The Blackfeet fancy dancer appears in a blaze of light. He’s clad in white, his multicolor ribbons, feathers and quills whip and vibrate in the spotlight.
The drumming and singing is mesmerizing … and familiar. Distant Thunder hit close to home: Browning, Montana is 126 miles from Great Falls. My hometown is a way station for folks who leave the Rez, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for good.
Fast forward twenty years: that spirit-clad fancy dancer now wears a blue serge suit, distracted by his iPhone. After the death of his white mother, the part-Blackfeet lawyer Darrell (Shaun Taylor-Corbett) returns to his birthplace on the Blackfeet Nation to finalize a business deal with an energy company. Darrell soon discovers the cost to the culture, language and land is high. Darrell inevitably becomes involved in family wounds that vest him in the old ways.
This “New American Musical”, co-written by Shaun Taylor-Corbett and his mother Lynne Taylor-Corbett, is presented by Amas Musical Theatre, in association with Tall Tree Productions. Ms. Taylor-Corbett, an award-winning choreographer (Footloose), lyricist, and composer also directs. One glance at a photo of mother and son make it easy to wonder if at least part of this story is autobiographical.
Shaun Taylor-Corbett, a member of the Blackfeet Crazy Dog Society, claims Blackfeet heritage and extensive experience in musical theater (In the Heights, Jersey Boys, Oregon Shakespeare Festival). He’s also a voice actor who has narrated over 80 audiobooks.
The entire ensemble cast make convincing Blackfeet. These characters show just the right amount of smolder and camaraderie. To my experienced ear (and great relief), their speech is a cadence, not a caricature. The characters are relatable, from young Ayana (Aubee Billie), the angst-ridden teenage girl who desperately wants to take off for California, to Sheriff Raymond Running Buck (Johnlee Lookingglass), who made me want to whip out my drivers license and registration from my seat in the third row.
All the voices in this production are effective, both singing and speaking. Taylor-Corbett’s voice is right-sized for the venue either by good fortune or Ben Selke’s solid sound design. Angela Gomez as Dorothy Dark Eyes, makes the most of an upscaled-yet-cliched schoolmarm. Her presence is lithe and lively, and her voice is clear and heartfelt.
Young Tonto/Thomas (Spencer Battiest) reminds me of more than a few Blackfeet boys back home. There’s a painful pride about being a member of the Blackfeet Nation, and Battiest, sometimes without saying a word, captures it best. I haven’t lived in Montana for nearly a decade, but I grew up in the Lower Southside of Great Falls, a few miles from a shanty town of displaced Native Peoples, dubbed ‘Hill 57’. I was shocked as a young adult to discover that miserable enclave, named after a Heinz condiment sign, went without plumbing or heat. For the families that huddled there, only a few layers of plywood kept out the worst of Montana Winters.
The cast is strong enough to breathe through a couple of cringe-y plot twists, but to me, the characters Jim Running Crow (Xander Chauncy) and Shareen (Chelsea Zeno) felt wedged into the storyline. I waited for a mention of missing Blackfeet girls and women that never came. The Taylor-Corbett writing team may have felt raising this issue would take too much drama away from Darrell’s story, and they’d be right. Still, if they had time for a reference to ‘Survivor,’ a poster of Ashley Loring Heavy-Runner in the bar scene or some exasperated confusion about law enforcement agencies would have been meaningful nods to the very real drama and damage that persists in Montana’s seven Indian Reservations and far beyond.
Despite a few speed bumps in the plot, there is much to like about Distant Thunder. Things moved along quickly, and with purpose. The music, both Native and popular, offered insight without being insipid. Nods to Blackfeet culture — frybread dinners, blankets at the dance competition, lent realism.
The staging is sparse but effective. There’s a full-scale upstage backdrop by artist Regina García depicting the Eastern cusp of the Rockies. It’s a grounding force, never letting the audience lose a sense of place.
In too many off-Broadway productions, stage lighting feels like an afterthought. In Distant Thunder, Anthony Pearson’s lighting design strikes, ripples, and illuminates. It effectively conveys dawn, dusk, and danger on Garcia’s backdrop.
Costume designer E.B. Brooks also deserves a shout-out. The costumes needed to move well and — no kidding — sound authentic (the only missing costume detail was the lack of a big belt buckle on the rodeo rider). Props and sound design were spot-on, in no small part thanks to Ms. Taylor-Corbett’s choreography: objects and characters were in the right place at the right time.
Ending a musical drama like this takes a light hand that conveys a heavy message, and both Taylor-Corbetts, with acting, dancing, and writing talents, accomplished that task with ease.
If you’re planning make your way to Manhattan in the next two weeks, amble up to 53rd Street to see the impressive production. It doesn’t hurt that the seats for this 1 hour 50 minute production (including one 10-minute intermission) are deceptively comfortable.
Distant Thunder plays through Sunday, October 27, 2024, at Amas Musical Theatre, performing at A.R.T./New York, 502 West 53rd Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $39-79, including fees), call (212) 563-2565, or go online.
AMAS Musical Theater
Review submitted by:
Claire Baiz
Author’s Bio:
Claire Baiz was born and raised in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Great Falls, Montana, where she managed to lasso a reasonable college education and a great husband – and raise two passionate, creative children. After years of going back and forth from Montana to New York, Claire and her husband retired to NYC’s vibrant Lower East Side. Her film reviews, nonfiction and fiction have been published in various Montana and national newspapers and magazines.
