Drumstruck Reviews Time Out, New York June 23-29, 2005
The fun starts a half hour before curtain, when arriving audience members find an African drum waiting on every seat. By the time the dozen south-west African performers of Drumstruck’s cast take the stage, the audience has been jamming away happily, and many seem content with do-it-yourself percussion as the whole show.
Still, it gets better. The production is simultaneously a dazzling exhibition of song, dance, percussion, humor and storytelling along the lines of Riverdance and a mesmerizing interactive experience. To beat out a rhythm along with 500 other people — elderly women, children, tourists, black, white — is simply exhilarating. The audience enjoys a display of such energy, vitality, and skill as it’s not likely to see again for many a day. Indeed, there were times when I was torn between the ecstasy of drumming and the pleasure of watching the performance. What an excellent problem to fare.
But although this is a feel-good spectacle par excellence, one can’t help but find it somewhat troubling. Currently, a half-dozen human-rights catastrophes rage across AIDs ravaged Africa, yet many Americans have been preoccupied with nothing more than the Michael Jackson trial. It could be time for a cultural-appreciation lesson with more heft. There’s irony in an African drum so entrancing that it helps us forget the plight of Africans.
Everybody gets the beat at ‘Drumstruck’ Michael Sommers, Star-Ledger, June 17, 2005
Forget that mechanical “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and do some interactive bang-banging of your own at “Drumstruck,” an infinitely more spontaneous and enjoyable entertainment.
Heck, it’s even educational — people can learn a good deal about African culture at this exuberant off-Broadway show, which opened yesterdayat Dodger Stages.
Everybody in the audience gets a 2-foot-tall djembe drum of their own to pound on during the 90-minute program, which illustrates and celebrates the percussive music and dance made for eons by various African peoples.
Nearly a dozen South and West African percussionists have been imported for this exciting event, and they’re a lively crew.
The performers are beautiful men and women garbed in a changing variety of native dress. Their expressive faces often decorated in tribal paint, they move with energy, grace and precision. All appear to be having a terrific time and easily communicate their enthusiasm to spectators.
The show is divided into 10 sections detailing aspects of traditional African music and movement. Drums of all descriptions and sizes are arrayed around stage environs that suggest a village stockade set against vivid blue skies.
One of the narrators, the honey-voiced Ayanda, relates how collective drumming is symbolic of the ancient African sense of community, where everyone can join together to make music.
Then a shock-headed cheerleader named Enock Bafana Mahlangu gets the audience to beat out different rhythms along with the performers. Louder, softer, faster, slower somehow nearly 350 viewers discover themselves pounding away in a coordinated effort that’s wonderfully exhilarating to experience.
Boasting he can teach anyone to play a drum, the charismatic Nicholas “Africa” Djanie picks out a bashful member of the audience for a lesson. The guy eventually turns out to be Capetown percussionist Richard Carter, who engages in a fierce battle of the drums with Djanie.
Several animal vignettes taken from ancient bushmen rituals and a dance of the Gauteng Gold Mines offer fluent samples of cultural history, while an impish Tiny Modise frenetically demonstrates other kinds of dance moves. There’s even an audience sing-along in Zulu to “Mamaliye,” a traditional chorus of thanks to Mother Africa.
Originally created by Warren Lieberman for South Africa’s Drum Café, the production here is swiftly staged by David Warren, whose designers provide radiant blasts of orange, red, yellow and other torrid shades into the visuals.
“Drumstruck” climaxes in an interactive jam session of drumming along with gourds, finger cymbals and other instruments handed out among viewers to bring even greater aural variety to the delightful din that results.
Ears may ring and fingers may sting when the show is finally done but, wow, it’s sure been a lot of fun. Talk about making a joyful noise!
A REAL BANG FOR YOUR BUCK Frank Scheck, New York Post
CONSIDERING we live in one of the noisiest cities in the world, it seems strange that New Yorkers would flock to see theatrical shows featuring little besides loud banging.
But the success of “Stomp” and its culinary-oriented cousin “Cookin’ ” seems to indicate otherwise, as does the arrival of this latest drum extravaganza.
Featuring 11 South and West African percussionists demonstrating their considerable skills and making one holy hell of a racket, “Drumstruck” adds a new gimmick to the mix, namely audience interaction: A 2-foot drum is left on every seat, guaranteeing that you too can channel your inner Buddy Rich or Max Roach.
If the producers really wanted to clean up, they would sell Tylenol at the concession stand.
While percussion presented outside of a concert hall is beginning to wear a bit thin for this reviewer, it’s worth noting that the rest of the audience felt otherwise. Delighted children and scores of adults banged away on the drum clutched tightly between their legs as if newly released from an asylum.
The audience’s efforts pale in comparison, however, with those of the performers, who demonstrate not only amazing rhythmic abilities, but also enough high energy, athleticism and charisma to make a compelling case for drumming as a future Olympic event. The wide variety of percussive instruments employed illustrates the range of the genre.
The audience, which starts pounding away before the show even begins, is invited into the proceedings via a lesson laden with comic shtick and group chanting. At one point, a hapless volunteer is brought onstage for some intensive instruction, although it soon becomes apparent that he’s actually a ringer.
The drumming is periodically interrupted by exuberant dance routines, featuring refreshingly zaftig performers, and musical numbers featuring both traditional and newer songs written by the likes of Miriam Makeba.