DESSA ROSE [Jay CDJAY2 1392]
Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ Dessa Rose is an engrossing, adventurous piece of musical theatre. Jay Records has seen fit to give it first-class, two-disc treatment, despite the limited New York run of the show, and I expect most listeners will be not only thrilled by the album but glad that it has been so carefully preserved.

Flaherty and Ahrens have come to specialize in storytelling to music. This talent was developed, perhaps, due to the demands of their last few projects; sections of Ragtime, Seussical and A Man of No Importance called for special and unusual musical scenes, for the purposes of plot propulsion and character development. With Dessa Rose, Flaherty and Ahrens grab us from the very beginning; their music and lyrics are absolutely spellbinding.

Vast sections of masterful storytelling are intermingled with moments of great beauty and six or eight numbers that pierce the emotions. There is little purpose in presenting a step-by-step description. Listen to Ruth’s desperate (and human) soliloquy, “At the Glen”; Nehemiah’s tender “Capture the Girl” (“her skin like pekoe tea. . .”); Dessa’s powerful litany, “Twelve Children”; the stunning quintet “In the Bend of My Arm”; the stirring anthem “White Milk and Red Blood.” The authors have undertaken a difficult task, telling the uncompromising tale of a pregnant 15-year-old slave murderess. The result is a heartfelt and impressive piece of musical theatre.

Dessa Rose is bolstered, every step of the way, by an especially fine cast. LaChanze and Rachel York play the leads; both are perhaps better than they have ever been. Ms. York, who has heretofore impressed us as a comedienne, is surprisingly strong in a highly dramatic (and emotionally moving) role. Norm Lewis proves, yet again, that he is one of the best singer-actors around, and Michael Hayden does a fine job in a tricky part, as he turns from idealistic journalist to obsessed villain. (Ahrens gives him the aforementioned first-act song masterfully describing how “it’s difficult to capture the girl,” a masterful lyric which has special resonance in the second act.) The rest of the 12-person cast is uniformly admirable, although the actors double to the extent that you can’t quite pick them out from the disc (save for Kecia Lewis, who displays a strong voice and rueful humor). The singing and playing is impressive throughout, with credit to musical director David Holcenberg and orchestrators William David Brohn and Christopher Jahnke.

The serious nature of the subject matter did not make Dessa Rose an easy sell, of course. But it had the bad fortune to open amongst four hit Broadway musicals. It has been a long while since theatregoers have had more than two good new musicals to contend with, but the spring of 2005 saw a quartet: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Spamalot, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Dessa Rose’s upstairs neighbor, The Light in the Piazza. And, these were not the only competition; prior-season hits Avenue Q and Wicked were still going strong, along with a quartet of long-running smashes.

All things being equal, Dessa Rose would need to stand its own against the competition (in the same way that The Light in the Piazza needed to). But all things are not equal. Broadway musicals have any number of advantages over Off-Broadway, beginning with the size of their advertising budget. Even more importantly, press coverage was stretched thin last spring, with story after story on Spamalot in particular. Dessa Rose could have used a little helpful attention, which was not forthcoming.

But it must be added that Dessa Rose — despite an impressive and fully realized production by Lincoln Center Theater, with seemingly no expense spared — did not overwhelm critics or audiences. My hunch, based on a sole viewing, is that the literalness of the staging counter-acted the power of the material. As is evident from the CD, Flaherty and Ahrens skillfully draw you into their story, gradually filling in the lines of what might otherwise have fallen into cliché. At the Newhouse we saw too much, too soon; the visuals, from the very beginning, established that we were back in the slave house, leaving no room for nuance and unintentionally diminishing the emotional impact of the music and lyrics.

The quality of the score — and the excitement that I expect this CD will generate — suggests that Dessa Rose will soon get a second chance, presumably at a top regional theatre. I only hope that the production team lets the score speak (sing) for itself, at the same time hoping that Dessa Rose has as powerful a cast at its disposal.

Jay Records has given Dessa Rose the classiest and most handsome packaging I’ve seen for a cast album. Not a mere booklet, but a veritable hard-cover book with individual sleeves for the two CDs. All this is beside the point, as it doesn’t matter what it looks like if the score is lousy; still, somebody has clearly poured a small fortune into this release. A labor of love, but warranted; and we — the listeners — are the beneficiaries.

After hearing the Dessa Rose CD a few times, I wanted nothing more than to hear it again. And I suspect that you will, too. Continued...