STAGE REVIEW : ‘SHOUT UP A MORNING’: THE JOHN HENRY SAGA

A tall man is slowly lowered from the heavens onto the stage behind a smoky Lucite curtain as the band strikes up. That is the unexpected and symbolic opening image of “Shout Up a Morning,” the much-ballyhooed, much-awaited musical that launched the La Jolla Playhouse’s fourth season Tuesday like a Roman candle.

“Morning” is not entirely new. The powerful music by Nat and Julian (Cannonball) Adderley has been around for a dozen years or so, but the book (Paul Avila Mayer and George W. George) and lyrics (Diane Charlotte Lampert) are new, based on an original libretto and lyrics by Peter Farrow.

Then, too, a good deal of this musicalization of the John Henry legend has an old-fashioned feel. (Did we detect close brushes with black stereotype? We did.)

What is newest about “Morning” (aside from the title, which was changed from the original “Big Man”) is not content. This 1868 saga remains the larger-than-life story of the steel-drivin’ man who beat the steam drill and the odds with his own bare hands. What is new is the sleek high-tech packaging of the piece, with its inventive juxtaposition of ancient and modern that is a tribute to (and trademark of) director Des McAnuff’s increasingly assertive iconoclasm.

Does he pull it off? He does, more by superimposed other-dimension than degree, in a surprising twist of style versus content.

Consider that “Shout Up a Morning” is fundamentally an overlong, overly sentimental piece that pulls out all the stops in the manner of “Porgy and Bess.”

Its depiction of the noble (read idealized) black man’s struggle against mistreatment at the hands of unfeeling whites is grand-scale fantasy. Also soap opera. It could hardly be more unsubtle. What makes it succeed is the strength of the musical composition and the imagination of the staging. That imagination begins with a deceptively simple rule of thumb: Surround yourself with talent that can deliver on the same wavelength.

Let’s start with the music. Danny Troob’s arrangements (and overall supervision), Kirk Nurock’s orchestrations, Jonny Bowden’s additional incidental and dance music and Charles Coleman’s musical direction, all blend to give the Adderleys’ vivid score great vitality.

Its power lies more in choral assault than star turns, with its most impressive numbers lodged in the evening’s second half (which, paradoxically, is much too talky).

Both tall and big-throated Michael Edward-Stevens as the Lord’s right-hand man, John Henry, and big-throated half-pint Leilani Jones as his Carolina, do eminent justice to their music and their parts. His “Next Year in Jerusalem” and “Anybody Need a Big Man,” at the top of Act II, have tremendous energy. Her tender “Gonna Give Lovin’ a Try” and swinging “Grind Your Coffee” (with Charlaine Woodard, Ellia English and Cheryl Crawford) are full of flavor and/or bounce. And Stuart K. Robinson is happily stuck with delivering the rousing “Anybodybodybody.” These are juicy, muscular compositions that carry the artists as much as the artists carry them.

In addition, the company of 30-plus is eminently able to sustain the material and offer choral support, with more notable performances contributed by Nick La Tour, Edwin Battle, Michael Leslie, Mary Bond Davis, Stewart Wilson-Turner and George McDaniel.

Susan Denison’s muted semi-period costumes anchor the production in realism, while Richard Riddell’s polarized lighting complements them by enhancing the fantastical.

John Arnone’s gridlike setting, as wide and high as the proscenium itself, provides all kinds of performing levels that director McAnuff loves to use. (Remember Peter Sellars’ actors crawling about the catwalks in “The Visions of Simone Machard”?) The setting also extends the motif of old and new--reality and abstraction--when a life-size facsimile of an 1868 steam engine sputters and spews onto the stage, fully aware of the sensation it creates.

John Kilgore has provided unobtrusive sound engineering--the highest compliment we can pay him. Choreography by Dianne Ruth McIntyre is also unobtrusive, which may not the highest compliment we can pay her, but, in fairness, it’s enough. This is a singing more than a dancing show.

“Morning” now clocks in at three hours, which is entirely too long, but with continued editing, tightening, refining, who knows? McAnuff might well have another hit on his hands--and an uncommon one at that.

Performances run through June 28, (619) 452-3960. The production then travels to Washington where it opens July 15 as part of the “AT&T; Performing Arts Festival at the Kennedy Center.”

Two observations: It is a growing measure of McAnuff’s artistic persuasiveness that, in just four summers, he has managed to establish the La Jolla Playhouse as a national contender. The Southland’s manifest acceptance of his unusual brand of theater is equally a measure of its own readiness to pick up the gauntlet. What could be more encouraging?