Review: Gun & Powder Takes Aim and Hits Its Target

The path from Millburn, New Jersey, to the Main Stem looks especially bright these days. Paper Mill Playhouse already shepherded one musical to New York this season, The Great Gatsby. Gun & Powder, the exciting and ambitious original musical now onstage there, shouldn’t be too far behind. The story of two Texas sisters whose journey takes them “from farm gals to outlaws to legends,” this stirringly acted and memorably staged production contains all the elements needed to create a bona fide hit, although some judicious editing could leave it in even better shape.

Librettist and lyricist Angelica Chéri based the original story on lore from her own family. Set in a repressive postbellum South, where most Black people have freedom in name only, sisters Mary Clarke (Ciara Renée) and Martha Clarke (Liisi LaFontaine) set out to earn money that will pay off sharecropping debts held by their devoted mother, Tallulah (Jeannette Bayardelle, the musical’s vocal powerhouse and endearing center). Because the sisters are the product of a relationship between Tallulah and a white man, their light skin allows others to perceive them as white, which they believe will open up a higher class of jobs to them. Yet they quickly find the best way to gain a fortune is with the aid of a gun their mother gave them for protection.

With the law on their tails, the Sisters Clarke end up in a fine hotel owned by Jesse Whitewater (Hunter Parrish), who quickly takes a shine to the beautiful and demure Mary. Meanwhile, the headstrong Martha balances devotion to her mother’s cause with a growing attraction to Elijah (Aaron James McKenzie), a formerly enslaved Black man who works as Jesse’s servant. The musical’s dramatic pulse hinges on this balance of daughterly duties and womanly wants, confounded by the secrets Mary and Martha carry into the white world they now inhabit.

Chéri and composer Ross Baum have crafted a memorable and multifaceted score, with a sound world that blends the anthemic nature of contemporary Broadway and a grounding in traditional folk, blues, country, and roots music. The orchestrations (by John Clancy) are sweeping and romantic one moment, tangy and toe-tapping the next. Individual numbers are tailored well to the performers’ strengths: Renée possesses a more traditionally rousing Broadway belt, which she often deploys to shake the rafters, while LaFontaine’s dusky, characterful singing complements more internal ballads.

Renée and LaFontaine excel at presenting all angles of the sisters’ strong bond, while also making clear that each is her own woman. As the story’s focus tightens on Mary and Jesse’s fraught relationship, though, Martha sometimes recedes unnecessarily into the background. Future revisions of the piece should consider how to balance both sides of the narrative, as well as how Mary’s genuine love for Jesse, which is complicated by the fear that he will discover her heritage, mirrors Martha’s desire to retain her freedom even as her feelings for Elijah grow.

Much of the show’s narration comes through a chorus of Kinfolk, who fill in the details of the story to which the characters only sometimes allude. A pair of entertaining servants, Sissy (Aurelia Williams) and Flo (Zonya Love), fill out these purposes within the central frame as well. The ensemble could not be more talented across the board, but after a while, these asides start to feel like interruptions. I would have preferred if some of this expository material were repurposed into book scenes between the central characters rather than given in the manner of direct address.

Director Stevie Walker-Webb creates striking tableaux throughout the production, aided by a Beowulf Boritt set that looks grand without feeling garish and costumes by Emilio Sosa that strongly define each character. Tiffany Rea-Fisher’s choreography suits large choral numbers and intimate moments alike. Still, the musical’s first act is overlong and overstuffed, and attempts to introduce a surrealist element in the second feel incongruous to the rest of the piece.

These are issues that can be easily addressed, though. Like a shot in the dark, Gun & Powder arrives as one of the most invigorating and promising new musicals of the last several seasons. I have no doubt that it has everything it needs to hit a bull’s-eye.