In Thunder Knocking on the Door, by playwright Keith Glover and with music by five-time Grammy Award winner Keb' Mo and Anderson Edwards, a blues guitar playing stranger turns up in a small Alabama town, setting a family on a collision course with fate.
When the original production opened in 1997, Variety called it "fresh and strikingly imaginative" in the way it blended music and magical realism. Stages Theatre offers an updated version of the show, with new musical arrangements, banking that its bluesy base will be an audience pleaser.
"The music of the show is the driving force," director Tevyn Washington tells CultureMap. "And the songs are what you sing when words just aren't enough."
Marvell Thunder, the character, is played by Lebraska Washington (no related to Tevyn). Houston audiences have seen him around in shows like Mary Poppins and Sister Act with TUTS, and as Bellomy in Stages' production of The Fantasticks that opened The Gordy theater complex. He says he's excited to be back in the Bayou City for this role.
"I really think this is a piece that needs to be seen," he says. "It's so interesting in the amount of information and heart it gives. And I think the character of Thunder is that he's a misunderstood man."
That means Thunder isn't too different from the blues he sings, offers Tevyn Washington.
"People understand the blues to be sad and heavy," he says. "But these are songs of joy and the release of the emotions you might hold. There's a lot of love in this show. I hope people leave lighter than when they came in. And I love that there is a Black family at the center of this. It's folklore. It's a Black fairy tale."
"It's a fable," Lebraska agrees. "And I think the overarching story hits home."
Audiences can expect a few surprises along the way as the shows weaves its magic. Tevyn notes that things might seem like pieces of a puzzle that have yet to come together, but in the end they become linchpins to understanding the action.
That's something that initially drew Stages artistic director Kenn McLaughlin to the play. He has a long history with the piece, having created the educational materials for the original production, launched at Alabama Shakes in 1997.
"I just love how it exists in the metaphorical and literal at the same time," he notes. "It's just beautiful to see the way the natural and supernatural co-exist."
McLaughlin worked with the original team of creators and has followed the show for the last 25 years, calling it the play he's seen the most and one he feels an attachment to. From the moment he came to Stages in 2001, he had a list of plays he wanted to do, and Thunder was always one of them.
"And it wasn't available, it wasn't available," he explains. "Then I found out in the fall of 2019, I think, that Ten Thousand Things Theater was doing an adaption of the show in prisons. And I was just, now I have to go to Minnesota to see it."
He was knocked out and his love for the piece renewed. He was elated when Stages' season selection committee agreed to put it on the season.
"It is such a joy to watch," he says.
"This cast is amazing," Lebraska adds. "It's gonna be a show."
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Thunder Knocking on the Door runs through August 6 at Stages Theatre (800 Rosine St.) For tickets and showtimes, visit Stages online. Tickets start at $30.
Photo by Melissa Taylor
