{"id":12096,"date":"2023-03-02T16:10:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T16:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/?p=12096"},"modified":"2023-03-03T12:12:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T12:12:44","slug":"premiere-of-a-mothers-song-finn-andersons-latest-folksy-wonder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laughfrodisiac.com\/2023\/03\/02\/premiere-of-a-mothers-song-finn-andersons-latest-folksy-wonder\/","title":{"rendered":"Premiere of A Mother’s Song, Finn Anderson’s Latest Folksy Wonder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the premiere of A Mother’s Song: A New Folk Musical, which just played the Macrobert Arts Centre at University of Stirling last week.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I am realizing that I’m as close to a groupie as one can be for a relatively new Scottish musical theatre composer. Cool! After falling truly madly deeply in love with Finn Anderson’s Islander<\/a><\/em><\/strong> <\/a><\/em>a few years ago, we had to go to Stirling to see the premiere of this New Folk Musical, A Mother’s Song. A Mother’s Song has promise and could be great. It’s a fully fleshed out full-length musical with some real moments of gloriousness that gave me chills. Anderson has collaborated with director Tania Azevedo to create this show about motherhood throughout many, many generations of one family line, from long-ago Scotland to present day Brooklyn via West Virginia (for once the American accents were Southern for a reason!). They tell the generation-weaving story with music that blends traditional folk songs with modern takes on them, plus some plain old modern songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anderson has his own sound, that folksy sea-shanty-loving if-you-close-your-eyes-you-can-see-the-Highland-coos-in-the-foggy-fields sound with its tight, sometimes spellbinding multi-part harmonies. This score had several moments where I was like ‘yes! this is it! the Finn sound!’, and if he finds and adds some more of that, this would be a score you could compare more to Islander. That show’s amazing use of overlapping percussion to aid in storytelling is largely missing here, and would really serve this show well (also it’s just an awesome element to his sound that I missed). The great moments happen mainly in the first act, especially when the use of traditional Scottish folk songs blend seamlessly with his new songs. When our oldest ancestor Cait (Kirsty Findlay, also in Islander) sings the traditional The Four Marys and it goes right into An Unwelcome Visitor (the visitor in question being a bebe, damn), WHEW but that was pure fire! It helps that Findlay is one of the strongest performers I’ve seen in years, so keyed into nuance and able to harness the power of her voice in precise little acrobatics that serve as a masterclass in how to act through singing (none of that ‘I’m going to speak a few words for emphasis even though that’s never really effective’ stuff from her). She was so incredible in Islander and here she proves again she’s in a class of her own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cait’s storyline, of a minister’s wife who is unwillingly pregnant, weaves with her descendant Jean’s storyline, of a 16-year-old girl who gets pregnant, is not really fussed about it!, and runs away to have the bebe in the new world. Blythe Jandoo’s Jean is as likeable as her real name is baller, with maybe the most enjoyable story of the bunch since at least (compared to Cait’s) you know you aren’t going to have to think about the precursor to wire hangers. These two stories (and these two performers) rise above the more modern ones and are moving, powerful, compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n