The Passion of Saint Anthony

A review of various historical threads may help put Tuesday night’s performance of “The Temptation of St. Anthony,” an invigorating and often heart-rending collaboration between Robert Wilson and Bernice Johnson Reagon, in perspective.First, there’s St. Anthony himself, the third-century hermitic anchorite whose temptings were divulged by St. Athanasius, a near contemporary. Hallucinatory trials became a well-worn subject in the second millennium for Old Master painters such as Bosch as well as Modern artists such as Dali. One Old Master painting, now attributed to Jan Mandyn, served as the inspiration for Gustave Flaubert’s work on the subject, published in 1873.This, in turn, serves as the inspiration for director Robert Wilson’s eponymous concept in this new millennium, though Mr. Wilson interpolates the telling of St. Anthony into an African-American framework.The director has addressed early Christian religiosity and the African-American experience (separately) before: in 2000 his more-weird-than-spiritual “14 Stations,” a massive sculptural installation, and 1989’s “Great Day in the Morning,” which featured the inimitable Jessye Norman singing a series of staged spirituals.But more than anything what this production called to my mind was “La Pasion Segun San Marcos,” by Argentine Jewish composer Osvaldo Golijov, which played at the Brooklyn Academy’s Next Wave Festival in 2002. For just as Mr. Golijov transformed the Christ story into a celebration of Latino rhythms, attitudes and cultures, so Ms. Reagon has enveloped Anthony’s tribulations into a sort of oratorio that welds gospel, jazz, blues, shouts, even some R&B.Ms. Reagon, a founding member of Sweet Honey in the Rock and an authority on many types of historical African-American music, has written and arranged a compelling panoply of styles. The result is a captivating, touching production that contains aural and visual spirituality.Fourteen singers form an ensemble and also provide all of the supporting roles (reduced significantly from Flaubert’s overstuffed cast), they make the night captivating. Ms. Reagon purposefully chose a pan-generational, mostly Brooklyn group, and they sing with a neighborly camaraderie that can’t be manufactured. A standout was Charles Williams, who, as an old Ebonite, cane in hand, commanded a tremendous, crackly presence as he recounted how he “knew a carpenter’s son.”The two lead roles, St. Anthony and his disciple Hilarion (in Ms. Reagon’s reimagining, a woman) were both very fine. As St. Anthony, Carl Hancock Rux offered remarkable physical poise, but as Hilarion, Helga Davis pretty much stole the show with her generous, distinctive contralto.Mr. Wilson has made a career out of, among many other things, using minimal concepts to maximal effect. It comes as no surprise, then, that he al lowed Ms. Reagon’s contributions to serve as the primary artistic focus. But Mr. Wilson’s subtle mastery is on hand from the very first tableau, which features a breathtaking lighting design (realized by A.J. Weissbard) and tells a story of its own in its progression through cyan, azure, lavender, and violet. Mr. Wilson always leaves the viewer with a few truly memorable images, and on Tuesday one of those featured shimmering gold dust being poured onto center stage, as the ensemble sang “My jug is empty and I’m thirsty and dry.”Attempts to draw too fine a comparison between the trials of St. Anthony and the African-American experience would be tedious. Nevertheless, the overcoming of tremendous obstacles serves as a worthy parallel, adding to this stirring evening.

The Passion of Saint Anthony

The Passion of Saint Anthony

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