A lively legend

For our first musical of the weekend, we caught Triad Stage's "Bloody Blackbeard," an original production by artistic director Preston Lane with music by Laurelyn Dossett. They've worked together before on "Brother Wolf" and "Beautiful Star" for the same stage.

As usual, the set was wonderful -- a shipwreck solid in the rear and buried in the sand in the front -- yes, sand all over the floor in the thrust stage area. Lighting was good and effective, as was the sound, chiefly. At the beginning, though, it was hard to hear the female singer and discern the words; several of the early songs seemed deep in the ranges of several of the singers as well. While the music overall was generally appealing, little of it was memorable -- except for the songs given to the female performers at several points in the show.

On a equally general basis, the show had its compelling moments and the story telling was generally even-handed, but at several points the exposition got a little snoozy, such as when a captain with whom Edward Teach signs on goes on at length about pirating, and at other times, Virginia's governor and a politician give excessive detail about how the governor plans to break the law in pursuit of Blackbeard.

Bringing this North Carolina-based sea legend to life was certainly a worthy idea. With about 20 minutes of cuts, it might be an even more entertaining one.