Off-Broadway: “Songs About Trains”
A high-speed train of thought on immigration, labor, and generational sacrifice
Photo by Valerie Terranova of Cedric Lamar, Jessica Ranville, Xiaoqing Zhang (foreground), Sara Ornelas.
The aptly-named Songs About Trains now playing at New Ohio Theatre coasts through a theatrical concert of folk songs in a carefully-crafted, toe-tapping gumbo of multiculturalism, storytelling, and sacrifice. The show weaves together folk songs, stories, and movement to encircle and embody the central theme of workers’ experiences (and at what expense) during a pivotal moment in history—the building of the U.S. rail system. Created by a multicultural cohort of artists, Songs About Trains questions the complexity of progress while celebrating the Chinese immigrant, Irish immigrant, Mexican American, African American, Appalachian, and Navajo communities instrumental in creating the United States as we know it today.
Staged as a concert with intermittent monologues, Songs About Trains highlights the untold stories of this multicultural workforce and explores the complexities of immigration, labor, Manifest Destiny, and the “progress” of the railroad—how it helped forge a global superpower, generated unbelievable wealth to a select few, and did so at the expense of thousands of lives, all while inspiring one of the deepest canons of music ever made in the US. Direction by Rebecca Martínez and Taylor Reynolds swallows one in the immediacy and exuberance of the piece’s energy; the eight-person ensemble swirls, coaxes, and grooves around the three-sided (including onstage) audience seating, immersing the audience with multiple vantage points vying for one’s attention at all times.
Written by lead author Beto O’Byrne and contributing authors Eugenie Chan, Reginald Edmund, Rebecca Martínez, and Jay B. Muskett, Songs About Trains features five workers’ stories dispersed around twenty-six songs. The stories are unfolded and passed amongst the ensemble through the readings of written letters, wherein it matters less which cast member “is” a certain character, but rather that the shared generational trauma each laborer undergoes creates a poignant fluidity wherein everyone participates in patient rotation. I use trauma here in the sense that each character displays protective coping mechanisms in the name of sacrifice for progress and making a better life for their family, often sugar-coating, coaxing, and conversing with a need to self-reassure more than relay the true hardships at hand. Individuals writing letters with no answer or counterpart on stage creates a difficult staging of one-sided readings into the air wherein the words echo, reverberate, and plea with an unseen receiver, often a dependent sibling or parent far away, but land as if teaching this modern audience a brief tour of history through individual empathy and traditionally-excluded narratives.
Once you get past inevitable Hadestown workers comparisons, the piece reveals itself as more akin to rustic Imagination Movers in denim; the charisma, stamina, and inter-generational appeal of this historical edu-tainment concert scratches an itch leftover from fourth-grade museum field trips. Songs About Trains is at its most successful when it blends letter-reading monologues with movement or music, adding dialogue into the perfect recipe mix rather than sitting in an interrupted silo breaking the flow, or train, of thought. Additional connection could be found in building more moments amongst the actors who more often perform presentationally outwards engaging with the audience, in contrast with the gripping father-son moment before a tap sequence that lent newfound sincerity and connection to the concert’s ecosystem.
The ensemble is truly the embodiment of the larger theme at play of the American melting pot ideal, where the remarkability of the collective whole of the piece draws from the sum of the individual experience and contribution. Through the course of eight thematic music sets, Songs About Trains celebrates each actor-musician’s strengths, featuring C.K. Edwards, Christian A. Guerrero, Cedric Lamar, Julián Mesri, Beto O’Byrne, Sara Ornelas, Jessica Ranville, and Xioqing Zhang. The cast personalizes the embodiment of the rail-workers, utilizing physicalization, vocalization, and musicianship to deftly navigate the tightrope between hardship and history at hand. Welded together as a collective, the cast works as one high-speed train of thought, powering seamlessly through a brisk 100 minutes of infectious energy and superb musicianship. Standouts include the heart-wrenching Xioqing Zhang, captivating with a subtlety rooted in an intensity ready to bubble over, and C.K. Edwards’ (Shuffle Along) eye-widening tap showstopper that captures a belabored world weariness surrounded by the noise of relentless progress.
Songs About Trains chugs merrily along April 5–23, 2022 at New Ohio Theatre. For tickets and more information, visit https://newohiotheatre.org/.
Photo by Valerie Terranova of Beto O’Byrne, Julián Mesri, Sara Ornelas, Xiaoqing Zhang, Christian A. Guerrero.
Production credits
Working Theater, Radical Evolution, and New Ohio Theatre present “Songs About Trains”
The production runs April 5–23, 2022 at New Ohio Theatre.
Created by: Radical Evolution
Directed by: Rebecca Martínez and Taylor Reynolds
Music Director/Arranger: Julián Mesri
Choreographer: Joya Powell
Artistic Producer: Meropi Peponides
Lead Author: Beto O’Byrne
Contributing Authors: Eugenie Chan, Reginald Edmund, Rebecca Martínez, Jay B Muskett
an Archive Residency premiere in partnership with IRT Theatre
Scenic Design: Peiyi Wong
Costume Design: Lux Haac
Lighting Design: María-Cristina Fusté
Sound Design: Margaret Montagna