Denise Kay Christie Monisha Cleveland Williams Ned Jordene Thomas Treemonisha Davina Sarah Wright Lucy Melvin van Claridge Andy Anthony Ofeoegbu Remus Allan Cooper Parson Alltalk/Simon Abraham Osuagwu Zozdetrick Adeola Martin Cephus Martin Cole Luddud Mehemet Ergen Director Mark Bousie Music director/piano Out of Southwark Scott Joplin's 1908 opera Treemonisha was not performed professionally until 1975, presumably in the wake of the success of Joplin's The entertainer in the movie The sting. Today it comes over as a charming operetta with an up-front didactic message about the importance of education and Christianity, and of general civility. In spite of a trace of tree-religion in the main character's name -- she was found under a tree as a baby -- there is no hint of anything like the trembling prayer in the storm of the community in Porgy and Bess. Religion is simply about telling the truth and doing good, and the other is superstition. When the bad guys are caught and about to be punished, the wise and educated Treemonisha insists that the community gives them a civil lecture and lets them go. If Joplin didn't know his place in 1908, by 1975 he probably appeared not nearly radical enough. After an enjoyable rag-time overture, most of Treemonisha could be by any colleague of Joplin's German teacher, with conjurers substituted for Gypsies and a handful of characteristic black American musical pieces subtituted for the csardas or polonaise. There is a fine, uncomplicated religious number and an amusing barber-shop quartet about the joys of taking a rest. And the final rag-time number is totally infectious and unforgettable, unmistakably Joplin. But the rest is competent, amiable Wagner-touched operetta, perhaps already slightly old-fashioned by by 1908, but the sort of thing that might have been a middle-ranking success if by an established European operetta composer. But of course what was radical about Treemonisha was that Joplin wrote an opera from the point of view of the community in which he grew up. This isn't verismo but a straightforward expression of his values as an educated black composer from rural Texas. If it shares anything with central European operetta other than a musical idiom, it's the use of a conventional story -- plucky girl is kidnapped and rescued by her lover -- to express the values of a marginalized community from the inside. In The bartered bride, it's simply the Czech language and a few dances. In Treemonisha, it's the setting in a rural black community and a few musical numbers. This performance by Out of Southwark was smoothly paced and musically enjoyable, with a piano accompaniment. (I don't know if Joplin produced an orchestra version -- the piano version sounded idomatic.) There was little sense of mystery or danger. Denise Kay Christie as Monisha did all she could with the legend of the tree, but it went on too long. And the conjurors who kidnap Treemonisha were a few inches from the pirates of Penzance. Jordene Thomas was a clear-eyed and clear-voiced Treemonisha, though, full of authority. Cleveland Williams was moving as her not-particularly-useful but loving father Ned. He played the part with one foot twisted inwards, so consistently that I assumed it was real until he stopped doing it for the curtain call. Alan Cooper was a resonant Parson Alltalk and a more sinister chief conjuror than his buffonish list of beliefs suggested. Abraham Osuagwu did have an edge of danger as the conjuror Zodzetrick, provided partly by his ditching the operetta singing idiom that the other singers used for something closer to Sporting Life. The main auditorium at BAC provides an excellent setting for small-scale performances of rare works like this that need mainstream resources but won't automatically find them. A piano or reduced arrangement doesn't get hopelessly lost, and the smallish space helps the singers. But there is a good stage space and a sense of being in a real theatre which suggests what a full-scale production might be like.