Last Updated on August 18, 2023, 10:29 AM | Published: August 13, 2023
OKLAHOMA CITY — There are few forms of expression more nakedly vulnerable or emotionally challenging than the “one-person show.”
With usually little more than a single microphone, a chair, maybe a table, and possibly a prop or two, a lone storyteller stands on stage and lays bare their heart, their mind, their soul, or in the case of classically-trained opera/R&B singer Deonna Marie, all three.
Rather than relying purely on her remarkable gift of song, Marie drops the melody in favor of raw, off-the-cuff spoken word to recall her own lifelong battles with addiction, neglect, abandonment, and abuse in her new one-woman live show, “The Deonna Marie Experience: From the Crack House to the Opera House.”
Blunt, disquieting, transformative, and punctuated by moments of strikingly beautiful singing, the show was scheduled to open for the public on August 10th.
With the opening postponed due to a COVID confirmation behind-the-scenes, the show will now run August 17th through the 27th at Factory Obscura’s Mix-Tape space on 9th Street.
Life Story
A loosely structured, largely conversational show, “The Deonna Marie Experience” grew from the real-life of Michigan-born, OKC-based singer Deonna Marie Cattledge and her time sharing shorter, individual stories as part of NPR’s live, true-life storytelling series “The Moth.”
Widening the scope from those segments, Cattledge starts at the beginning, recounting her upbringing by a hopelessly crack-addicted mother, time in the foster system, development of her own addiction, time in jail, and more, all framed around how she discovered her singing voice and the confidence that came with it.
With that period of her life behind her, Cattledge moved to Oklahoma for a fresh start and formally pursued a musical education, eventually collecting multiple degrees for music and vocal performance, establishing herself in theatrical and operatic shows across the country, and becoming a vocal teacher herself.
When it came time for her to dig into the entirety of her story, Cattledge partnered with director Wendy Poole and Factory Obscura to develop a small-scale multimedia “experience” to pull audiences into her world and her mind.
“For over a year, she’s been working on this story,” Poole said in a short introduction to the show’s open dress rehearsal. “I’m lucky enough to have directed this for her, and it has been an amazing experience.”
‘Blooming from Brokenness’
When Cattledge takes the stage alone and the show begins, it becomes clear pretty quickly that even though it’s loosely scripted and well-rehearsed, you’re really not seeing a “performance” in the traditional sense. Cattledge isn’t playing a character, or presumably even a dramatized or stylized version of herself.
As she welcomes you and begins walking you through her life from her earliest memories, she’ll pause, she’ll jump around, she’ll ask questions or look for assurances, all in service of an irrepressibly blunt, honest exploration of where she ended up, and the always elusive “why?”
The moments of performance, when Cattledge slips into a characterized version of her own younger self at different stages, come mostly unexpectedly, and more often than not, startlingly.
There are flashes of actorly performance when she’ll shift easily into the mannerisms of early childhood or into the languages and behaviors of teenage street life, drawing on recollections and muscle memory to recreate herself and her circles at those times.
But the biggest, boldest, most harrowing moments of performance don’t feel like performance at all.
Moments of screaming at her mother, screaming for help, screaming for isolation, breaking down, even overt moments depicting violent self-harm, they don’t feel performative.
They feel, admittedly, like a willful regression or dissociation for Cattledge back into those memories, the kind of blackout flashback you might think of from a deep hypnosis or a soothsayer revival.
There are a lot of these moments, and yes they’re uncomfortable and yes any sensitive or potentially triggered audience members should be aware of the unrelentingly difficulty subject matter going in, but to blunt or soften those elements would delegitimize the entire show.
And most often right on the other side of them, there is music.
Cattledge’s singing voice and the show’s original songs provide the catharsis and resolution necessary for each of those disturbances, and they provide both the punctuation to each act and the unfolding thesis for a story of the transcendental healing power of song.
‘That is Enough’
Speaking with Cattledge following the open dress rehearsal, she explained how speaking bluntly and directly from the heart feels so much different from singing on stage.
“Honestly, that was the hardest part,” she told me. “Being with ‘The Moth’ taught me how to do that. They strip you of everything. They just want you to be you, they don’t want you to perform. So touring with them has really helped me to be okay with me and my voice and to say ‘that is enough.'”
Now grounded and thriving here in Oklahoma, Cattledge says she couldn’t be more proud or excited to launch this show with Factory Obscura in their Mix-Tape space, itself a testament to the emotional power of music.
For Cattledge, Oklahoma represents a second chance, even as her past life – and what remains of her family – are all still there a thousand miles away.
“To let them go and walk away was everything. It gave me life,” she said. “That’s why I’m here in Oklahoma City. This is the incubator for change for me. It’s what I needed to break away, and that’s what I did. I walked away and I never looked back.”
“The Deonna Marie Experience” is scheduled to run at Factory Obscura’s Mix-Tape from August 17th through the 27th following a postponement due to COVID.
For showtimes, tickets, and more information, visit factoryobscura.com.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.
