The Boston Globe - 13.09.2019

G6 The Boston Globe FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

“Topdog/Underdog.’’)
Now McCabe and Porter
have combined their talents for
a Huntington production of
“The Purists’’ that manages to
be trenchant, topical, substan-
tive, and consistently funny at
the same time. That’s a tough
balancing act to pull off, but
“The Purists’’ does it with im-
pressive finesse and no small
amount of theatrical fire.
Race, gender, sexuality, am-
bition, craftsmanship, connois-
seurship, cultural appropria-
tion, generational conflict, the
comparative virtues of hip-hop
and musical theater, the depre-
dations of the recording indus-
try: All those forces collide at
one point or another in McCa-
be’s play — and, crucially, all are
embodied by vividly particular-
ized and differentiated charac-
ters whom we come to care
deeply about.
In certain respects, particu-
larly its deployment of hip-hop
performance as a proving
ground and hip-hop life as a

u‘‘THEPURISTS’’
Continued from Page G1

crucible of identity, “The Pur-

ists’’ recalls Idris Goodwin’s

“Hype Man: a break beat play,’’

presented last year in Boston by

Company One Theatre. As in

“Hype Man,’’ the rap sequences

in “The Purists,’’ including a rap

battle between two young fe-

male performers that ignites

collateral conflict, are electric.

Whatever their flaws, McCa-

be doesn’t shortchange any of

the tempestuous figures who

gather to bicker, banter, and

connect on a stoop in the Sun-

nyside neighborhood of

Queens, designed by Clint Ra-

mos and brought to bursting

life by Porter and his excellent

cast. The playwright makes sure

we see his characters whole.

McCabe’s comprehensively hu-

mane portraits, enhanced by

the pungently expressive per-

formances Porter draws from

his quintet of actors, deepen

our emotional investment in

the play and add power to the

revelations, large and small,

that eventually surface.

“The Purists’’ chiefly re-

volves around Lamont Born Ci-

pher, an African-American rap-

per in his late 40s, played by the

rivetingly intense Morocco

Omari, who is determined to

safeguard the integrity of an art

form he sees as in danger of di-

lution from white dilettantes;

Mr. Bugz, an avuncular hip-hop

DJ, also in his late 40s, also

black, movingly portrayed by J.

Bernard Calloway, who carries

the weight of sadness over his

mother’s dementia and is also

troubled by a personal secret

that is about to spill into public

view; Gerry Brinsler, a white,

gay, acerbic musical-theater afi-

cionado in his 60s, who makes

no secret of his disdain for what

he calls “rippity-rap,’’ played by

John Scurti, whose comic tim-

ing and delivery could scarcely

be better; and Val Kano, a

twentysomething Puerto Rican

rapper who is tired of encoun-

tering roadblocks to her career,

portrayed by Analisa Velez with

immense verve and personality.

Eventually, a fifth person ar-

rives on the scene: Nancy Rein-

stein, a white employee of Ger-

ry’s in her 20s who professes to

revere Lamont and hip-hop

generally, played by Izzie Steele

with an artful blend of gee-whiz

demeanor and a gimlet eye. For

all the ferocity of their subse-

quent rap battle, both Nancy

and Val are of like mind on the

question of misogyny in rap lyr-

ics, and they challenge the old-

er men on it. That leads to a

fiercely passionate treatise by

Lamont that does not defend

misogyny but explores distort-

ed depictions of hip-hop culture

and delves into the subject of

what, at the end of the day, con-

stitutes authenticity.

It’s one of numerous times

“The Purists’’ harnesses cause

and effect to generate heat —

sometimes directly, as when

Gerry is confronted by Mr. Bugz

and Lamont over the language

he uses to describe African-

American teenagers on the sub-

way; and sometimes indirectly,

as when Val, her feelings hurt

by Mr. Bugz’s unwillingness to

commit to mentoring her, finds

a way to weaponize a rumor

about him in a conversation

with Lamont.

The friendships, rivalries,

and quasi-love affairs in “The

Purists’’ are grounded in per-

suasive detail; McCabe’s larger

points about, say, racial exploi-

tation or gender inequities in

the music business emerge or-

ganically from the canvas he

has carefully populated and de-

lineated rather than with a sud-

den, throat-clearing, momen-

tum-breaking didacticism.

Again, all this is done with-

out sacrificing the vein of hu-

mor that runs through the pro-

duction. McCabe may have be-

gun his theater career as an

actor, but “The Purists’’ sug-

gests that he’s a born play-

wright. And while Porter’s ca-

reer as an actor is still going

strong (on FX’s “Pose,’’ to name

one), “The Purists’’ and his oth-

er two outings at the Hunting-

ton add up to evidence that he

should never let too much time

pass between directing stints.

Don Aucoin can be reached at

[email protected]. Follow him

on Twitter@GlobeAucoin.

And they present a robust au-
ral portrait of the origins and
various detours of the music it-
self. “Country Music” debuts on
PBS Sunday at 8 p.m. The first
four episodes run through
Wednesday, the last four Sept.
22-25.
Given the vast scale of
Burns’s essential themes — war,
democracy, art — the first chal-
lenge is to break them down in-
to manageable pieces. In the
case of “Country Music,” he
opens with the songwriter
Kathy Mattea recalling her
younger years as a guide at the
Country Music Hall of Fame,
where she had daily encounters
with “The Sources of Country
Music,” the last painting by
Thomas Hart Benton (whose
life and work Burns studied in
one of his early documenta-
ries). With its vivid depiction of
a barn dance and a gospel choir,
backgrounded by a chugging lo-
comotive, it’s a visual summary
of what country music sounds
like, she says.
The 20th century opens in
signature Burns fashion, with
archival photos of rural Ameri-
ca setting the scene for the first

uCOUNTRYMUSIC
Continued from Page G1

years of recorded music, and

the birth of a music industry

category called, at first, “hill

country” music. Country arose

from the song traditions of the

underclass, both black and

white. Race is a recurring issue

— about the ways the music

brought the races together, or

at least provided more common

ground than is generally recog-

nized.

Ralph Peer’s historic record-

ing sessions in unremarkable

Bristol, Tenn., in 1927 gave rise

to the twin towers of Jimmie

Rodgers, the “Father of Country

Music,” and the Carter Family.

They would come to represent

the rambling side of country

music and the sanctity of fami-

ly, respectively, as the historian

Bill C. Malone notes. He’s one of

the filmmakers’ favorite talking

heads on this project.

By the second episode, there

is already plenty of live-action

footage, of the Depression-era

showmen who gave country

music its first inklings of piz-

zazz, from Gene Autry to Bob

Wills. Roy Acuff, whose name is

mostlyknowntodayasone-half

of the old Nashville music pub-

lishing company Acuff-Rose,

was such a big star in his day

that Japanese soldiers during

World War II were said to shout

at their American adversaries,

“To hell with Roosevelt! To hell

with Babe Ruth! To hell with

Roy Acuff!”

While Bill Monroe was prac-

tically inventing bluegrass mu-

sic, Hank Williams was hur-

tling toward his premature

death at age 29. “That was a

loss, man, for all mankind, I

thought,” says the producer

Fred Foster.

The city of Nashville, as

Burns has said, comes across as

a character all its own: a cosmo-

politan, business-oriented city

that preferred being called “The

Athens of the South” to its hon-

ky-tonk nickname, Music City.

A guitar in one hand and a

briefcase in the other, as Marty

Stuart describes the tension

there.

A child prodigy who played

with Monroe’s former sideman

Lester Flatt before joining

Johnny Cash’s band (and even-

tually marrying his childhood

crush, singer Connie Smith),

the dapper Stuart is one of

Burns’s most prominent inter-

preters in this series. He’s its

Wynton Marsalis (who also

drops by). Largely excellent in

the role, Stuart is not immune

to the occasional cliche, as he

describes the music of Mem-

phis having its own kind of

magic separate from Nash-

ville’s: “It’s in the gumbo down

there.”

Country music has always

been a product of formula, both

for better and for worse. The in-

dustry makes the most of its

best ideas, but it’s also perenni-

ally ripe for copycats and corn-

pone. To his credit Burns —

who has rarely met a doubt he

didn’t give the benefit to — teas-

es out some of these themes,

noting, for instance, the belit-

tling restrictions of institutions

such as the Grand Ole Opry and

“Hee Haw” even as he cele-

brates their powerful capacity

to showcase the music.

Burns freely admits he was

not a natural-born fan of coun-

try music. He wasn’t an expert

on its history when he and

Duncan began their work on

the series.

But while hosting a reporter

on a visit to their New Hamp-

shire compound a few years

ago, as the team was preparing

to unspool its last epic series,

“The Vietnam War,” Burns took

a moment to roll a sneak peek

at “Country Music.” The clip,

which shows up in Episode 5,

featured Dwight Yoakam talk-

ing about Merle Haggard’s mas-

terful songwriting.

The song Yoakam mentions,

“Holding Things Together,” is

about a man pleading with his

wife to come home. It’s their

daughter’s birthday, and the

mother has missed it. “But the

postman brought a present I

mailed some days ago/ I just

signed it ‘Love, from Mama,’ so

Angie wouldn’t know.”

Yoakam begins to cry as he

sings the lyric. “Merle’s good,” is

all he can manage to say.

They knew what a gem

they’d been gifted when they

taped that segment. There are

plenty more where that came

from: Elvis Costello compares

the rough musicianship of

Cash’s early records to punk

rock, “and I mean that as the

highest compliment.” The affa-

ble singer Bill Anderson amus-

ingly defends the elaborate

rhinestones and embroidery of

his industry’s peacock costum-

ing: “I don’t think they buy tick-

ets to see their next-door neigh-

bor.” Jeannie Seely recalls hear-

ing Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to

Pieces” for the first time and be-

ing floored at how much it

sounded like her own life:

“Who knows that?”

Later episodes in the series

cover the rugged individualists

whoformedtheimpromptu

“outlaw” movement of the

1970s — Willie Nelson and

Waylon Jennings, sure, but a

surprising allotment for the

tragic story of Townes Van

Zandt, too. Two years after the

premiere of their staggering

Vietnam documentary, Burns

and Duncan linger on the gen-

erational divide of that era, not-

ing Cash’s activism and Hag-

gard’s ambiguity as well as

Richard Nixon finding a tempo-

rary reprieve from the Water-

gate scandal with a warm re-

ception at the grand opening of

the new, $65 million Grand Ole

Opry House.

But Burns would rather fo-

cus his lens on, say, the commu-

nal experiment of the Nitty

Gritty Dirt Band’s landmark al-

bum “Will the Circle Be Unbro-

ken,” which brought together

California longhairs with old-

timers including Acuff, Doc

Watson, and “Mother” May-

belle Carter. It’s a strategy that

has served Burns extraordinari-

ly well over a rightfully es-

teemed career: unions, not divi-

sions.

That said, the filmmakers

might lose a few folks after the

seventh episode, “Are You Sure

Hank Done It This Way?” It

ends with the melodrama be-

hind George Jones’s “He

Stopped Loving Her Today”

(Jones, says Garth Brooks,

“might be the most soulful sing-

er the planet has ever known”),

and a connect-the dots segment

that traces Van Zandt’s poetic

saga “Pancho and Lefty”

through the generations of its

admirers.

The eighth and final epi-

sode, covering 1984-1996, has

more big hair and pastel colors

than Burns’s “The Civil War”

had mutton chops and sepia.

When Peter Coyote gravely nar-

rates as Brooks flies high above

an enormous stadium crowd in

a harness, we’re a long, long

way from Bristol.

Still, it will be worth seeing

what Burns makes of the Dixie

Chicks, or this year’s debate

over Lil Nas X’s country-rap

crossover smash “Old Town

Road,” whenever he gets

around to making the post-

script to “Country Music.”

“Music cuts through all the

boundaries,” as Nelson tells the

filmmakers at the end of Epi-

sode 7. “We’re not afraid to play

anything for anybody. ’Cause

music will get through.” Wheth-

er your idea of country music is

“Redneck Woman” or “Stand by

Your Man,” this latest achieve-

ment from Ken Burns and com-

pany will cut through.

James Sullivan can be reached

at [email protected].

Follow him on Twitter

@sullivanjames.

Electric and funny,

‘Purists’ packs power

T. CHARLES ERICKSON

STAGE REVIEW

THE PURISTS

Play by Dan McCabe. Directed

by Billy Porter. Presented by

Huntington Theatre

Company. At Wimberly

Theatre, Calderwood

Pavilion, Boston Center for

the Arts, through Oct. 6.

Tickets start at $25,

617-266-0800,

http://www.huntingtontheatre.org

TELEVISION REVIEW

COUNTRY MUSIC

On WGBH-2. Episodes 1-4

Sept. 15-18 at 8 p.m. Episodes

5-8 Sept. 22-25 at 8 p.m.

‘Country’ comforts

FROM LEFT: COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME ̈ AND MUSEUM; JIM “SENOR” MCGUIRE; LES LEVERETT COLLECTION

Gene Autry (left), Emmylou Harris, and Hank Williams are featured in “Country Music.”

Morocco Omari (left)

and John Scurti in “The

Purists.”

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