'SCAT!' sings with potential

From left, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Stephanie Battle, Courtney J. Cook, and Du’Bois A’Keen in "SCAT!... The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar" at Jacob's Pillow on Wednesday night. (Photo by Grace Copeland)

To Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, “SCAT!” is personal. A love letter to her parents, it takes a deep dive into her ancestors’ struggles and joys gaining freedom in the south and their migration north to Kansas City. And what they found was poverty, racial battles and ultimately riches in the form of music, dance, barbecue and the people who formed a bond of mutual care and respect.
 
But “SCAT! … the Complex Lives of Al & Dot and Dot & Al Zollar” has its own struggles. For one thing, the evening-length show now onstage at the Ted Shawn Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow, carries on a bit too long. Moreover, its initial showing on Wednesday night during the festival’s second week looked a little under rehearsed, a surprise for the inimitable 42-year-old Urban Bush Women.
 
 “SCAT!” still lands a punch, mainly for the music. The sound is the heart of the piece.  As composed by Craig Harris with a story by Talvin Wilks, this work should be a production on Broadway, not the dance stage. Truly dance took a backseat to the six outstanding singers that kept the episodic tale of Al and Dot moving.
 
Vocalists Milton Suggs, Brianna Thomas and Charenee Wade along with what was dubbed the “Story Folks” who danced and sang, Du’Bois A’Keen, Stephanie Battle and Courtney J. Cook, wove the narrative with sass and mystery. And while it was clear that much of their story was lost to history, what they offered was expressed with honesty and love.
 
Broken in chapters, the highlight was the sultry depiction of “Missus Wrong” with Wade at the microphone.
 
Zollar herself played a part, telling a tale of her family of “dreamers and schemers” who came to her in a dream. The ancestors, known and unknown, were dining at the table on the sea. The food and the table, as they were swallowed up in the ocean, told her topursue her dream. And that dream, she tells the audience in the end, was Urban Bush Women.
 
The company has gone far by creating important works exploring the untold stories of Black Americans. The Great Migration, with her parents as its center, is a worthy idea for any stage. But “SCAT!” needs a bit of polishing. Once refined, “SCAT!” will blow the walls off any theater.