Birds on a wire sing together

Five birds on a wire: hawks and falcons, or ravens come to mind; also thrushes, nightingales and swallows, possibly swans. Each clings to a precarious perch on his or her particular wire-in-the-storm, as that’s the nature of storms encountered and survived.

They leave us damaged, altered, changed. Yet such storms darkly powerful and destructive as they are seem ever to impart a sharp shard of truth into those universal experiences men and women call love.

The Light Gets In: The Words and Music of Leonard Cohen opens Magnus’ 2010-2011 season with a tempest of passion via the strong voices and expressions and stances of such five birds.

Bryden MacDonald’s adaptation of Cohen’s art and prowess around all things human approached from a shadowy side consists entirely of musical performances, no spoken script.

This reviewer wondered about that: how well would the story get told? No worries. It was amazing, wrenching and in a strange but not unexpected way, Cohen’s sophisticated murky bright talent being what it is, uplifting and redemptive. Soon into the production, no in fact as soon as it started, such wondering stopped and the real wonder began.

One caution, though, for audience members perhaps unaware of some liberties taken with the lyrics. One supposes, even realizes, why the at times bluntly shocking phrases inserted here and there are necessary to convey certain aspects of the performers’ personas.

But as some audience members left thinking everything they’d heard was as the title
suggests (the words and music of Cohen himself), this small sidebar to keep in mind.

Okay, back to the performances and especially to the set and lighting: all simply outstanding because they work so well together. With each successive solo the birds impressively claim their spotlights; one builds upon the next or leads us into a completely different yet not disconnected shift in mood.

In particular this reviewer enjoyed the undeniable stage presences of The Accidental Whore and The Trapped Man. No, we didn’t witness them singing together but we could just imagine.

Actually, it was easy to imagine many combinations of duets thanks in part to the costumes as always understatedly classy by Mervi Agombar, but more and most to the set and lighting by Doug Robinson and Ted Roberts.

Once again these in-sync behind-the-scenes guys open multi-dimensional avenues of imagination for the audience: levels to climb, broken rungs and prison bars aside. Such obstacles compliantly give way to graceful silhouettes of sea birds soaring upward to where, depending on the light, one sees orcas, the tails of whales, or ship propellers churning through an underwater expanse of freedom.

One final note: kudos to the musicians who pull this production together with finesse. Many of us are fortunate to have heard Danny Johnson, Mary Welby and Mark Thibert at all sorts of other venues: clubs, festivals, and world-class concerts.

Here, from the private little grotto in which they play, one of course first thinks of the cello as Cohen’s voice but soon revises that to include the versatile charm and sultry appeal of the keyboard and saxophone that so satisfyingly complete the harmony of these dark love songs where, by the way, the light does indeed get in.

Magnus’ extraordinary season opener runs until Oct. 2: don’t miss it.