Kenita Miller in Animal Wisdom. Photo: Ben Arons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHeather Christian\u2019s Animal Wisdom<\/em> is a beast of a very different stripe. It is a musical experience that is so deeply personal, so remarkably original, so impossible to classify, it defies standard critique. Christian herself acknowledges in the program notes that \u201cit\u2019s neither musical, nor play, nor anything specific.\u201d And then she adds \u201cIt\u2019s my life story, as clearly as I can tell it (which is not very clearly at all).\u201d And that explains the difficulty of passing judgment on a work which some will find utterly transcendent while others, noting the show\u2019s disjointed ideas, will simply tire of trying to make sense of it all.<\/p>\nTo clarify\u2026or further confuse, Christian describes the show as \u201ca requiem within a requiem\u2026an active ritual, letting go of supernatural\/psychological\/spiritual\/actual trauma in front of an audience.\u201d She then concludes by saying: \u201cWe try with the tools that we were given.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is where it\u2019s hard to quibble with the show\u2019s detractors because the tools that Christian was given \u2013 her musical talents \u2013 are truly quite extraordinary. The show is further aided by yet another impressive \u201ctool\u201d: Kenita R. Miller\u2019s bravura performance embodying the author as \u201cH.\u201d Miller is an absolute powerhouse on stage, singing and acting with a level of commitment that I can best describe as spiritual possession.<\/p>\n
\u201cPossession\u201d may just be the operative word here because Christian devised the show\u2019s two intermission-less hours as an attempt to conjure up the ghosts in her life. She believes that she has a strong connection to \u201cher dead\u201d and explains that a \u201cRequiem Mass\u201d is done in the Catholic Church for the specific purpose of putting a newly departed soul in repose. It\u2019s mostly a solo performance in which Miller plays all the ghosts.<\/p>\n
Her \u201cdead\u201d are introduced haphazardly; and the narrative, if you could call it that, is not easy to follow. She mostly draws from her matrilineal Catholic ancestry in New Orleans. When she sings \u201cLove Is in the Garden\u201d, she\u2019s literally referencing her grandmother, Heloise, who dropped dead in her garden. Her other grandmother, Geraldine, is a \u201cred bird\u201d because \u201cshe threw her ghost into a cardinal\u201d; and she says her grandfather\u2019s ghost lives in her car. They\u2019re all shadowy figures (fittingly), but some of them come across as refreshingly insightful. Among the other assorted spirits and poltergeists are her piano teacher, Doris \u2013 quite the feisty character; and Ella, insisting that you carry your ancestors with you, reappears at show\u2019s end to impart some sage advice.<\/p>\n
The show is mostly sung through which could be seen as both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because the music \u2013 a glorious kaleidoscope of blues, gospel, folk, and hymn \u2013 is so rhythmically rich and vibrant, it could easily stand alone as a concert. And very special mention to the six performers in the band led by Music Director Alexandra Crosby on piano: Francesca Dawls (violin), El Beh (cello), Caro Moore (percussion), Kris Saint-Louis (bass), Zack Zaromatidis (guitar). They\u2019re not only excellent musicians, they each have their own roles to play.<\/p>\n
But as splendid as it all sounds, the lyrics are difficult to discern. That\u2019s partly due to the acoustical imbalance, but also the songs are loaded with metaphorical abstractions that get lost in the singing. There\u2019s much wisdom in the writing but as performed, we miss a lot of it. Then again, maybe that\u2019s the point since Animal Wisdom<\/em> is presented as a futile effort to unravel some of life\u2019s most daunting mysteries.<\/p>\nThere\u2019s clearly a lot going on in the show, and Emmie Finckel\u2019s scenic design delivers with a full complement of knick knacks perched throughout the theater signifying the ghostly eccentricities. The audience is positioned on two opposite sides of the theater overlooking the playing space set up as a patchwork of floral gardens. And Masha Tsimring surrounds the entire theater with crude lights that flicker on and off to create the appropriate haunted spell.<\/p>\n
Animal Wisdom<\/em> could afford some cutting. The first half is filled with a hodgepodge of random observations. We\u2019re told that you must not verbally deny a ghost that you know is in the room; Coca-Cola works better than sacramental wine, and \u201cwhat they don\u2019t tell you about dying is that you lose chronology. \u201d All of that is often repeated and it can try your patience. But by the second half, director Keenan Tyler Oliphant takes us to church and it all comes together in a moving crescendo.<\/p>\nThe last 20 minutes is staged in total darkness. In the script, Christian explains that \u201cthe show is not a show anymore. The show is a ritual grieving and a real blackout is necessary.\u201d At that point, a choir of several dozen singers enters and the music takes over, swallowing the room with a sense of communal reverie. It ends with a fugue in six parts; and by the time we\u2019re all asked to join in a chorus of Hosannahs, we\u2019re possessed by the transformative power of the music; and it\u2019s impossible to resist.<\/p>\n
Animal Wisdom opened May 19, 2026, at Signature Center and runs through June 14. Tickets and information: signaturetheatre.org<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source nystagereview.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 19, 2026 9:00 pm By Roma Torre \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606 The Signature Theatre ends its 35th anniversary season with Kenita R. Miller’s revelatory performance in a revival of Heather Christian’s haunting spiritual journey. Kenita Miller in Animal Wisdom. Photo: Ben Arons Heather Christian\u2019s Animal Wisdom is a beast of a very different stripe. It is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2424156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2424155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Animal-Wisdom-A-Theatrical-Exorcism-Powered-by-Astonishing-Music.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2424155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2424157,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2424155\/revisions\/2424157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2424156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2424155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2424155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2424155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}