental show. In that sense, "Seeds" is an apt title — a theatrical planting of new, hoped-for growth.