February 28, 2008

Milwaukee Ballet's A Midsummer Night's Dream

At Sunday afternoon’s performance of Bruce Wells’ Midsummer at the Milwaukee Ballet, a different vision of love lingered.
Long after the wooded shenanigans have sent the youngsters ricocheting around the forest, Titania and Oberon, king and queen of the fairies, face each other on an empty stage. Since the story has begun, they’ve battled over a child, and Titania has fallen in and out of love with a donkey. But they are still king and queen. Wells’ pas de deux charts the couple’s tenuous journey from chilly formality to genuine intimacy. Slowly, the coldness and empty pomp of the relationship gives way to little flourishes of affection. Always regal figures, Tatiana Jouravel and David Hovhannisyan never lose their statuesque bearing. But in the course of the dance they emerge as full-blooded human beings in the midst of a journey. Passion and gravitas united.

Read the full review at Culture Club. Come on, you know you want to.

Silences Are Golden





If you’ve ever skimmed through a copy of Crime and Punishment, you’d expect lots of words in the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s novel. And there were. Curt Columbus and Marilyn Campbell’s adaptation of the book compresses it into an impressionistic 90 minutes, but there are still moral quandaries to be debated and life mysteries to be plumbed. Still, the most striking thing about Patrick Holland’s production is its silences.

Read my complete review at Culture Club

February 27, 2008

The View from Row Q

As luck would have it, I was seated in the Uihlein Hall’s Row Q for the opening night of Avenue Q. But it actually wasn’t so lucky. The Marcus Center house was pretty full, so I’m guessing that at least 30 percent of the crowd had seats farther away than mine. And mine, frankly, were too far away.
But this isn’t about my luck of the draw when it comes to seats (I should note that I received the ticket free from the Marcus Center, which I truly appreciate—it’s the only way I could afford to do what I do). It’s about how the size of a theater can affect the experience of a play.
In New York, Avenue Q is playing at the Golden, one of the smallest houses on Broadway (it seats 800). It’s rarely used for musicals (it was the home of You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown and, in the early 90s, William Finn’s Falsettos). Instead, it generally hosts plays where an intimate connection between the stage and audience is important: ‘Night Mother; The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?; Master Class. While Avenue Q doesn’t call for psychological subtleties, its characters are puppets, and not big ones at that.
Which brings me to the Marcus Center performance, which was pretty much overwhelmed by the space of Uihlein Hall. I could see from Row Q; the show was “legible.” But seeing the play in a 2,300 seat house was a categorically different experience than what I might have had in New York (or in London, where the show has been playing in the 870-seat Noel Coward Theatre since June, 2006).
The conceit behind Avenue Q is juicy. Creators Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx (with help from book author Jeff Whitty) took Sesame Street-style puppets and had them tell an adult story. Humans and puppets occupy the same world. And the show’s irreverent, ironic tone draws more from the likes of South Park than South Pacific.
The main character, Princeton, arrives in New York, finding the only place he can afford is an apartment on Avenue Q, the lowest of the Lower East Side (where the real streets actually go up to Avenue D). Once there, he begins to search for his “purpose,” finding friendship and love among the curious denizens of his street. There’s Rod, the deeply closeted gay Republican; Gary Coleman, former child star who is now his apartment superintendent (played sans puppet by human actor Carla Renata); Trekkie Monster, a furry recluse with an affection for internet porn; and Kate Monster, a sweet assistant kindergarten teacher with whom Princeton falls in love.
The show takes the toddler-TV conventions and sweet talk to an extreme, with hilarious results. Digital-screen Sesame Street-style animations illustrate the definition of “one-night stand,” and the guardian angel-like “Bad Idea Bears” use their best sing-song voices when urging characters to buy beer, have sex, or order another Long Island iced tea.
So there is much pleasure in the way the show’s irreverent “adult” ideas are couched in the saccharine style of kiddie-vision. But the true magic of the show is in the performances—the way the cast can breath life into very simple constructions of felt and foam rubber. That’s the greatest loss in the Marcus Center production. From where I sat, you could see the way the vibrant Robert McClure gave Princeton his innocent edge, the way his dangly arm would swing wide when belting out a song. Or the way Kelli Sawyer made Kate Monster’s head inflect every swoop of her belt-‘em-out song phrasing. But you couldn’t feel it. Recognizing wonderful physical acting is not the same as having it work its magic on you. And while it was impossible not to enjoy the show’s arch take on Broadway conventions (its “happy ending” closing song is titled “For Now”), the venue kept it from completely working its magic.
All of which brings me to an interesting question. Musicals are either getting smaller—shows like Avenue Q or Springs Awakening that start either in small, Off-Broadway theaters or regional theaters. Or they’re very big—Disney blockbusters that require an extraordinary amount of stage technology. In either case, they present a challenge for road houses around the country. How do you make them fit? How to you wedge a huge show into a production that can be driven around the country and built and disassembled quickly? Or how do you take a small-venue musical and make it work in a large, multi-purpose theater? A good, good question.

February 25, 2008

More Oscar Grouchiness

And this moment will live on as well. All the more memorable for the smarmy Travolta introduction. "Make Art!" indeed.

Oscar the Grouch

Since I was wandering Hollywood Boulevard with my family just last weekend, I had to tune into the Academy Awards tonight. But was disappointed to see that rain had forced them to cover the red carpet, eliminating any possible "Look! We were just there!" moments. While in L.A., I saw Joan Rivers' latest project, a one-woman show of sorts (there were other actors onstage with her, but you hardly noticed them), in which she got to vent some bile about having E! yank the Red Carpet out from under her. Now Hollywood vacancy is more or less the same in any generation. But with Rivers' rants about her ill treatment still in my memory, Ryan Seacrest's bland dishing with various stars was all the more difficult to take.

Best moment of the awards? Daniel Day Lewis's sweet and eloquent acceptance speech. It's nice to know that the greatest screen actor of his generation actually prepares an acceptance speech when there's a chance he'll be called to say a few words to a billion or so people.

February 24, 2008

Everything's Beautiful at the Ballet

At the Milwaukee Ballet performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream this afternoon, I was surrounded by mothers, grandmothers and little girls. And while it's easy to get caught up thinking about which choreographic ideas are fresh and which are stale. Which dancers can provide the right "zap" for their characters. Or wondering if the story ballet is truly a dead art form. It's important to remember just what a strange and wonderful trip a visit to the ballet can be. In front of me, the mother of a girl (I'd guess she was about 4 or 5) piled up coats on her seat so she could sit high enough to see. Even so, she spent 10 minutes before the lights dimmed looking in wonder around the Marcus Center's Uihlein Hall. "They're so high up," she told her grandmother as she gazed back into the upper rows of the balcony. And I'm sure she was as entranced by the princes and fairies onstage as well.

What did I think of the onstage goings on? See my Culture Club column here.