Ordena Stephens-Thompson and Olaoluwa Fayokun star in Sankofa: The Soldier's Tale Retold.John Lauener/Supplied
Title: Sankofa: The Soldier’s Tale Retold
Written by: Igor Stravinsky, music; Titilope Sonuga, libretto
Adapted by: Andrew Burashko
Director: Tawiah M’Carthy
Starring: Diego Matamoros, Olaoluwa Fayokun, Ordena Stephens-Thompson
Company: Art of Time Ensemble
Venue: Harbourfront Centre Theatre
City: Toronto
Year: To Oct. 27
In 1998, Toronto’s Art of Time Ensemble gave its first concert, a chamber version of Igor Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale). On Thursday, at Harbourfront Centre Theatre, the ensemble debuted its final production, Sankofa: The Soldier’s Tale Retold, an adaptation of Stravinsky’s mini morality play with music written during the horrors of the First World War. Featuring a new libretto from the poet Titilope Sonuga, it runs to Sunday.
Time flies and so does the sankofa, the bird from which Sonuga’s story draws its name. The word in the Twi language of Ghana means to go back and retrieve what was forgotten. Art of Time founder Andrew Burashko, who a year ago announced that his group dedicated to the reimagination of classical and pop music would be closing up shop after a quarter century, has had L’histoire du soldat occupying space in the back of his big brain for quite a while.
In 1993, he had seen a version in New York with the text reworked by novelist Kurt Vonnegut, but wasn’t convinced the drama and music had synced successfully. More recently, Canadian hip hop artist Shad’s 2018 album A Short Story About a War intrigued Burashko. “Gone is our land, our language, our history,” Shad rapped. “Ancestry, families vanish like it was magic.”
Which brings us to Sankofa: The Soldier’s Tale Retold, about a fictional Black soldier determined to enlist in the Canadian army in 1914. He meets racially motivated resistance. He also meets the Devil, ready with a bargain to help in the quest.
Olaoluwa Fayokun plays an aspiring soldier in Sankofa.John Lauener/Supplied
The story about discrimination and historical erasure was spoken in rhyming verse, with Stravinsky’s jaunty, tricky score of marches, waltzes and more capably performed by a septet of violin, clarinet, trumpet, bassoon, double bass, trombone and percussion.
The musicians and conductor Burashko were outfitted in army uniforms of the era, donated by the Shaw Festival. Commissioned by Art of Time and Against the Grain Theatre, the production is co-produced by The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School and Koffler Arts.
In Nova Scotia, an aspiring soldier played by Olaoluwa Fayokun sits in the woods writing a letter to his mother. “What is the price of a dream?” he asks. The young man finds out soon enough.
The Devil, whether disguised as a gentleman in a bowler hat or as a bonnet-headed old lady, was in the hands of veteran stage actor Diego Matamoros. I believe I’ve loved every production he has been associated with in town, and I’m beginning to think the connection is no coincidence. Matamoros is a master – his craft is in the details.
Ordena Stephens-Thompson was the narrator. She spoke Sonuga’s pithy, penetrating words with a melodious flair, but was a luminous presence even when silent.
The choreography by Pulga Muchochoma was fluid and minimal, save for a brilliant dance-like moment when Fayokun’s character seemed to be physically wrestling with his inner demons. The staging was elegant and austere; the look, music and story beguiled.
In the end, the soldier’s service to his country in the No. 2 Construction Battalion (the only Canadian battalion composed of Black soldiers to serve in the First World War) did not earn him a thing. He had been bamboozled and then quickly forgotten:
“To them, I was never here to them we were never there. It’s gone, the memory of men who stood like kin bound by the colour of their skin. We melt away like morning mist, no matter how much we insist.”
The Globe and Mail’s Robert Harris once said Art of Time concerts “could be the most confounding and confusing in the city.” He meant it in the best way possible. Burashko rethought classical music with an electric imagination and debut ideas.
One can find dozens of eloquent tributes on the Art of Time website, but the participation in concerts of cultural giants speaks enough: writers Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje, choreographers Peggy Baker and James Kudelka, and actor Don McKellar, for example. There are too many musicians to mention, but Sarah Slean and Steven Page were routinely willing to take on Burashko’s challenges.
Orson Welles’s 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast was drastically rethought, the arrangements that Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn made of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite were recreated, and the music of such composers as Frank Zappa, Franz Schubert, Joni Mitchell and the Beatles was reinterpreted. That’s a fraction of the concerts, of course.
When Burashko addressed the audience on Thursday, the crowd sighed when he mentioned it was the final production. He quickly said it was a celebration. It always was.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to add The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School as a production partner.