Right after Amber Iman finishes her first song, a sudden admirer gasps: “Your voice is like nothing I’ve ever heard.”
The reaction is understandable. Iman portrays the title character in this musical inspired by African folklore , and – excuse me for gushing – hers is indeed the voice of a goddess.
But I have heard it before — when Iman portrayed Nina Simone in “Soul Doctor,” in her Tony-nominated role in “Lempicka,” and in the solo concert in the middle of the pandemic from the stage of the Broadway Theater, mostly watched on Instagram Live. She is now starring in a musical that might do for her what “Touch of Venus” did for Melissa Errico when she portrayed that goddess three decades ago: convert an entire theater into worshippers.
If “Goddess” is a vehicle for Iman’s talent, there’s LOTS of other traffic. The musical is lively, long and busy. The staging, set and costumes are sometimes so vibrant it’s hard to know where to look. Composer Michael Thurber has created an eclectic score of some two dozen musical numbers, some from Kenya, where the show is set, but also jazz and pop and soul – and at least one percussion-heavy number that sounded as if borrowed from Buena Vista Social Club. They’re performed by some two dozen cast members, almost half of whom are principal characters who each get their own songs and stories.
By the time we meet Iman’s character, she is named Nadira, singing in an underground club in Mombasa, Kenya called Moto Moto (which we’re told means Hot! Heat!), and living there too, hiding out from her mother. The first two musical numbers, performed by the entire cast, and led by Nick Rashad Burroughs as Ahmed and the Griot Trio (Teshomech Olenja,Awa Sal Secka, and Melessie Clark) who look like a Sixties girl group who’ve gone African, explain her backstory. Here is a snipped of “Mombasa Mombasa”
Her mother, Watamaraka, is the goddess of evil, who insisted that her daughter Marimba become the goddess of war, but Marimba wanted to be the goddess of music, and so, to escape her mother’s wrath, she has changed her name, and is hiding out in Moto Moto.
In “Learn to Love,” Marimbo, now Nadira, schools us mortals in our misconceptions about immortals like herself:
They think we know it all in heaven
they think we always have it right
I hear them yearning for the answers
when they pray to us each night
but if they only knew the truth
they would know i’m yearning too
I didn’t learn it all above
I never learned to love
This, of course, sets us up for what happens next.
The audience member at Moto Moto who praises her voice is named Omari (Austin Scott.) Omari’s father Hassan (J Paul Nicholas) is the governor of Mombasa, but he’s just had a heart attack, so Omari has returned from New York City, where he’s been studying, and now plans to launch a political campaign to succeed his father. Omari also intends to marry Cheche (Destinee Rea), who has been his fiancé since childhood; Cheche is eager to become the First Lady (“Our moment is here,” she sings in “You’re Finally Here.” )
But, like Nadira, Omari is also, in a way, hiding from his family. He is secretly a jazz lover, and indeed a first-rate saxophone player, and he like to hang out in Moto Moto. He can’t help himself, even though his father has closed down almost all other nightclubs, which he considers caves of sin. Perhaps needless to say, Omari has kept his love of music and the nightlife secret from his father; even stashing his saxophone at the club, so it won’t be discovered.
Nadira is able to coax Omari to let loose with the sax, which results in “Boom Boom” (the Buena Vista-like Afrobeat)
It can hardly be a spoiler to divulge that Nadira and Omari sing a love ballad, “Near You”
However, the show doesn’t play down the barriers to such a relationship — not least the mortality problem.
Meanwhile, Moto Moto co-workers Rashida and Ahmed (Arica Jackson and Nick Rashad Burroughs, who both have spectacular comic and vocal chops) have their own relationship issues, as does the club’s owner Madongo (Jason Bowen), who is so obsessed with Nadira that he consults a non-binary seer or shaman, Balozi (Reggie D. White), and must answer to Watamaraka, portrayed at one point by the Griot trio.
Everybody does a fine job, but “Goddess” is not always easy to follow, especially when the plot advances, or is at least explained, in a musical number, since the band tends to drown out the lyrics — and Darrell Grand Moultrie’s choreography would distract us from the words, even if we could make them out.
Luckily, many of the songs hardly have words at all, just sounds (scatting, humming, belting, riffing; I’m not sure what else to call them.) When Amber Iman sings these sounds, they’re sublime.
Goddess
Public Theater through June 8
Running time: 2 hours and 20 minutes, including one 15 min intermission
Tickets: $113
Music and lyrics by Michael Thurber
Book and direction by Saheem Ali, additional book material by James Ijames
Choreography by Darrell Grand Moultrie.
Scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado, costume design by Dede Ayite, lighting design by Bradley King, sound design by Nevin Steinberg, hair and wig design by Nikiya Mathis, puppet design by Julian Crouch
Cast: Brandon Alvíon (Ensemble), Jason Bowen (Madongo), George Brown (Understudy), Nick Rashad Burroughs (Ahmed), Melessie Clark (Mosi/Understudy), Zachary Downer (Ensemble), Amber Iman (Nadira), Arica Jackson (Rashida), Ayana George Jackson (Siti), Quiantae Mapenzi Johnson (Ensemble), Christina Jones (Ensemble), Parris Lewis (Understudy), Kareem Marsh (Swing), Nayah Merisier (Swing), J Paul Nicholas (Hassan), Isio-Maya Nuwere (Ensemble), Teshomech Olenja (Tisa/Understudy), Destinee Rea (Cheche), Jasmin Richardson (Ensemble), Awa Sal Secka (Zawadi/Understudy), Austin Scott (Omari), Teddy Trice (Ensemble), Ekele Ukegbu (Understudy), Wade Watson (Ensemble), Reggie D. White (Balozi), and Christopher Henry Young (Understudy).
