REVIEWS

The story, which depicts two alternate timelines, is one of the more interesting concepts to come from a Broadway stage recently, and this tour features two of the leading Broadway actors of their generation: Jackie Burns, of the tour of Wicked, and Anthony Rapp, who played Mark Cohen in the first Broadway production of Rent.

Recently Silk Road Rising, a theatre company devoted to telling the stories of people of Asian and Middle Eastern heritage, has focused on short runs of one-person shows which directly allow people to challenge narratives about themselves. Their latest, Ziryab, the Songbird of Andalusia, is a combination of dramatic lecture and musical presentation, performed by local musician Ronnie Malley, on the subject of an eighth-century polymath whose life proves that many of today’s “ancient” conflicts are not really eternal. Malley’s musicianship is superb, and his interweaving of his own life with the story of Ziryab’s, as well as his highly-informative discourse on the medieval master’s legacy, make an enlightening performance.

Chamber music like Fugitive Songs demands an intimate setting like the Heartland Studio. The charming young cast members are all fit to share the hopeful, nervous atmosphere of exploration and self-discovery with each other, and by extension, an appreciative audience. And they sound good doing it.