Starry Story Night: The Pleiades

Or: Seven Sisters

High atop the huddled skyline of Boise, Idaho, in the showroom of JUMP (what is it? We still don’t know, but can report that there are tractors), a crowd fills an auditorium of concentric rings. At the center sits the Boise Philharmonic String Quartet fill the air with the sweet and celestial music of an autumn night. Conducted by Jodi Eichelberger, seven women pour their personal, true stories together, about their journey through a hard and bitter world, paying their way with loss, to become the shining people we hear tonight.

In theory, it sounds wonderful, in practice, there are some burrs. Vital words are lost in the switching of microphones, and despite a stately change or position between each act it is hard to join sight to hearing in recognizing the story, or sometimes to tell which thread we are following at the moment. But despite technical difficulties, the artistic merit of the evening is sterling. The tales spark and reflect off each other, echoing or twining together. These are hard stories, lots of abuse, lots of violence, but always heart.

A bright spark is given through Erika Warner, telling of the lifting over her own invisibility, as an introvert and an immigrant, by her exuberant beau’s dancing scavenger hunt (confusing to someone who had not known what a scavenger hunt was) and her marvelously forward mother. Warner’s earnestness and exuberance brought bubbles of laughter, moments of aww’d appreciation, and provided warmth against harsh winds from other quarters. Cheryl Slavin, Erin Riley, and Anne McDonald brought bitter draughts of tales of dealing with cruel men and hard lives: the first dealing with an a-neurotypical mind in the corners of a military base, the second who sought to join the navy to see the world, to have her dreams sunk, and the third dealing with isolation while looking for something golden in her life.

Jen Adams, a powerful teller and magician told us of a chance of a lifetime robbed by an act of violence, and even more by a culture that makes a victim disappear. Sherry Briscoe carried us to her mother and the beliefs of her Cherokee heritage that brushed her against another world. And Elizabeth McKetta, a professional teller and sublime wordsmith (who’s own phrases are tied throughout as knots to hold the whole glittering array together) told us of her sister and their rising and falling roles Scheherazade and and Dunyazad, the sister who redeems the world by her story and her wit and the silent sister hidden under the bed, or, what happens when you teach a girl that in order for her to shine, another woman has to dim.

Bitter and triumphant, joyous and sorrowful, The Pleiades shimmer in and out of sight (and occasionally in and out of hearing) drawing us into seven different lives, who we find share many similarities with each other, and even with our own. It sweeps us up into the heavens, a black and marvelous space, and deposits us gently on top of the world, back in our own Boise Idaho, deeply moved and honored to be in such company.