The Difficulty Of Crossing A Field
At a single page, Ambrose Bierce’s THE DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING A FIELD is the barest wisp of a narrative but despite, or perhaps because of its brevity, composer David Lang and librettist Mac Wellman found it the perfect inspiration for an unconventional piece of music theatre. The work enjoyed a high-profile premiere by San Francisco’s ACT in 2002, but has been only occasionally revived. However, the ever intrepid Andreas Mitisek uncovered this worthy work and knew it had a place in his Long Beach Opera Season.
The plot is deceptively simple: an antebellum farmer disappears in full view of his family and friends while walking across one of his fields. Though only hinted at in the spare prose of the source material, the witness’ personalities and the effect this shocking and unexplainable incident has on their lives becomes the focus of Wellman’s libretto. Wellman’s straightforward words are used to create scenes of increasingly dense and circulatory dialog reminiscent of Gertrude Stein, though without her playfulness. The result is a hauntingly opaque experience which blends the achingly unknowable mystery of PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK with the bleak world view of Samuel Beckett.
Lang is often described as a minimalist, but that description is misleading and diminishes his musical vernacular. Most minimalist composers surrender to the tyranny of rhythm. Lang’s style is complex and marked by many subtle changes. He is also more rhythmically relaxed which allows the score space to amplify and illuminate the ambiguities of the storyline.
For this production Mitisek has abandoned his usual conducting position, but has retained his director/designer duties. The company has often used non-traditional spaces for their productions but, in this case, Mitisek decided to transform a traditional venue into an unconventional performance space. Placing the audience on bleachers in the vast Terrace Theater, the company performed on the orchestra pit elevators, down a long ramp constructed over the seats in the orchestra section, on the floor of the house and even in the balcony. This familiar scene viewed from a new perspective turned out to be the perfect analogy for this uneasy drama. Director Mitisek eschewed naturalism, placing characters in specific areas with little interaction, conveying their sense of isolation while never becoming completely static.
Perched atop a giant dress, Long Beach regular Suzan Hanson anchors the production with her carefully crafted portrait of a wife unraveling after her husband is unaccountably deleted from her life. As always Ms Hanson brings passion and musical precision to her role and she handles the undoubtedly complicated vocal line and repetitive words in a manner which feels easy and natural. Her phenomenal diction makes the supertitles near her head pointless and, in fact, the entire cast displays a welcome respect for diction. As her daughter who goes over and over the ways she might have stopped the event, Valerie Vinzant revealed a clear and beautifully produced soprano.
As the work itself straddles the border of opera and music theatre, so does the cast. From the world of Broadway, Eric B. Anthony brings an absorbing presence and a beautifully controlled head voice to the role of Boy Sam, the slave who knows what he has seen but struggles mightily to understand it. Mark Bringelson is dependably cryptic as the disappearing man and makes the most of his appearance as the Judge. Robin Buck is appropriately confused and demanding in his dual roles while the Chorus of Slaves brings a fresh viewpoint on the events and gives, what is essentially a chamber piece, a broader and more powerful scope.
Lang chose a string quartet for his orchestra and the Lyris Quartet appears half-shrouded in mist and seemingly floating above the theatre seats in the auditorium. Benjamin Makino makes a promising and assured Long Beach conducting debut, combining the disparate production elements while giving the work its musical due.
Here’s hoping that this production will spur other revivals of the piece and that Long Beach Opera’s new season will be as groundbreaking and exciting as this one has been.
Terrace Theater Long Beach June 15 & 18, 2011 www.longbeachopera.org