Jharis Yokley plays drums, and Eric Berryman recites toasts in Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me at the Wooster Group.
The Wooster Group’s 2017 celebrated production of The B-Side: “Negro Folklore From Texas State Prisons” was promoted as a “record album interpretation.” Conceived by Eric Berryman, the multimedia performance gave thrilling urgency and pulsing vitality to a recording from 1965 that featured African American work songs, spirituals, and personal anecdotes from prison. Berryman and The Wooster Group’s current piece is an exploration of Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me: Narrative Poetry from Black Oral Tradition, an LP that was released by Rounder Records in 1976. While the performance has its share of exhilarating moments, Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me is not as stirring as the previous work. It has, regrettably, several of the hallmarks of what is described in the recording industry as “difficult second album syndrome.”
Eric Berryman presents and analyzes African American oral traditions in Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me.
The performance features seven “toasts” that are featured on the album and which had appeared in an edited collection by Bruce Jackson for a book of the same name. Toasts, Berryman explains, are also referred to as ballads, and they are an integral part of the Black oral tradition, chronicling the heroic exploits of colorful and larger-than-life characters.
The first toast of the evening, “Titanic,” centers around Shine, a Black stoker, who dismissively responds to the panicked and pleading white passengers on the doomed ship, “Get your ass in the water and swim like me.” Later in the toast, Shine rebuffs a heedless captain, a tantalizing white woman, and a racist shark, and he makes it safely to dry land. As the narrator explains:
About four thirty when the Titanic was sinking,
Shine had swimmed on over to Los Angeles and started drinking.
But now when he heard the Titanic had sunk,
He was in New York damn near drunk.
Other toasts include the wily and badass monkey character in “Signifying Monkey” and “Partytime Monkey,” an enterprising pimp named “Pimpin’ Sam,” and a prodigiously endowed roustabout named “’Flicted Arm Pete.” The most famous figure in the gallery of boastful rogues, though, is the ruthless, murderous, and sexually unequalled outlaw, “Stackolee.”
“Berryman is joined on stage by drummer Jharis Yokley, whose impressive licks, slides, and strokes contribute to the aural experience.”
Under Kate Valk’s direction, Berryman presents the toasts in his rich and mellifluous baritone voice. Many of the pieces are accompanied by jazz underscoring, which he generates and modifies on a laptop, and additionally, there are videos depicting urban scenes and car chases. Berryman is joined on stage by drummer Jharis Yokley, whose impressive licks, slides, and strokes contribute to the aural experience. (Eric Sluyter designed the sound and Irfan Brkovic designed the videos. Production designer Elizabeth LaCompte, with notable assistance from Marika Kent’s lighting, gives the sense that the audience is observing the performance in a radio studio.)
Created by Berryman and The Wooster Group, Get Your Ass in the Water combines oral history, synthesized music, percussion accompaniment, and video elements to reanimate Black toasts that were released on an LP in 1976. Photographs by Marika Kent.
Berryman and Yokley make a good pair, and manifesting the production’s focus on Black oral traditions, the two share reminiscences from their own personal experiences. Berryman, for instance, recounts a time when his first name did not seem unique enough, so he experimented with changing the spelling of “Eric” to “Ehryk.” In an improvised bit, Berryman asked Yokley about a particularly memorable performance gig. Yokley amusingly related his recent appearance on The Tonight Show in which the percussion instruments were refashioned with mesh and hard rubber to give the appearance of the musician playing but without the sounds. He concluded that although he played on Jimmy Fallon’s show, he did not really play.
Whereas the various mixed media elements and performances in The B-Side coalesced to create a revelatory and deeply moving encounter with the original recording, in Get Your Ass in the Water, the jazz tracks, live music, and videos seem to be in competition with the spoken-word toasts. Unfortunately, the toasts usually lose. It is almost as if the creators intended to downplay—nearly to obfuscation—the misogynistic images of oversexed women and stereotypically violent and overbearing Black men. As a result, the flamboyant figures depicted in the tall tales get lost among the inessential trappings.
The strongest moments are those in which Berryman leans into and contextualizes the problematic depictions. Introducing “’Flicted Arm Pete,” for instance, Berryman cites Roger D. Abrahams, who wrote, “Now this poem has common lore in the Anglo-American tradition of pieces that are of the familiar fornication contest pattern.” The literary and cultural historicization provided a way into the stories that produced a spark of recognition and appreciation for myths and tales about battles of the sexes that were ever thus.
The running time of the show is just about one hour, and while there is a great deal to admire about Get Your Ass in the Water, one wishes that in future iterations Berryman might take a deeper dive into the rich material.
Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me runs through Feb. 3 at the Performing Garage (33 Wooster St.). Performances are at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For tickets, visit thewoostergroup.org.
Created by Eric Berryman and The Wooster Group
Director: Kate Valk
Production Design: Elizabeth LeCompte
Sound Design: Eric Sluyter
Video Design: Irfan Brkovic
Additional Video: Andrew Maillet, Yudam Hyung Seok Jeon
Lighting Design: Marika Kent
