Step into a living story where theatre, music, and spirit collide, and discover how art can awaken something ancient and electric within you. 🎭🔥🎶Welcome to Episode 461 of The Martin Talk Show, where I sit down with the remarkable Robert Bailey, actor, teacher, and creator of a haunting solo performance that feels less like a play and more like a visitation. 👁️✨In “In Some Dark Valley: The Testimony of Reverend Brand,” Robert embodies a circuit preacher from 1870s Appalachia, confronting us with faith, fury, tenderness, and the cost of absolute conviction. Directed by Billy Siegenfeld and inspired in part by Henrik Ibsen’s verse drama Brand, the piece transforms into a deeply personal testimony set against the scarred landscape of post Civil War America. 🌫️📖But this episode goes far beyond plot. We explore the heartbeat behind the work. Robert shares how field recordings of Southern hymns, ballads, blues, and children’s songs became the spark. Music passed from voice to voice, generation to generation, carrying memory like embers in cupped hands. 🎵🕯️We talk about the seismic cultural moment of the folk revival, what Dave Van Ronk once wryly called “The Great Folk Scare,” and how archival voices preserved by Alan Lomax continue to echo through contemporary performance. 🎙️🌾Robert opens up about the books and artists that shaped his journey, from Flannery O’Connor’s fierce spiritual landscapes to Woody Guthrie’s restless autobiography, and the unflinching historical lens of Drew Gilpin Faust. We examine how storytelling can wrestle with war, poverty, faith, class, and redemption without losing its humanity. 📚⚖️This conversation is about artistic courage. About listening to the ghosts in the archive. About allowing history, music, and spirit to move through the body of an actor and into the soul of an audience. 🌌If you are an artist searching for deeper roots, a storyteller craving truth, or simply someone who believes theatre can still shake the rafters of the heart, this episode will stay with you long after the final note fades. 🎬💡

Find out more: https://www.insomedarkvalley.org

As always, connect with Martin via: www.themartintalkshow.com

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