Pershing Square Signature Center

Theater review by Raven Snook Is there anything more dispiriting than a séance where the ghosts don't show up? That's how I felt watching the Signature Theatre Company resurrection of Heather Christian's breakthrough opus, Animal Wisdom, a musical-memoir-requiem that introduced audiences to this sui generis composer-performer-pianist. The piece's 2017 world premiere at the Bushwick Starr heralded the arrival of a bold and ambitious artist descended from a "matrilineal line [of] New Orleans Catholics who are also musicians who suffer migraines and talk to dead people." Thankfully, Christian's conjuring of her own origin story was filmed in 2021. (You can watch excerpts from it on PBS.) Animal Wisdom | Photograph: Courtesy Ben Arons The Signature’s version of Animal Wisdom marks the first time that someone other than Christian has performed the work, which is delivered directly to the audience with no fourth wall in sight. Kenita R. Miller acknowledges from the outset that these are Christian's stories, not hers, but that she'll be "stepping into them." With her warm, welcoming presence and powerful, throaty vocals, Miller seems well-chosen to make the material sing in a different voice. But instead of transcending into the divine, much of the evening remains stubbornly earthbound. Animal Wisdom | Photograph: Courtesy Ben Arons That isn't for lack of vision. Director Keenan Tyler Oliphant has gathered impressive collaborators: Emmie Finckel's in-the-round scenic design...