YOU HAVE TO HAVE A LITTLE FAITH IN 'THE MEDIUM' (THEATER REVIEW)

Composer Gian Carlo Menotti attended a seance with a baroness who believed she had contacted her dead daughter, Doodly. The name reappears in "The Medium," a work based on that experience that led him "to wonder at the multiple textures of reality."

The Music Theatre Workshop at Southeast will present "The Medium" one time only at 8 tonight at Academic Auditorium.

Best known for his Christmas classic "Amahl and the Night Visitors," Menotti has called "The Medium" a music drama instead of an opera because drama was his primary concern. The tragic story of love and faith imperiled and the English libretto make this work most accessible.

Yet the music is challenging. Dr. Chris Goeke conducts the University Chamber Orchestra through a discordant introduction that could easily begin a Hitchcock movie. You wonder where we might be going musically, but be assured some moments of beauty await.

Baba (Julie Stoverink) is a spiritualist who cons people into thinking she can help them contact loved ones who have died. "The Medium" welcomes the audience to one of her seances, complete with eerie lights and otherworldly sounds. A light fixture moves, a specter appears.

Baba's daughter Monica (Caroline Kraft) provides the voices from beyond, be it that of a 16-year-old girl or a 2-year-old boy. Toby (David Schneider), a mute boy Baba has taken in off the streets, operates mechanical devices that make the hopeful guests believe spirits are present.

But when Baba has an otherworldly experience herself, feels fingers at her throat during the seance, she is unnerved. She kicks out her clients, Mrs. and Mrs. Gobineau (Rick Castens and Brianna Nicholson) and Mrs. Nolan ( Laura Huusko) and accuses Toby of trying to trick her.

Later she will do worse.

This production under the direction of Dr. Leslie Jones is blessed with strong voices. Stoverink's robust tones boom from the stage, especially when Baba is distressed.

Kraft's voice has a lovely quality. Her Monica sings a charming folk song and later on sings a soulful duet with Baba.

The most affecting scene begins Act II as Toby puts on a puppet show for Monica. She can tell he wishes he could say he loves her so she sings for him, a love song to herself.

Castens, Nicholson and Huusko are fine in smaller roles.

Augmented with Southeast Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Ronald Francois and pianist Tim DePriest, the student orchestra ably accompanies the singers.

The lighting design is by Dennis Seyer, lighting and sound by Larry Lacie, and Christine Beardslea is the stage manager.

"The Medium" demonstrates how powerful faith can be and how empty and even dangerous is its lack. As Baba says, "If there is nothing to be afraid of, why am I afraid of this nothingness?"