Cross That River
59E59 Theaters Theater B
New York, NY
Through Oct. 8, 2023
Most folks probably wouldn’t be able to guess that a quarter of American cowboys were Black. As a Black man from Texas who opens all his emails with “Howdy,” I love talking about this rarely-acknowledged historical fact.
Cross That River – Allan & Pat Harris’ musical about Blue, a man who escaped slavery on a Louisiana plantation to become a cowboy in Texas -– does more than just talk about the history and legacy of Black cowboys in the United States. It sings and dances about them too.
Blending fact, fiction, and a beautiful, sweeping, multigenre score by Allan Harris, Cross That River is entertaining, educational, and above all, a toe-tapping musical journey through the life and adventures of Blue, who is played and narrated by Harris himself.
The story is told episodically, with each number centering around a different experience from Blue’s life, including his escape from the McLaughlin plantation, learning tricks of the cowboy trade from Mexican vaqueros, rising through the ranks and gaining notoriety as a skilled cowboy himself, falling in love with his wife, and reuniting with long-lost family.
The show has been touring on and off for two decades, and this production, directed by Regge Life, is actually a return engagement at 59E59 Theaters, where Cross That River also had a five-week run back in 2017. Harris has been working on the music for the show for even longer, and it shows. The show’s songs are a refined mix of jazz, country, and blues numbers that create a silky smooth listening experience throughout. Earworms abound.
Each song is performed with verve and gusto by the show’s band, who are all prominently featured onstage in the concert-like staging of the show: Arcoiris Sandoval on piano, Norman Edwards Jr. on drums and percussion, Paul Beaudry on bass, Alan Grubner on violin, and Alicyn Yaffee and Justin Poindexter on guitar.
I was especially impressed by Edwards, who occasionally puts the drumsticks down to take the spotlight himself as some of Cross That River’s wackiest minor characters, including a hot-tempered cook named “Mule Skinner”, and a clergyman simply named “Dat Dere Preacher”. As the latter, Edwards delivers a sermon monologue with a spoken cadence that felt so familiar yet so enjoyably idiosyncratic that I felt compelled to give a hearty “Amen!” at the end of it.
Other standout performances include Harris himself in the role of Blue, who opens the show by reminiscing about his wild West escapades to his kids by the campfire. He moves through narration, direct address to the audience, and performing the action of his own memories with a captivating, gritty wisdom that made me hang on his every word. Harris has been blessed with a supreme sense of rhythm as both a composer and performer. Did I mention that he plays guitar too?
Jeffrey Lewis, as Young Blue, is the star vocalist of the show. He powerfully sings and belts through some of the tragedies, struggles, and yearning of Blue’s early life, and I was often left floored by some of the notes and sustains he was hitting throughout the show.
As a concert-like staging, the production is technically sparse, but there were a few moments when I delighted in seeing designers do a lot with a little. For example, the production signals Blue’s arrival in Texas with a cheekily coordinated donning of cowboy hats by the band, with costume design by Shirlee Idzakovich. And throughout the decades of memories mined by Blue in this story, Joey Moro’s projection design shifts from place to place, which is crucial since there isn’t a scenic designer attached to the production at all.
The real history and the fictionalized media surrounding the American West includes significant violence toward and erasure of multiple groups, including Black folks, Mexican folks, Indigenous folks, and women. While the primary aim of Cross that River is, of course, the reclamation of a Black cowboy’s story specifically, the Harrises do attempt to meaningfully include people from all of these groups in this narrative, but with varying degrees of effectiveness.
For example, there is one song where Blue describes how, as a member of the Buffalo Soldiers, he chose to release a group of Indigenous people he had been ordered to capture, in recognition of similar struggle against the violence of the American empire.
The moment has the potential to be an inspiring example of Black-Indigenous solidarity in a historical context where the experiences of both groups are often erased, but the experience is unfortunately cheapened by the fact there aren’t any actual named indigenous characters with lines onstage in this, or any scene in the show. Blue just describes this specific incident verbally and with song, the show moves on, and that experience doesn’t seem to really change Blue’s perspective on the army, or the United States, both of which are still surprisingly rosy by show’s end.
I understand that it isn’t the central plot, but it does make me yearn to know more, in both historic and artistic senses, about Indigenous perspectives and experiences during this era and with the Western genre more broadly. It’s a gripe that I have with the entire genre really, not just Cross That River.
Where Cross That River does fall a little short, compared to other media in the genre, is the accent work in the show. There’s some inconsistency amongst the performers. Harris’ accent, predictably, is the real deal and one I have no issue with. At times, scenes with some of the other performers didn’t quite sound like any version of the Lone Star State I’m familiar with. But of course, my ears are going to be more sensitive to this than most.
Overall though, Cross That River is a wonderfully composed musical dive into an important chapter of Black American history. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning the historical context behind more recent depictions of the Black Cowboy aesthetic in pop culture, including Beyoncé’s Renaissance horse, Jordan Peele’s 2022 Film, Nope, and Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road Era. On a scale of one to ten, it’s a Yeehaw! from me.
Still Playing: Cross That River runs through October 8 at 59E59 Theaters. Tickets are available here.
Up Next For Me: At the suggestion of an IRC reader, I’ll be seeing Kinderkrankenhaus at the Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
