Opus 1861
Devised by Elizabeth Magolius, Terry McCabe
Directed by Elizabeth Margolius
at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr (map)
thru May 13 | tickets: $22-$30 | more info
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Nothing less than stunning
City Lit Theatre presents
Opus 1861 – The Civil War in Symphony
Review by K.D.Hopkins
City Lit Theatre is known for producing outstanding adaptations of literature. I recall seeing Lynda Barry ’s The Good Times are Killing Me and April Sinclair’s Coffee Will Make You Black over a decade ago. I was amazed at the characters come to life from the pages of a comic strip that I loved and a book about my childhood neighborhood of Morgan Park. What this company has done with the American Civil War is nothing less than stunning.
Opus 1861 is Part Two of City Lit’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Project. Elizabeth Margolius and Terry McCabe devised this musical from songs in the mid 19th-century. American music was still in its infancy then: Field hollers from slave culture mixed with gospel; camp music mixed with bluegrass traditions, all being sung in churches and parlors. Sheet music was more readily available and it was common for people to have music lessons as part of being in genteel society no matter your background.
Margolis and McCabe bring 19 of the most well known songs from that period to the present time with vignettes of modern marines in Afghanistan – another civil war over a century later with some of the same horrible circumstances, but with the added poignancy of the beautiful music of Stephen Foster and George Root as well as stirring patriotic nostalgia from African American folk tales. Freedom stirs the same passion in the hearts of humankind no matter the era.
The characters in this show are six U.S. Marines telling tales of their experiences on the war front.
The cast is amazing in their musical acuity as well as the emotional range and restraint in telling the soldiers’ stories. The letters to home and the sorrowful elegies to comrades killed before their eyes are interspersed with songs such as “When This Cruel War is Over (Weeping Sad and Lonely)” and “The Vacant Chair”.
I found new resonance in songs that were only known to me from history classes and elementary primers. “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” was a song once sung on a school bus on the way back from the amusement park. In reality it was, and is, the soundtrack for the hopes of armistice for battle-fatigued citizens the world over.
The songs tell the story of American culture on the home front as well. The African American songs in particular refer to slaves being asked to fight for their old masters or of escaping to the North and fighting for the Union. It is an interesting thread in most wars that the fight is for the rights and freedom of the common citizen. Opus 1861 balances the Union and the Confederacy sentiments of losing children, spouses, and hope for a freedom that can be a nebulous reality. This treatise on the Civil War strips away the romanticism of war and, at the same time, adds new depth.
It is hard to hear the refrains of “John Brown’s Body” or “Many Thousand Gone (No More Auction Block)” and not feel heartbreak for those who fought in any war whether on the battlefields of Appomattox or Kabul. Opus 1861 also encompasses the cultural wars behind the battlefields. Abolition was an inflammatory political and economic issue in 1861. Today, different ethnic cleansing takes place in the name of money. Music is always a way to communicate more freely whether in code or in protest.
Many kudos to the talented cast of Stephen Barker, Erin Renee Baumrucker, Ryan Gaffney, Varris Holmes, Elizabeth Morgan, and Tyler Thompson. They are all in prime voice and carry the audience to another time and the present effortlessly.
Opus 1861 is staged in tones of khaki and green eerily similar to the sepia images from Mathew Brady and Timothy O’Sullivan . The stage is a study in simplicity. There are hundreds of sheets of paper strewn everywhere representing thousands of missives written home from sons and daughters – some children never returned and even those who did never really left the battlefield. This rich music will remain with you; the images of soldiers forever lost will haunt you.
Rating: ★★★★
Opus 1861 – The Civil War in Symphony continues through May 13th at City Lit Theatre, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr (map), with performances Fridays and Saturdays 8pm, Sundays 3pm. Tickets are $22-$30, and are available by phone (773-293-3682) or online at BrownPaperTickets.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at CityLit.org. (Running time: 75 minutes, no intermission)
