To witness Kenita Miller in performance is to experience someone speaking to your soul. She sings with a purity of emotion that breaks past your rib cage, straight to holding your heart with her voice. Watch Miller sing “Ti Moune” in her current role as Mama Euralie in the earthy, grounded revival of Once On This Island and you will experience a parental catharthis of the inevitable “letting go”.
I recently spoke with Miller about how playing Celie in The Color Purple was therapeutic, the lessons held within Once On This Island and the healing power of theater.
What does this show mean to you?
This show has always been special to me for so many reasons. I met Lynn and Stephen very early on in my career and they’ve been extremely nurturing and extremely generous. I’ve done Once On This Island, maybe six times and this is my second time playing Mama Euralie. I love Mama because of where I am in my life. I don’t have children yet but my husband and I are on that journey. To be able to play somebody, a nurturer, I feel very honored to kind of have this personal exploration of this part of my life through this woman.
Then it does make me have to deal with the letting go part of life. I think that’s a way that I’m trying to allow the show to heal me in a way. To be a human being and to be experiencing emotion through that and then trying to replicate it on stage is such an interesting challenge. Mama and Tonton find this young spirit, get attached and then have to let it go. It’s also making me think of my parents and their mortality and making peace with that, even though they’re going to transcend this. I have this great gift that is helping me to find some peace with mortality.
Miller as Mama Euralie in Once On This Island (Photo: Joan Marcus)
This show, in telling a story to a scared little girl, shows how we make meaning from trauma.
The capability of the human spirit is amazing when we tap into it. The storytelling is one way that this community helps what might be another devastation on top of what they’re already trying to rebuild from. It is exemplifying what is going on all over the world now. You can even look at it in those aspects as far as human resilience or our responsibility as a global community. This show makes me feel very responsible.
Also the idea of a shared past and a shared ancestry in “The Sad Tale of the Beauxhommes” and how they think there are these separate people, but they’re not. What relevance does this have to today’s cultural climate?
This could it be looked at as another sad narrative of a young black woman. That’s one way of thinking of it. We can’t forget because also we as human beings have a capability of repeating a lot of cycles. When I was younger, skin complexion was a very big deal. If you were darker-skinned then you were considered less than those were lighter-skinned and closer to white. If we don’t look within our own selves before we go outward, there’s not really any real healing at the base.
I’m playing a whole other character in the second part of the show but there are some layers to them, being from the same community. All of those characters are representative of the ancestry line, the Beauxhommes are on the same island. One time she holds up the mirror and it’s in front of Ti Moune. To me it’s like remember, this is still you, this is where you come from. But then also too, when I hold it up in front of Daniel, you know, it’s to say you have this inside of you too, it’s all connected.
Can you feel when the audience is listening?
Yes, especially in this space is because it’s so intimate. You can feel the energy of this collective. Sometimes the audiences are not as vocal but you can definitely can feel it. When I first started doing this, I was like, I’m jumping around in costumes and I get to play dress up and play. What is my purpose? Then I started to look at like the things that I was being drawn to. Every single show that I’ve done has been therapeutic for me personally in some way and I have found a way to find within my characters something that feels like it is giving back. When I was doing The Color Purple, I had people tell me that this was their story, that they either lost their sister or were disconnected from their family or their family had this overcoming transition or they felt like a Celie all their life. Personally, I ended up having some things in that I didn’t know about my family then came out while I was doing that show that made it almost unbearably at the surface. It felt like being shot out of a cannon. I was forced to learn very fast how to protect myself, my mind and my heart. I love the challenge of pushing myself to see how far I can actually tap into something.
I was really young when I did The Color Purple, 22 or 23 years old, and I remember nights going home and getting off the train and feeling so weighted. Even though Celie has this kind of redemption at the end of it, I didn’t know how to carry that for myself.
Miller as Celie in The Color Purple (Photo: Paul Kolnik)
Is it just a time and experience that got you there?
I think so. Learning how to look at what was making me have those feelings. I still have nerves but now I’ve learned how to look at the nerves and just tap into what I’m doing. Just do the work. It is a conscious thing now. It feels like I have one connection to myself and also a connection to making the art.
When you’re singing “Ti Moune” as Mama Euralie, are you really trying to convince yourself to let her go or trying to convince Ti Moune to stay?
I think there’s probably a little bit of both. I feel like for the most part she is resisting letting go. I think the whole song she’s trying with everything she has to hold on, so it’s more of a betrayal when Tonton says, “Go on ahead.” Mama is thinking, “We can’t talk about this first?” [laughs]. But I kind of loved when we found that moment because that feels human.
Photo: Tess Mayer, The Interval
Why do you think theater matters?
When you asked that question, I just saw colors. I think our brain has the ability to perceive and do and create. Art to me is the melding of spirit and science. It’s like this beautiful common ground. It also is just so universal, the audience is full of people that speak completely different languages and they have a shared experience through art. That makes me feel like this is my journey, to be healing people through art.
