Telling Women’s Tales

Petticoats & Sliderules/The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace – Third Eye Ensemble

Third Eye Ensemble comes back to the live stage with two fresh tales of women who, thankfully, refused many of the societal strictures of their times to further both science and humanity. Composer Elizabeth Rudolph’s “conversation” titled Petticoats & Sliderules creates a dialogue based on a 2003 interview in the archives of the Society of Women Engineers and the writings of a 1923 suffragette. Kamala Sankaram’s opera, The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace, traces the history of Countess Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, who fights to use her lifeforce and scientific talents for a more sweeping goal than her Victorian times dictate. This double bill was offered to audiences that could offer proof of COVID vaccination, a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within 72 hours of the performance start time, or a negative COVID-19 antigen test taken without 6 hours of the performance start time. The audience was cautioned to remain masked during their entire time in the theatre. 

Director Rose Freeman is perfectly poised to helm this project, having been raised by an inventor and businesswoman mother who balanced her demanding career with the yeoman’s work of maintaining the household and raising the children. Freeman’s assistant director is Caroline Shaul, a first-rate performer and a driving force in Chicago’s political scene, focusing her efforts on women’s issues while working to shore up the city’s artistic voice and bring it into the discussions and causes of our times. I cannot imagine a pair of artists more fully qualified to tear their teeth into this material. Character and motivation come from within the singing actors, to all appearances almost completely organically, no traffic patterns negotiated, but people moving when not to move is impossible, and staying still when it is sometimes the greatest act of bravery. This level of theatrical performance is not always present in operatic situations but remains a trademark of the Chicago storefront opera scene — and, in this case, a sure sign that Freeman has her hand in the proceedings. Jason Carlson covers piano and musical direction for these challenging pieces, and his handiwork is on display throughout. Conductor Alexandra Enyart, one of Chicago’s greatest operatic gifts to the storefront opera community and beyond, commands the vocal and instrumental forces by invitation rather than demand, which is one of the precepts of her shepherding style. With the orchestra (save the piano) placed on the stage with the singers, direct appeals to the conductor by the singers would have been obvious and jarring, but Enyart’s affinity for the voice — the way she “hears” a breath before the singer takes it — kept this sort of exchange from ever carrying us out of the stories. 

Rudolph’s melding of two tales of talents and passions that would not be silenced works very well, with the echoing thematic references in both the libretto and the music highlighting the smaller and larger messages of two women: Lois Graham, the first American woman to earn a PhD in Mechanical Engineering (1956), and Elisabeth Woodbridge (Morris), a suffragette and one of the first women to earn a PhD at Yale (1908). Mezzo-soprano Molly Burke sings Graham with great warmth, and soprano Angela Born makes easy vocal and emotional work of Woodbridge, giving us such a highly-charged character that she cannot be still, bounding through life one discovery after the next. Rudolph’s sometimes jagged vocal writing, accompanied by her tendency to set extended text in challenging sections of the voice, can cause her text to suffer from unintentionally distorted diction, even by the finest singing actor. The program provides a link to the text along with a QR code for scanning on one’s phone, and I strongly suggest that the audience follow along with the text. This is an important piece for two reasons: first, the fact that it exists, that it is a piece about these women and their resonances over time, that this is a history lesson that we must not ignore; and secondly, from a larger musical perspective, this is a piece that defies easy classification. Certainly, one could call it a one-act opera. Someone else might call it simply a duet. Someone might call it an art song or even a song cycle. And some might say that Rudolph isn’t done yet, and she needs to expand upon it, that this is a fantastic beginning to a larger piece. The glorious question this invites is: does that matter a whit? Rudolph presents us with a story bursting with information and feeling — one that I have simply called a “conversation” as a place-holder — and in doing so, she invites a larger conversation. That is simply art itself, and let’s have more of that, please, and less labeling, which often has the effect of causing creators to bury work in drawers that they aren’t certain is, “finished,” and then it is never heard, that tree never falls in the forest. Rudolph has done us more than one favor here. 

Composer Sankaram and librettist Rob Handel present us with the journey of a woman who, by an accident of birth, finds herself in a societally constructed glass house as the daughter of the much-discussed Byron. She is in the “right” marriage, has had the “right” number of children, and touts the outer trappings of respectability, yet her heart is not in that life., and when Charles Babbage calls on her husband, she engineers a conversation with him regarding his invention of a, “difference engine,” and she sees the door which she must now decide whether to open for herself and for the academy, or to leave it closed and stop the wagging tongues of the neighbors. Handel’s libretto conveys much with speed and economy, and the characters have their own speech idioms while existing in the same world, which is so important for a play to work and naturally is helpful to a composer as they create a “tonal” world within which exists differentiating colors. Sankaram’s music is both challenging and accessible and feels just right for the material. Ada is sung by mezzo- soprano Rena Ahmed (Molly Burke sings the role at some performances), and as the title suggests, the show is her journey, so she must carry it. If we cannot attach to Ada, it is a rocky road, but this is never a worry with Ahmed, as her presence is always open and welcoming. The subtle changes in her physicality, the tiny ways in which the story’s segments sit in her person, carry us through this elongated argument that takes place within; for Ada’s primary battle, the conversation that matters most to her, is the one within her own person. Ahmed carries us with her the entire way. Her struggles become ours, and her triumphs as well.  

Ada’s husband William is sung by tenor Max Hosmer (Vincent McPherson sings the role at some performances). Once again, we have a singing actor in a central role to which it is easy for the audience to attach, even at the character’s most disconnected moments. The fact that the audience is invited into the hearts of both central characters is to be savored. This is excellent casting. Hosmer has a natural, honest acting style and a fantastic voice, and is heard far too little in the Chicago area. I saw baritones Noah Gartner as the inventor Babbage and Matthew Peckham as the Butler (they alternate in these roles). They both sing beautifully and create rounded characterizations. The Nanny is essayed by Tracey Lynne Furling, who has no difficulty whatsoever delivering a woman dancing on her last nerve because her employer is not behaving in the expected manner. 

One of the production’s biggest delights is the whirlwind performance of soprano Katherine Bruton as Harriet Beecher Stowe (Angela Born sings the role at some performances). Giving us the perfect example of a self-empowered woman who suffers no fools (particularly if they are male), Bruton sweeps in for her all-too-brief scene, chewing the scenery just a bit and singing up a storm. When the tornado that is Bruton whips off the stage, we wish she would come back and tell us another story, any story, read the phone book to us, anything! Here is another seasoned Chicago artist that we should hear from on a much more regular basis. 

One of the advantages gifted an ensemble company is that many of the players have worked with each other multiple times and have a shorthand with each other that is terribly useful when putting together the pieces of a production. At this point in all our histories, we are picking up many shattered pieces and gluing them together with spit and a prayer, and Chicago’s storefront theatre community is saddled not only with that reality, but also with fewer performing spaces within which to work and bank accounts dripping red after the devastation of the last 18 months’ empty box offices and lowered donor gifting. It is the heart-glue shared by the core of artists that have created this ensemble that is on display in this storytelling. You can see it and hear it. Is has a heartbeat all its own. 

Recommended

Reviewed by Aaron Hunt 

Presented September 7-October 3 by Third Eye Ensemble at The Edge Theater, 5451 N. Broadway, Chicago.

Tickets are available at the door or by going to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-infinite-energy-of-ada-lovelace-petticoats-and-sliderules-tickets-166686163803

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.thirdeyete.com.