Co-Created and Performed by Andrea

Directed by John Paul McGroarty

Composed by Howard Moody

Traversing the global history of musical heritage is a gloriously enormous undertaking.

Especially when one considers the atrocities of our shared history, but from the most painful of circumstances, the surviving hope is often that of music. And flourishing out of this agony, told in a diasporic narrative, Tales of Transatlantic Freedom releases a dense richness and diversity of spiritual gospel, blues, opera, jazz, and a few Robert Burns songs to cement the flittering leaps over the Atlantic.

Over centuries, time is inconsequential in this touching musical journey performed by Andrea Baker, with live instrumentals and a score by Howard Moody. While history is the foundation of the show – the music, and cultural interconnectedness, are what drive forward the show’s prospect to help, to reconcile and to move forward.

A highlight, a focal point where the audience truly grasps the weight of the songs being sung so marvellously soulful with rich understanding by Baker, is the extract from Shirley Graham Du Bois’ 1932 opera Tom Tom – the first written by an African American woman. Elements like these allow the show to speak for itself, with director John Paul McGroarty doing little other than allowing Baker and Moody to do their thing. This is also likely why Tales of Transatlantic Freedom comes over as a touch repetitious in structure, lacking that additional bite for the audience to hook into.

Pace is in constant flow, and at seventy minutes, audiences may detach themselves as we move from one aria or performance to the next. Especially as Baker removes themselves from the stage, to float freely behind the heavy black curtains of Greenside’s Emerald Theatre. Not strictly a poor choice in direction, but it does not offer much merit for the staging choice: what these sequences do often allow Howard Moody the opportunity to further their range of impressive instrumentals and occasional vocals, strumming at the strings of their piano, or utilising washboards and other less common-place pieces. It’s fascinating, and when Tales of Transatlantic Freedom aligns and fires on all cylinders, is absolute bliss.

The most penetrating moment occurs just as the show ends, a bittersweet way to close the performance which has the potential to be as significant through the show if rippled with similar moments. Baker speaks to music, to the diversity of the art, and our backwards mentality of pushing diversity into art forms which have always been diverse, we’re just not enabling those voices.