Rock Me!

“Marie and Rosetta,” Park Square Theater, December 22, 2018, directed by Wendy Knox

This play digs into the history of rock and roll and rhythm and blues, showing the powerful early role played by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1930s and 1940s.  A powerful singer, a biting tough guitar player, a pianist, a woman who joined gospel and blues together, she had been forgotten, but that is changing.  This play brings her partially back to life.

Bringing out the folk guitar for the gospel of rhythm

The play focuses on the conflict between the church-going gospel scolds and the nightclub-going happy dancers in the black community.  This conflict is represented by Marie, a young woman who Rosetta decides to bring on tour with her because of her excellent piano and vocal skills.  Marie was brought up ‘properly’ by her church-crazy mother and tries to prevent Rosetta from lyrics and instrumental styles that ‘rock.’  Rosetta on the other hand tries to blend gospel and rhythm, knowing that a huge audience is thirsting for something outside sedate choir music.  She wants ‘music with hips.’  Rosetta figures ‘joy’ joins both forms.

Part of the conflict is reflected in the continuing gag about ‘Mahalia’ as in Jackson, who at the time sang straight gospel in a more mournful and calm style, and was Rosetta’s chief competitor. 

Marie and Rosetta finally agree on a rhythmic gospel after Rosetta lays down the law, with Rosetta’s distortion-laden guitar providing part of the drive.  When Rosetta brings out the electric guitar in the play, Marie’s reaction is the same as when the audience booed Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival.  Satan’s instrument!  It’s hard to be ahead of your time, sometimes.

Tharpe in England in 1964

In the real world, Marie Knight and Rosetta were only together for a few years.  The play hints at some sexual attraction in the comments by Rosetta about Marie’s beauty.  The play has a somewhat maudlin finish, with Marie predicting Rosetta’s death in Philadelphia, her unmarked grave, her losing a leg to diabetes, along with her steep fall in popularity.  Marie further predicts the house fire that will kill Marie’s children and mother.  She also mentions Hendrix and Presley to Rosetta in her view into the future – names Rosetta is as yet unfamiliar with.  Chuck Berry seems to have borrowed his buzzing guitar style from Tharpe, but he is unmentioned.  Since the play is staged in a southern funeral home surrounded by 3 caskets, the setting is prescient.   

For her part, Rosetta schools Marie about segregation in the 1946 Jim Crow south, which is why they are also sleeping in the funeral home of a friend. Their concerts across the South took place in barns, warehouses and other out-of-the-way places where African-Americans were allowed to congregate. 

The actresses playing Rosetta and Marie are great singers – Jamecia Bennett especially blows the gospel roof off, at one point to a standing ‘O’ from the almost sold-out audience.  Rosetta’s songs are the centerpiece here – almost like you are at one of her concerts.  While Rosetta makes a comment that she doesn’t like ‘the vibrator’ used by Marie – vibrato singing - Bennett uses plenty of vibrato in her singing, which is massively popular today.  So this is somewhat confusing.  Those who are more familiar than me with Tharp’s singing might be able to explain it.  Tharpe’s performance on the 1964 Blues Caravan in a decommissioned Manchester, England railway station shows little vibrato singing. This tour was attended by and inspired future members of many top British blues bands. 

I would have appreciated more actors on stage, such as other band members, as the play was a bit claustrophobic with 2 people onstage for 2 hours.  The piano and guitars were played by musicians behind the scenes, but the actresses almost convince you that they are truly playing. It would be a bit much to sing, act, and also play piano and guitar!

The play at the Park Square Theater in St. Paul, just next to Vieux Carre, continues until December 30. It is almost the only play going that is NOT about Christmas in some way.

Other reviews on black religion or early blues music:  “The Blues – A Visual History,” “In Search of the Blues,” “Life,” (Keith Richards); “33 Revolutions Per Minute,” “Treme,” “Rising Tide,” “Searching for Sugar Man,” “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” “Red Hook Summer,” “Black Radical, (Nelson Peery).  Use blog search box, upper left.

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