In the music of “Mahalia,” we get a glimmer of the joy she brought to countless others, but the script offers little sense of the woman herself.
With “Mahalia Jackson: Moving Thru the Light,” Black Ensemble Theater has created a musical that contains next to no insight into the life of iconic gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Penned and directed by Jackie Taylor, the musical spends more time offering cliched platitudes about life in general than it does exploring the life of its titular subject. The music is – per usual at BET – terrific. But every time that music stops, the show pretty much does likewise.
If you want insight or even an outline of Jackson’s crucial work as a civil rights activist or how she managed the extraordinary rise from elementary school dropout to global hit-maker to “the single most powerful black woman in the United States” (per Harry Belafonte), you won’t find it here. Taylor’s script feels rushed and incomplete. When not in song, the show itself feels under-rehearsed.
Jackson (Robin DaSilva) opens the show with a glorious contralto interpretation of “How Great Thou Art.” No matter what your beliefs about “Thou,” DaSilva makes the song soul-stirring. It’s a fabulous beginning. Decked out in a shimmery gown, DaSilva’s Jackson next appears before a tribunal of sparkly, crowned “Masters” (Cynthia F. Carter, Dwight Neal, Stewart Romeo). Jackson knows she’s died, but The Masters chuckle when she mistakes them for angels. Her repeated, ardent entreaties that she spend the afterlife with God is met with bemusement as The Masters tell Jackson that she is not in the afterlife, and that furthermore, nobody knows for certain what happens in the afterlife.
