Calgary Theater's world premiere of Selma Burke is fitting

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The world premiere of Selma Burke, a co-production between Theater Calgary and Alberta Theater Projects, is a win for all involved.

Local playwrights Maria Crooks and Caroline Russell-King paid tribute to the black American sculptor, a woman who, like the art itself, inspired and inspired.

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Born in 1900, Selma Burke worked her magic in wood, clay, and bronze for sixty years, working with Martin Luther King Jr., Duke Ellington, and Booker T. Sculpting famous figures like Washington, he immortalized the emotions of ordinary people. As Crooks and Russell-King make clear, Burke is as vibrant and amazing as his art, and deserves a production full of passion, drama and humor.

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A device that helps achieve this is the actors acting out Burke's artworks and interacting with their author. Burke poured his heart and soul into his art, so they become one.

It provides snippets of Burke's life from the age of 20 until her death at age 94 and covers important moments and movements in America at the time, but Selma Burke is not a historical play. A very human drama that is as funny as it is sensitive.

Norma Lewis plays Selma as a woman who feels deeply about the issues of her time, the men in her life, the purpose and integrity of art, and the injustices she has experienced. It's a performance that sparkles with nuance, and Lewis ages very convincingly without histrionics. Selma's few moments of anger at the people who try to control her life are far more powerful because they are few and far between, which shows how well Lewis orchestrates her performance.

Lewis' co-stars — Christopher Clare, Heather Pattengale and Christopher Hunt — play 17 characters, as well as Selma's artwork, and they're so distinct it's really like a company of about 20 people. It's all a theatrical part of the play, and it's fun, because Clare, Pattengale and Hunt are very good chameleons.

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Claire plays Harlem poet and writer Claude McKay, who seduces both Burke and his art. Their relationship was tumultuous because, as Claire points out, McKay wanted to be in control of every aspect of Selma's life. Seeing how alcohol and a fickle public have reduced McKay to a shadow of his former glory is especially poignant in Claire's performance.

Pattengale transitions from the despicable Eleanor Roosevelt to a woman reeling from her daughter's stillbirth with such grace and ease, and Pattengale can even play a turkey with such conviction.

Hunt's forte is playing multiple characters, and he has a stash he can easily access. His Edgar J. Works by Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt stand out, but it's Selma's art lecture slide show featuring 17 famous European artists that shows her penchant for comic inventiveness.

Director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg gives the production such a fluid feel, which is difficult when the play is a series of short scenes. With the help of movement choreographer Javier Vilalta, Sonnenberg makes each moment of the sculptures memorable and finds such humor in them.

The technical prowess of Hanne Loosen's set, Brendan Briceland's projections, Tim Rodriguez's lighting, Catherine Smith's sound design and Adejoke Taiwo's costumes make this a truly beautiful production.

Kudos to Theater Calgary Artistic Director Stafford Arima for seeing the potential in Crooks and Russell-King's untested script and ensuring a world-class production to bring it to life. This is theater that is both entertaining and enlightening as well as inventive.

Selma Burke runs through April 27 at the Martha Cohen Theater at the Arts Commons.

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