Sisyphus is the Greek king condemned to roll the rock up the hill for eternity. Each time he ascended, he was blocked by the forces of evil and the rock fell to the ground. Du Bois and others have used the Sisyphus myth-ritual to describe the history of North American Africans. Each generation that makes progress on the path to freedom is blocked by the forces of reaction and the next generation must reinvent the wheel of justice, freedom and self-determination. Amiri Baraka’s Opera takes us up the mountain and down in the manner of Sisyphus. He shows us the trials and tribulations of a people striving for dignity, only to be obstructed by evil, call it racism, imperialism, capitalism, slavery, whatever.

 Baraka has always been our myth-maker, from the Dead Lecturer (poems), Dutchman (play), A Black Mass (play) and Slaveship (play), not to mention  numerous other works attacking, revising and transcending Western mythology to tell the story of our existence in this wilderness. The Sisyphus Syndrome is his most recent attempt to lecture us in the didactic manner of BAM (Black Arts Movement).  Sonia Sanchez asked, “Will your book free us?” Baraka answers emphatically, “Yes.”

He proceeds to describe the problem through the dramatic form called Opera, a utilization of voice, song, music, dance, set design, video, and sound. Of course BAM drama is ritual theatre, the merging of actors and audience, thus it is communal—there is no audience but rather a community of people gathered to learn, to heal and transform. Baraka is the shaman who gathers his tribe around the village fire, yes, Round Midnight, to envision a new day. What happened, what should happen and what will happen if we finally get it right, if we understand events, symbols and signs, the blocks along the mountain path to freedom, the joys, the celebrations of victories, then defeat, depression, more oppression, but finally, in the transformation and ascension to the mountain top Dr. King preached about the night before his assassination, April 4, 1968.

Baraka catalogues the history endured and victories celebrated. Sisyphus is thus a lesson from the wise elder, the healer, for finally, Baraka’s myth is about healing and love, unity and love. He gives a shout out to Muslims, Christians, Socialists, Communists, and vegetarians to unite in a Black United Front. The chorus tells us this, the poetry as well, sometimes recited by the poet himself.

His book of poetry is classic Baraka, abstract at times, plain and simple other times, but it is poetry that is didactic and lyrical. He thus returns theatre to the Shakespearean tradition of the poetic drama. But he transcends Shakespeare, with the elements of ritual, the energy of the Holy Ghost church. While the words instruct and inform, the dance and music take us to the deep down funk of our lives. Baraka would call it Funklore. In one tune we hear that funky Al Green beat. And there is a rendition of my favorite tune Round Midnight signaling a low moment in our history, maybe the betrayal of Reconstruction, the lynching, torture and terror of American genocide.

In the BAM tradition, David Murray weaves his music as a weapon of freedom, literally using his horn as a device to check the devil, the forces of evil. David does a dance with Skelekin. We see the role of musician as shaman, protector of the tribe. We see the people’s army marching and dancing to music. The music once again propels us up the mountain, sometimes it is a gentle nudge, sometimes a shout, a scream, a moan, but in tandem with the choreography of Traci Bartlow, the music is for war, just as her movements are forward motion, the principle activity in the Sisyphusian myth-ritual, as interpreted by Baraka. Traci employs modern, African, jazz and hip hop movements to tell the myth. She is outstanding as choreographer, dancer and assistant director. Rashidi Byrd was excellent with his hip hop movements.

And there is love, for there shall be no revolution without love. Baraka reminds us of love and unity throughout, and the dancers exemplify by embracing each other and the audience or tribe, weaving in and out of the audience to make it feel, touch, taste and hear the Motion of History, a Baraka title.

 The video symbols are apt since we are in the video Age, but because the images are a powerful montage of history and current reality, we are forced to learn from them, for they enter our consciousness along with the other dramatic elements to break the rock of ignorance. No one can sit in the audience and participate in this drama without a raising of consciousness, without desiring a further course in black studies, the history of imperialism and its counterpoint, revolution.

We applaud the acting of President L. Davis as Sisyphus. He is on the way to an acting career. His voice alone should take him there. Do we not hear a James Earl Jones in the making? His nemesis, Skelekin, Amil Islam, is another powerful young actor we expect to be transformed by his role as Block Man. We suspect all the actors will be transformed by this production, artistically and spiritually, even the young actors from the Youth Guerilla Theatre, who completed the intergenerational aspect of the myth-ritual drama.

We thank the producers, Eastside Arts, for making this production possible. It is a much needed continuation of the Black Arts Movement.

 And as we exit the theatre, exhausted but joyful at the conclusion, we must suggest a reading of How To Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, for we cannot leave the theatre to do nothing, rather the Opera’s intent is to get us involved in the dance of unity and radical consciousness. How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy is the antidote to problems presented in Sisyphus Syndrome: detoxify, recover and discover your role in the cultural revolution.

We encourage you to attend our Pan African Mental Health Peer Group to recover from the addiction to white supremacy. Call 510-355-6339, email jmarvinx@yahoo.com. Visit my blog: www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com.

9 May 2008

*   *   *   *   *

The Sisyphus Syndrome is a newly commissioned jazz opera by poet and playwright Amiri Baraka and saxophonist and composer David Murray.  This groundbreaking and timely project details the African-American struggle in the United States using poetry, live music, dance and mixed media. 

David Murray will lead The Freedom Now! Band, and Amiri Baraka is directing the piece in addition to being a featured performer. Dancers, actors, and digital design round out the production to make it a compelling, insightful piece that offers both a historical perspective and a road map for the future. This collaborative effort to create a modern urban opera merging two of the most active, sometimes controversial, and always cutting-edge artists in contemporary literature and music promises to introduce challenging social commentary and innovative concepts.

When describing this unique partnership Baraka says, “We want the music and words to extend to each other, be parts of the same expression, different pieces of the whole.?  Murray says, ?The subject has got to be America and what America is trying to be, so lets make an opera about what it can be.” Fusicology

*   *   *   *   *

The poet's latest collaboration with tenor saxophonist David Murray, The Sisyphus Syndrome, spawned from the Greek myth about a king who was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down — a process he had to repeat ad infinitum. Baraka said it's a fitting allegory for the African-American experience.

"It was W.E.B. Du Bois who said that's what the African-American freedom movement is like," he explained in a recent phone interview. Baraka staged his production as a historical epic with an overarching metaphor: Slavery ends and the rock rolls up; it goes down after the decline of Reconstruction and rise of the Klan; it goes up with civil rights and the Panthers, and down with the Bush administration. "It ends with the kind of note of realism that the rock is back down again," said the poet. "It's come down beneath our expectation."

Baraka originally staged The Sisyphus Syndrome for a New York black opera company in 2004, but was dissatisfied with the result — partly because they scored it in the style of European opera, he said, and because it was more or less a star turn for one basso singer. This new, more contemporary version — featuring a six-person chorus, a dancer, and the four-piece Freedom Now! Band with Murray leading on saxophone — harks back to the post-bop idioms of 1960 to the present.

"It's really an attempt to put it in a completely contemporary mode even though it's talking about old stuff," said Baraka, indicating that he's pleased with this production. Murray proved an ideal collaborator for someone who always writes with Monk or Trane playing in the background, and the score he developed for Sisyphus brings a sense of unity to the theme. Most importantly, though, it emphasizes the music in Baraka's writing.

The Sisyphus Syndrome plays Thursday-Saturday, May 8-10, at EastSide Cultural Center (2277 International Blvd., Oakland). 8 p.m., $10, $20. EastSideArtsAlliance.org  EastBayExpress

*   *   *   *   *

posted 10 May 2008