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| Sam Stuto and Shannon Johnson; photo: Tim Raab |
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"The chances that trouble gives you..."
A. There are miracles. B. There is community. Add them together and you get the reality of theater, particularly resident theater where the company’s core group stays the same and the family aspect expands as needed. For the New York State Theatre Institute known as NYSTI, in its 34th year as a community and family nothing seems clearer than the need to make a miracle. The fact that this company often produces family-friendly shows combined with the fact that this particular show, King Island Christmas, is based on a children’s book combined with the family/community aspect of this company and the way they work makes the miracle happen.
In one hour and five minutes a through-composed - which means the music never stops - show with 49 people on stage tugs at even the most hardened hearts and releases from the mind the cares of the everyday world. King Island Christmas, set on an island in the Bering Strait off the coast of Alaska, is about to be frozen in for the winter, abandoned by the larger world until the spring thaw in April and May. The island’s few residents, mostly Inupiag Eskimos with an oral history tradition, are anticipating the supply ship, North Star, which will deliver supplies and the visiting priest to light the holiday candles. The ship, though it arrives on time, is threatened by encroaching ice and the small boat, the Oomiak, cannot get to it. The islanders perform a daunting challenge and they carry the heavy, walrus-hide boat over the high peak that forms the center of the island to a leeward bay where the ice won’t form and the ship is able to meet them and provide them with their long winter’s needs.
While that is the story, there is so much more to discover in the short time it takes to retell this legend. Don’t think you know it all because I’ve told you what I’ve told you. There are ideas here, philosophies, a religion based less on religion than on the belief that the world will return the light, for above the arctic circle there is very little light except for the miracle lights.
"The miracle of light" they sing, "light the candle..." and Father Carroll, the visiting priest tells us "I came up here to teach of love, but I’m the one who’s taught." The characters are so well drawn, and so well played by a company that astonishes with their talent, that from the minute the villagers set out on their Noh Play-like journey, willing to sacrifice for one another, to the final blackout, there is nothing but high emotion, love and tears of empathy and joy.
Playing the boat itself, The Oomiak, is the very talented, and hopefully lightweight, David Girard. He has been good before but never better than he is here. In the narrator’s role is Paul Carter who sings with joy and pathos and gets us believing long before we need to believe that we are witnessing an event, and not a play. Sam Stuto plays Little Eir whose role in this show is most essential. He is the harbinger of arrivals, of hard work, and of love. His mother is played beautifully by Shannon Johnson who sing "The Gift of Trouble" magnificently.
John Romeo has rarely been better or more sympathetic than as the Storyteller, singing and mesmerizing as he goes. David Tass Rodriguez is a joy as Father Carroll, tall, strong, almost magnificent in his resolve to do his best for these people reminding them that beauty abound in the long dark winter as the northern lights remind them of both redemption and resurrection.
Others in the cast who do their absolute best work (watch their faces when they’re not singing - the involvement is so real it’s heartbreaking) include Carole Edie Smith, Heather Bee Chestnut, Ron Komora and every one of the village children.
Director Patricia Birch has worked her rhythmic magic on this show. Her choreography is simultaneously unreal because it is synchronized movement and far too real for the same reason. There is a naturalness to every step, including the descent from the mountain as the villagers return the Oomiak to the shore and usefulness. Birch has guided each actor into playing a realistic character and kept the people and the proceedings as real as real can be.
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