Carl Sandburg
wrote some brilliant poetry and quite a bit of powerful prose. He also wrote reams of windy, pseudo-oracular crap, and the challenge for any adapter is to find the gold in a river of dross without drowning. It's made tougher by the fact that good and bad Sandburg alike sport the rhythmic, incantatory sound inherited from Walt Whitman (who wrote quite a bit of junk himself), and that the sound is so contagious that my companion and I found ourselves speaking in its phonily eloquent cadences on our way out of the theatre.Director Ann Boyd's ambitious effort to combine Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories with his politics, journalism, poetry and life smashes itself on precisely this reef. Though gracefully directed in the movement- and image-laden style of text adaptation pioneered by Mary Zimmerman ("The Arabian Nights," "Metamorphoses"), and ably performed in a multitude of roles by its cast, Wishes, Suspicions and Secret Ambitions includes far too much of the poet's second-rate work. It's a shame because a more careful culling might contribute to the cause of rescuing Sandburg from his reputation for empty windbaggery, one reinforced every time a high-school freshman is compelled to read the cliched "Hog Butcher of the World." It's a double shame because those very students are the primary audience for Wishes . . ., a production of Steppenwolf's Arts Exchange Program which takes original works to the schools.
But these are the complaints of a Sandburg afficionado. Taken on its own terms, Wishes . . . is not without merit. Some of the poet's fantastic Rootabaga tales come through as clever and meaningful, particularly "Red Roses," where a young woman (the excellent Ann Joseph) promises herself to a series of faithless men including Shoulder Straps the Soldier, a poet and a ne'er-do-well (all portrayed with comic panache by Scott Duff). The story, written for Sandburg's daughters, gently makes its point about making the same mistake over and over again, as well as about being passive and waiting for life to arrive. This theme is reiterated throughout Wishes . . . , as Sandburg himself (Aaron Christensen, in an appealing performance) makes his own way from a constricting small town to the wider world and a writer's life.
Musical Director Anthony Wills Jr. has made good use of period tunes: when the men sing "Hallelujah, I'm a bum," we get a real taste of the social context in which Sandburg worked. The same is true when the company mimes the hard labor of the forge: their repeated movements and chanting about the all-powerful boss paint a vivid portrait of early 20th Century urban life. Unfortunately (and ironically, when Sandburg was such a fighter for racial justice), there's a less appealing whiff of the early 20th Century in the portrayal of Potato Face Blind Man by Cedric Young, an African-American actor. Though the role itself has no obvious racial content, and the actor's work is dignified and thoughtful, the Blind Man's task of imparting folk wisdom makes him uncomfortably reminiscent of Uncle Remus. Perhaps this says more about my frame of reference, and about the persistence of racism in the early 21st Century, than about Sandburg.
Standing out in the ensemble are Aaron Todd Douglas, whose slightest facial movement carries a world of meaning, and Manao Demuth, whose physical grace makes her the perfect White Horse Girl. Kati Brazda does well as Paula (Sandburg's lover Lillian Steichen), and the scenes of their courtship are among the most affecting of the whole show. Whatever his other failings, as a writer of love letters Sandburg had no equal.
The finale, too, is very sweet, as Sandburg reflects on the possibility of living to 89 and still thinking, "If God had let me live five years longer, I should've been a writer." It's just a shame that Boyd seems to have taken him so literally.