Musical Ghost Story ‘Animal Wisdom’ Soars With Spirited Songs

Upon arriving for the off-Broadway premiere of Heather Christian’s “Animal Wisdom” at The Pershing Square Signature Center, audience members are handed leaflets bearing a lengthy note from the playwright/composer/lyricist, explaining the work rather laboriously: “Lots of things have been said about it —it’s a musical (it’s not), it’s a play with music (not really that either), it’s a séance with songs, it’s a mass — none of it and maybe all of that is true.”Ms. Christian’s essay then describes this deeply personal piece, which runs two hours without an intermission, as, among other things, “an active ritual, letting go of supernatural/psychological/spiritual/actual trauma in front of an audience” and “a lecture demonstration of channeling through music.” There are several more paragraphs, but even after reading this first part before a recent preview, I felt, I’ll admit, a sense of dread creeping in.My wariness disappeared the moment Kenita R. Miller, who stars as “H,” essentially a stand-in for Ms. Christian, appeared and began singing — in a gritty, tremulous, lustrous voice — the first in a series of songs more melodically and rhythmically gripping than any I’d heard in a new Broadway musical this past season.“Animal Wisdom” could be called at least in part, if its creator will indulge me, a musical ghost story, and Ms. Christian, a two-time Obie Award winner whose “Oratorio for Living Things” has been produced twice to heady acclaim in recent years, has crafted a score that suits its particulars: a soulful mélange of folk, blues, rock, and gospel that reflects the New Orleans-born, Mississippi-bred composer’s roots, giving the show the feel of a Southern Gothic novel sprung to life.There is nonetheless a universality to the themes explored here — mortality, faith, family bonds and legacies — which has been underlined by casting Ms. Miller, who is black, in a role that Ms. Christian, who is white, wrote for and originally played herself, nearly a decade ago. (The script has been tweaked only slightly.) Listening to Ms. Miller’s H speak and sing about her grandmother, Heloise, and her great-grandmother, Ella, who was of Creole ancestry, I was also reminded how cultural and geographical factors can transcend, or at least mitigate, racial differences.“The women in my matrilineal line are all New Orleans Catholics who are also musicians who suffer migraines and talk to dead people,” H informs us early on, preparing us for the string of invocations and visitations that follow. Six supporting musicians who prove equally supple as singers and comedic actors take turns playing some of the ghosts and provide robust vocal harmonies throughout; the audience is also invited to take part in a few brief rituals.Scenic designer Emmie Finckel has turned the intimate performance area into a lush garden of fabric and paper flowers to bring us closer to Heloise, whose spirit hovers in the plants, while another late grandmother lingers as a red bird, H tells us. The cluttered set is also strung with lights and littered with household items and other tchotchkes suggesting that generations have passed through this space; a large soda machine is prominent in one corner.At times, the script threatens to veer into preciousness. H assigns time signatures to God and science and “baseline psychology,” and there’s a passage performed almost completely in the dark, with bursts of bright light erupting only sporadically, that’s far too long. When a woman seated near me started shuffling through her bag, I wasn’t nearly as annoyed as I would have normally been. Overall, though, this is a lovely and, yes, haunting production, and quite often a playful one under Keenan Tyler Oliphant’s keen, affectionate direction. And frankly, after the direst season for new musicals in years, it’s a gift to have an original show with compelling and beautifully performed songs on a New York stage, however you define it.

Musical Ghost Story ‘Animal Wisdom’ Soars With Spirited Songs

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