Pipes of Pan

By T.E.K.

BANJO DANCING, OR THE 48TH ANNUAL SQUITTERS MOUNTAIN SONG DANCE FOLKLORE CONVENTION AND BANJO CONTEST AND HOW I LOST

His head sports the pagan curls of a young Harpo Marx, and his face and body quiver with some of the same nutty, berserk humor. But native Chicagoan Stephen Wade, 26, has a great deal more to offer than that.

He is an impassioned banjoist, a nimbly authoritative clog dancer, a soulful singer of folk music and an enthralling tall-tale raconteur. He gyrates to the pipes of Pan. He is making his theatrical debut in Chicago's Body Politic Theater, in an evening of intimate, unmarred intensity.

When Wade hunches over his banjo, he is a figure of rapturous communion, a man lost in a love affair with an instrument. The songs may be poignantly plaintive, boisterously celebratory or ironically funny. His fingers pluck the strings with steely precision or waft over them like a passing zephyr. Always there is the pulsing drive of his ever moving feet, percussively accenting the chords and the words.

Perhaps he is most captivating when he roams about the stage as a musical narrator recounting Tom Sawyer's sly tac tics in luring passing boys into whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence.

A wondrous artist, this Stephen Wade, who spills the heart's blood of passion and truth in the tradition of Charles Aznavour, Nana Mouskouri, Django Reinhardt and Woody Guthrie. He may have surfaced in Chicago, but his potential fame defies augury.

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