Deep blues about New Orleans: ‘Clementine in the Lower 9’ uses ancient Greek theater to tell a modern tale

Even though it is a play with music, not a musical, the blues just pours off the pages of the script for “Clementine in the Lower Nine” by Dan Dietz.

The playwright is not a musician, but I am, and when I read songs in his script:

love breathes life into you

and love breaks you down

love puts a spell on you

and love spins you round

love slips an iron fist

inside a satin glove

good goddamn love

I can hear the chord changes. For me, the I would be A7#9. The IV would be a D9. The V would be an E9. I might throw a diminished in there, I’m not sure. But I already know how to sing it. I know the melody. Those lyrics sing the blues right in my face.

“I’m definitely a blues fan,” Dietz said during a recent phone call from the TheatreWorks rehearsal facility in Menlo Park, where he was helping prepare “Clementine” for its premiere at TheatreWorks Mountain View on Oct. 8.

“For me, a big part of what I like to do is mix music, especially live music, in plays. It comes from about 10 years of living in Austin, surrounded by musicians, having a lot of friends who were musicians — punk, rock, blues.

“One of the great things about doing theater in Austin is it’s always easy to experiment with having musicians in a play. There would always be somebody between gigs who was available.”

The subtitle of Dietz’ fine play is “a blues riff on Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.”

Well, “Agamemnon” is not what you would call Mr. Happy’s Fun Hour.

It’s more like Mrs. Cranky Decides To Kill Everybody and Leave the Stage Covered in Blood.

Agamemnon comes back from war, bringing Cassandra with him. Mrs. Agamemnon, aka Clytemnestra, who had taken a lover while hubby was away, doesn’t like Agamemnon bringing home his new squeeze, and everybody dies.

Dietz uses a lot of that — but not all of it — to tell the story of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

“I knew I was struck deeply by Katrina and the aftermath,” Dietz said, “by the unbelievable struggles of the people in New Orleans. … When I feel something that deeply, it means a play wants to come out.

“But I didn’t know how to give it the size of it. Not just the physical side of it, the destruction, but the damage that it did to the people. Their hearts, souls, minds. The sense of betrayal.

“It took incredible fortitude for people to decide to stay, to rebuild instead of just walking away. I was interested in exploring how you do that. How do you give justice to all that, and yet keep it human, keep it relatable.”

And that’s why Dietz turned to Aeschylus’ tale of “Agamemnon.”

“The ancient Greek dramatists had a way of dealing with huge social issues, life issues,” Dietz explained, “But were able to relate it down to a family story. ‘Agamemnon’ is about war, about betrayal, but at the end of the day, comes down to a woman asking, how can you do this to our family?”

And yet, Dietz wanted to find the hope in the story of New Orleans, so it is not entirely the same story as what Aeschylus had to tell.

In “Clementine,” a woman is trying to restore her family’s flood-damaged home, with help from her son. They are mourning the loss of her daughter to the flood, and waiting for her man to come home. He’s a jazz musician who’s been off doing any kind of work to try to raise a little money.

The truth of New Orleans after Katrina — the all too little, too late from the Feds, for instance — is in the flooring of this play, but not just standing out there on the stage all the time. This is the story of the people. One family.

When the man comes home, he brings with him a lost adolescent girl, who, like Cassandra, is afraid to enter the house. She is mute because she, too, has been devastated by the flood.

We are told the story of the death of the daughter. How she handed her father his horn, then was swept away in the water.

This is definitely blues music territory. This is life, right here, in all its hurt and its hopeful glory, and blues music must tell that tale.

Justin Ellington, a Manhattan-based producer and composer, was brought in to make the music work.

His job, he said in a different phone call from Menlo Park, “is making sure the story is told. The show is not about the music. The music supports and maybe motivates the story. There is a thin line where it would upstage the story. I have to find when the music is communicating the story, finding that balance, and staying true to the story.”

There are times in the script, he found, that maybe the lyrics would suggest a tempo that didn’t work for that moment. So, he would find a way to make that work, for the play.

That the play is set in New Orleans is gravy for Ellington.

“That makes the music a bit of a mix. Because the piece is set in New Orleans. There are so many things, style-wise, that have come out of that city. So, the score is a bit of an homage to that music. Luckily it is New Orleans — it can justify doing a lot of things. … Hopefully, the story will be told with what we’ve worked out.”

This piece being based on Greek theater, there has to be a chorus, and in this case, it is one person, a piano player who helps move the action along and does some singing. Kenny Brawner is that pianist for this production. Brawner is part of The Brawner Brothers Band, a solid blues/jazz/funk band based in New York City.

Brawner will be joined by Kelly Zaban Fasman on drums, Richard Duke on bass and John L. Worley Jr. on horns. Great band. The cast includes Laiona Michelle as Clementine, Jayne Deely as Cassy, Matt Jones as Reginald and Jack Koenig as Jaffy.

Leah C. Gardiner, who has directed major productions and won major theater awards pretty much everywhere, is directing.

“Clementine in the Lower 9” is a great play. My guess? It has a lot of major awards in its future. How lucky for us that we get to see its world premiere at TheatreWorks.

Email John Orr at jorr@dailynewsgroup.com.