The Master Butchers Singing Club (review)

"It would seem that there had been a great collision, that two glaciers had through slow force smashed together, at last, and buckled." This elegant phrase summarizes the long-anticipated romantic union between master butcher Fidelis Waldvogel and his acrobat-turned-housekeeper Delphine Watzka in the Guthrie Theatre's world premiere of The Master Butchers Singing Club. The metaphor of collision also aptly expressed theatrical tensions lingering throughout Marsha Norman's adaptation of Louise Erdrich's acclaimed novel. The Guthrie's production merged cultural customs of German immigrants on the North Dakota prairie with Native American stylistic sensibilities. This attempted cultural fusion achieved mixed results: when it worked, the production soared with narrative authenticity and engaging cultural juxtaposition, but when the fusion failed, Master Butchers sank under the weight of disappointing characterization exacerbated by a muddled and sprawling script.

Lee Mark Nelson (Fidelis Waldvogel) and Emily Gunyou Halaas (Delphine Watzka) in The Master Butchers Singing Club. (Photo: Michal Daniel.)

Unlike much of her biographically influenced fiction, Erdrich hung the majority of the narrative of Master Butchers on the German American branches of her biracial family tree. German immigrant and World War I veteran Fidelis, robustly played by Lee Mark Nelson, stepped off of the train in Argus, North Dakota, not knowing a soul. (He wanted to ride to Seattle, but he only had enough money to make if halfway there.) David Korins's vast scene design—comprised of open space and rolling units evocative of railway cars—aided the sense of physical and cultural isolation. While in Argus, Fidelis raised a family, dealt with personal tragedy, and eventually fell in love with the fetching Delphine. This immigrant tale forms the core of Erdrich's story.

Norman's adaptation strived to flesh out existing Native American elements within Erdrich's novel. An impressive example of this successful cultural positioning came through the playwright's inventive choice to make the relatively minor Native American character of Step and a Half the primary narrator of the play. A member of the Menominee and Stockbridge-Munsee tribes, veteran actor Sheila Tousey turned Step and a Half into a clever and wise storyteller who anchored the play with shamanistic authority. Tousey's Step and a Half made a fine narrator for other reasons as well. Her status as a colorful and mysterious rag-picker haunting the borders of Argus imbued her stories with a magical sense of omniscience. The all-knowing outsider quality of this watcher and observer of Erdrich's fictional town resulted in some playful humor. For example, during one encounter with the enigmatic Step and a Half, a frustrated Delphine shouted, "Who the hell are you anyway!"

The musical elements of Master Butchers further accentuated the clash of cultures. Homesick for the motherland, the industrious Fidelis eventually starts a singing club in his Argus butcher shop. Director Francesca Zambello's production wisely took advantage of the theatrical potential of this musical element of Erdrich's novel. A mixture of German hymns and folksongs, nostalgically sung by the male chorus of townspeople, wove throughout the show. At intermission, I overheard an elderly audience member beam: "My grandmother used to sing me that tune, but in German."

As beautiful as they were, the singing club's choral arrangements shared the sound design with a markedly different musical style. Starting with the drama's opening moments, haunting flute music, performed by M. Cochise Anderson, scored Step and a Half's poetic narration and many of the play's episodic transitions. The program listed Anderson, a Twin Cities-based musician and spoken-word artist, as "Ancestor/Traditional Native Music." Predictably, his hovering, willowy flute riffs, played live and in view of the audience, clashed stylistically with Fidelis's boisterous European choir. Such competing musical sensibilities prevented Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen's sound design from achieving artistic unity; indeed, the lack of cohesion arguably diminished the visceral impact of both...