‘Marie and Rosetta:’ a musical that hits all the right notes

Pull up a chair. Hush, now. You’re in the presence of giants. Get ready to immerse yourself in the beauty and sad truths of a great American art form.

Remember this as the lights go down, if you are a fortunate ticket-holder for George Brant‘s new play “Marie and Rosetta” (at the Atlantic Theatre Company in Manhattan), where you also just might discover the roots of the music you love.

This is a backstage tale of two true-life artists. The gospel and blues singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Kecia Lewis) recruits a younger colleague Marie Knight (Rebecca Naomi Jones) into her act, a bus tour through the segregated South in 1946.

Brant constructs his play so that we witness the heartbreak and oppression that are the historic and emotional underpinnings of what was once identified as “race music.” 

Sister Tharpe’s personal life parallels the exploitation and degradation forced upon her people from colonial days onward. She has lived it and is still living it. Her men have failed her, and life on the road is a furtive passage through the humiliating gauntlet of Jim Crow.

But - the music! Lewis and Jones tear into a full panel of traditional songs with a passion that elevates each strand of hard luck into blazing focus. They perform for each other, all purposeful within the world of the play, each song a personal moment and a ringing anthem.

Gospel and blues, the high and the lowdown, the sacred and the sinful, each are shaded and blended with an irresistible harmonic force. 

This is a tight and swinging team under musical direction of Jason Michael Webb. Musicians Felicia Collins and Deah Harriott back up the two principals on guitar and piano, and the ensemble result is like the throb of your heart. 

The lighting of Christopher Akerlind and the set design of Riccardo Hernandez enhance the impression of both specific and timeless place.

And the play gives us more than the music and the backstory. Sharpe sang the dual strands of tradition. Ms. Lewis handles this like a master class of musical technique. Close your eyes and you might imagine yourself in a cathedral  - or a rowdy juke joint. And there’s even some wicked insider’s humor, with some musical jokes about a lofty rival.

But the heart of the action is the artist’s life itself, and we get to see its entire arc, as the author dares a conceptual downshift late in this ninety-minute evening. Like every step in director Neil Pepe’s production, the choice illuminates. We see and hear the music behind the music. But it only takes a few riffs of guitar to tell us how far Tharpe’s music reached into the future. Hard times for some turned into hard cash for others. And over a few generations, the worksongs of slaves echo all the way down to the Top Ten of today. 

“Marie and Rosetta” runs until Oct. 16 at the Linda Gross Theater, 336 W. 20th St. For tickets, call 866-811-4111.