Nutcracker Versus The Rats

Back from the first preview performance last night of Round House Theatre's production of The Nutcracker, subtitled "A New Holiday Musical" in the banner ads, but unofficially subtitled, "No, Not That Nutcracker."

Not that that Nutcracker doesn't already have a mad kaleidoscope of variations available for public display, at least in the dance world. Those of us who grew up with the Baryshnikov version (with his then-girlfriend Gelsey Kirkland as Clara dancing all the juiciest roles) are sometimes surprised by the many different ways that the story and the steps can be rearranged. The one that made the most sense to me (and yes, even fantasy needs to make sense) was the Washington Ballet's version at GWU's Lisner Auditorium a couple of decades ago.

The RHT's production of the Hoffmann fairy tale focuses on a family tragedy that interrupts Christmas, and its impacts on the impressionable Clara (is it a nightmare or a nervous breakdown?). At least one major plot point is retained here, in Clara's defeat of the Rat King. (At last year's Joffrey overproduction, if Clara threw her slipper at the fiend, I missed it in the busyness of the stagecraft.)

Oh, sorry, should that have had a spoiler alert? No, the real spoiler here is in the design and staging of the Rat King himself. Honestly, that was my favorite part of this production.

Less successful to me were the fits and starts in the scenes, some empty aural and visual gaps, and a few technical glitches and unevenness in the actors' body mics. Those could just be early-in-the-run issues, but there was just an overall unevenness in the tone throughout.

Even the costume design seemed uneven, with all the imagination going into the dolls and rats, and the "contemporary" family dressed in generic Mid-Twentieth-Century Nostalgia.

I would also like to have seen the musicians and conductor, since this production actually bothered to have live music!

Costume sketch for "Phoebe" doll by Helen Huang (Costume and Puppet Designer), image via Facebook

But the dolls and rats were all delightful, though of course it's disappointing to see a couple of my favorite actors (Erin Weaver, Will Gartshore) buried in makeup design. Oh, well. Their talent couldn't be buried. The Phoebe doll (Weaver) used her pull-chord-triggered recorded phrases with assertive, plot-turning emphasis: "I'm afraid of the dark!" (Cue: hey, let's turn on the lights.)

The updated story no doubt touches a chord in most families--dealing with the loss of a loved one at holiday time. I'm just not sure it's a great way to start celebrating the holidays. Sometimes we just need to make cookies.

Love, hosaa
making cookies

The Nutcracker
Round House Theatre, Bethesda, Maryand, through December 28, 2014
Director: Joe Clarco
Created by Tommy Rapley, Jake Minton (book and lyrics), Phillip Klapperich (book), and Kevin O’Donnell (music), based on the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann

Cast:
Clara: Lauren Williams
David (Clara's father), Rat, Teddy: Mitchell Hébert
Martha (Clara's mother), Rat, dance captain: Sherri L. Edelen
Drosselmeyer, Rat: Lawrence Redmond
Fritz, Nutcracker: Vincent Kempski
Monkey (sock toy): Will Gartshore
Hugo (robot toy): Evan Casey
Phoebe (doll): Erin Weaver

Music director: William Yanesh
Scenic designer: James Kronzer
Costume and pupped designer: Helen Huang
Lighting designer: Daniel MacLean Wagner
Sound designer: Matthew M. Nielsen
Props master: Jennifer Crier Johnston
Dramaturg: Sarah Scafidi

Reflections: Art Day Out and Old Friends

Always take the opportunity, when you can, to let art expose itself to you. Downtown for an "informational interview" yesterday, afterwards I found myself once again in the neighborhood of the divine National Museum of Women in the Arts, where I got to visit a few of my old friends - Alice Neel, Frida Kahlo, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, et al.

I also took more time with some other, iconic pieces in the New York Avenue mansion, including Ellen Day Hale and Lilla Cabot Perry occupying this cozy niche:

Another is Alice Bailly, whose selfie features a peculiar reflection across the lens of her monocle:

Alice Bailly (Swiss, 1872-1938). Self-Portrait, 1917. 

According to the caption, this side of her face is apparently painted out, "reflecting what may be a dissociation of the artist from her own image--in short, an identity crisis." More likely, IMO, it reflects a real reflection, the movement of light across her face at that moment in time. That is, after all, what cubism and the futurist movement were about, incorporating the third and fourth dimensions on flat 2-D surfaces.

But the greatest pleasure is in welcoming some newer (new to me) sisters now exhibiting in the third floor permanent collection, including these sadly sweet kiddies by Amy Sherald:

Amy Sherald (b. 1973, Columbus, Georgia). They Call Me Redbone But I'd Rather Be Strawberry Shortcake, 2009

Amy Sherald (b. 1973, Columbus, Georgia). It Made Sense...Mostly in Her Mind, 2011. 

The captions were helpful to me here; the flattened style was the result of treating the skin tones in "grayscale" (there is some tint, you can see, even in these very poor reproductions. Sorry). The children are dressed playfully, but their somber and expressionless demeanor illustrates a deep-seated sadness. Still, the bright, primary colors in which they "play" give me a sense of innocent hope for them.

The other piece that captivated me at the museum was this (again, playful) Edwina Sandys bronze in its own stairwell niche:

Edwina Sandys (b. 1938, London, England). Flirtation, 1994.

Edwina Sandys (b. 1938, London, England). Flirtation, 1994.

Edwina Sandys (b. 1938, London, England). Flirtation, 1994.

I don't suppose the fact that I'd just had pears and bananas for breakfast had anything to do with why this piece caught my eye! Face it, who doesn't like flirty, birdlike fruit.

The second floor was closed off for between-exhibitions reconfiguring, so my visit was a little shorter than I would have liked. (And when, oh when, will the Mezzanine Cafe ever serve food? Nary a morsel in any of my visits.)

So over the blocks I go toward the Smithsonian American Art Museum to see what's what, and what was what now was the fabulous Richard Estes exhibit. Speaking of old friends! Estes was among the "superrealists" I covered in my senior year seminar on modern art. That was decades ago, and the man is still working his magic!

Okay, I don't want to go to Copyright Jail, so go here to see an example of what Alice Bailly started with that reflection in her monocle:

https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/estes

Bus With Reflection of Flatiron Building (1966-67)

Checkout (2012)

What we see are multiple images, reflected, contorted by other, overlapping realities. In many of the images, people are seen from different angles. The effect of the pictures, though serene in tone, is a taut reminder that we not only see, but are seen by others, whose eyes may see us in twists and turns, fractured and filtered through many surfaces.

Love, hosaa

reflecting on art

P.S. - I still love the old Greyhound Bus Station on New York Avenue. The birds loved it, too:

All photos posted here are by C. G. Wagner. If you use them, credit them, and link back here. Thanks.

Ears Gladded, Eyes Pleased at Blackfriars

A last-minute decision to join the Shakespeare Explorers' Meetup group's planned weekend excursion to the Blackfriars Playhouse/American Shakespeare Center (I don't know which is the container and which is the thing contained) in Staunton, Virginia, took me on a pre-foliage-season Saturday morning/noon/early-PM battle with bumper-to-bumper traffic. The rewards: a venue I'd never visited, a play I'd never seen, and friends I wanted to keep close to despite a summer of frugal nonindulgence in the arts.

Pericles produced at Blackfriars Playhouse, Staunton, Virginia. Photo by Lindsey Walters, courtesy of American Shakespeare Center

Gregory Jon Phelps as Pericles, overlooking audience at Blackfriars Playhouse. Photo by Lindsey Walters, courtesy of American Shakespeare Center.

The matinee performance of Pericles, Prince of Tyre delivered on the prologue's promise "to glad your ear and please your eyes." The venue and the production both were audience friendly, even chummy at times as the actors engaged with those nearest the stage. When Bawd (Allison Glenzer), the madame of a brothel, complained of her lack of sufficiently enticing stock, I was glad that she was pointing to the females in the other side of the audience and not on my side:

We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and they can do no more than they can do; and they with continual action are even as good as rotten.

The so-indicated creatures in the audience were good sports about it, however. All in good fun. Since I didn't have time to read the plot summary before the performance, I didn't know what to expect. Pericles just isn't as familiar to this aging former English major as are the greatest hits, the Romeos, Hamlets, and Macbeths.

The program notes report that the artistic director, Jim Warren, knew this play would be unfamiliar to the audience, and he specifically called for clarity "of words, thoughts, sentences, and story." For the most part, these instructions were well followed, and my only trouble was in following the plot line of the first of three father-daughter stories: the incestuous King Antiochus and his unnamed daughter, which sets up the good-versus-evil machinations.

The problem I had was that the daughter was played by the same actress (Sara Hymes) as someone else's virtuous daughter, Thaisa, who becomes Pericles's wife. It can be an interesting artistic choice to have the same actors playing "mirrored" parts (as in Shakespeare Theatre Company's Winter's Tale), but unfortunately I did think it was the same character. When I finally realized it wasn't, I wondered what happened to Antiochus and benighted daughter.

Temporary confusion aside, I enjoyed the second half of the production a bit more than the first half, and Harold Bloom (in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, 1999) explains why: "The first two acts of the play are dreadfully expressed, and cannot have been Shakespeare's." The attribution for the dreadful parts went to George Wilkins, "a lowlife hack."

The second half of the play, Acts III through V, are of Shakespeare's glorious hand and voice in the depictions of the drama's lives low and high, from the brothel scenes (As Bloom notes: "Shakespeare surpasses all possible rivals in the gusto with which he portrays the oldest profession") to the climax of Pericles's reunion with his lost wife and daughter: "The 150 lines of the recognition scene (V.i. 82-233) are one of the extraordinary sublimities of Shakespeare's art. ... Shakespeare holds us rapt."

It seems, though, that everyone's favorite parts were the pirates, and the actors played their modern pirate accents up to full cartoonish comedy. Arrrrggghhhh!! Arrrrggghhhh!!

Lauren Ballard as Marina, flanked by pirates Patrick Midgley, James Keegan, and Chris Johnston. Publicity photo by Michael Bailey, courtesy of American Shakespeare Center. 

The glorious second half of this play belonged to the character of Marina, Pericles's daughter, whose indomitable virtue turned lechers into saints. I liked that. Usually you never think that innocence is a trait worth cultivating, associating it instead with naivete or even helplessness. But Marina's virginity wasn't that kind of innocence; it was a virtue with the power to instruct, to tame, and ultimately to lead. And she was portrayed by Lauren Ballard with every bit as endearing a performance as the far more comical corollary, Philia, in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

For it was truly the rewards of all this goodness that brought tears to this sentimental old creature.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre
By William Shakespeare
Blackfriars Playhouse, American Shakespeare Center, Staunton, Virginia, through November 28, 2014
Director: Jim Warren
Costume Designer: Jenny McNee
Set Design is not credited; Blackfriars Playhouse emulates original stage conditions. As explained in the program notes: "Shakespeare's company performed on a large wooden platform unadorned by fixed sets or scenery."

Cast
René Thornton Jr. (Gower, the Chorus)
Gregory Jon Phelps (Pericles, Prince of Tyre)
Sara Hymes (Thaisa, Pericles's wife; Antiochus's daughter)
Lauren Ballard (Marina, Pericles's daughter)
James Keegan (Antiochus, King of Antioch; Bolt, servant of Pander and Bawd)
Patrick Midgley (Helicanus, Pericles's friend and counselor; Pander, brothel owner)
Allison Glenzer (Escanes, a counselor; Lychordia, Marina's nurse; Bawd, Pander's wife)
John Harrell (Cleon, governor of Tarsus)
Sarah Fallon (Dionyza, wife of Cleon; Diana, a goddess)
Jonathan Holtzman (Simonides, Thaisa's father; Philemon, Cerimon's servant)
Chris Johnston (Thaliard, an  assassin; Cerimon, Thaisa's protector)
Benjamin Reed (Leonine, an assassin; Lysimachus, governor of Mytilene)

Sara Hymes (Thaisa) and Gregory Jon Phelps (Pericles). Photo by Lindsey Walters, courtesy of American Shakespeare Center.

René Thornton Jr. (Gower, the chorus). Photo by Lindsey Walters, courtesy of American Shakespeare Center.

Flying Art in Bethesda

Back from the Bethesda Row Arts Festival yesterday, going in for day two today. I knew as soon as I saw the flying elephant from last year--and in the same spot along Woodmont Ave.--that I'd be seeing some familiar work this weekend.

Though I was keeping my eye out for new stuff among the wood and fabric and metal and glass works and the photos and paintings, I really did want to check in first to see if Brad Pogatetz was back. And there he was, in the same spot as last year, and with as many folks flocking into his tiny booth as before. (See my previous report, "Art of Devastation.")

Bethesda Row (Maryland) Arts Festival, Oct. 18, 2014 - Brad Pogatetz's booth. Photo by C. G. Wagner

Brad Potatetz (left) takes a break at the Bethesda Row Arts Festival, Oct. 18, 2014. Photo by C. G. Wagner

I got to chat with him briefly, and joked that I thought I could point out the pieces that were new since last year. One of the "devastation" images that caught my eye was the gigantic rusted industrial hook hanging from an abandoned warehouse or factory, shot from below so that the eye traces frayed ropes to the opening in the ceiling above. Brad confirmed that this was a newer image, and he used it on one of his new business cards. (I didn't spot it online, but check out his New Work under Galleries at his site.)

The subjects in Brad's photographs are abandoned human spaces--factories, stadiums, depots. Naturally, I am curious about their stories, but as an artist, Brad is attracted to patterns, colors, lights and shadows.

I asked him if he thought about putting together a book: "Yes!" he replied quickly and brightly. He said he gets asked that question a lot, and I confessed I probably asked him the same thing last year.

Sample business cards, text added.

So, what else is on display? Again, maybe I'm seeing too much of the same thing, and not much stands out anymore. I love the wearable art, the beautiful garments in varieties of fabrics. But it is too tempting to my compromised budget, so I had to pass those booths and admire from afar.

What did stand out were the flying sculptures. Right, mobiles. The Calderesque whimsies by Bud Scheffel cast interesting shadows on the booth's backdrop and soaring silhouettes against the bright blue autumn sky.

Bethesda Row Arts Festival, Oct. 18, 2014 - Bud Scheffel's booth. Photo by C. G. Wagner

Bethesda Row Arts Festival, Oct. 18, 2014 - mobiles by Bud Scheffel. Photo by C. G. Wagner

Bethesda Row Arts Festival, Oct. 18, 2014. Mobile by Bud Scheffel. Photo by C. G. Wagner

On the other side of the street, air space was claimed by another metal artist, Michael Gard, whose balletic forms danced through light and re-created space with their shadows.

Bethesda Row Arts Festival - Oct. 18, 2014. Michael Gard's booth. Photo by C. G. Wagner

Bethesda Row Arts Festival - Oct. 18, 2014. Sculptures by Michael Gard. Photo by C. G. Wagner

Bethesda Row Arts Festival - Oct. 18, 2014. Sculptures by Michael Gard. Photo by C. G. Wagner

Love, hosaa

Looking up, seeing dance

Phil Vassar at The Birchmere

I've never had a bad time at the Birchmere, but tonight was one of the most enjoyable times I've had there. Always at the top of the list is getting together with my cousin, who could pass for my big sister, and her sweet husband. Our company mixed and blended into the audience of others sharing time and space with meaningful company, and somehow the shared experience made us all one. That's the magic of live music.

Add into that alchemy the joy of discovering another new-to-me artist, and my evening was fulfilled. On the bill tonight was singer/songwriter/piano man Phil Vassar and his two back-up musicians (no drummer, though an audience member offered).

Phil Vassar, via philvassar.com/about

Whatever happens in a man's life to make him write about it may be a blessing, including awakening to the simple lesson not to miss your own life. And it makes a great song. Being on tour and away from family cannot be easy, and Virginia native Vassar sprinkled his 105-minute set with gratitude and enthusiasm for being back home. It was a happy man who took the stage tonight, who even rolled the bluesier songs into joyful riffs.

The audience had plenty of fans to cheer and sing along, but as a new fan, I could only cheer. The prompts for "what do you want to hear next" were easily answered, though I suspect some were inside jokes. One of the first requests was "Purple Rain"--and yes, Vassar offered a few lines of the Prince classic with a grin.

From the discography on his Web site, I see the wonderful anthem "American Child" was an album title; others I liked a lot were "Amazing Grace" (not the one you're thinking of), "My Next Thirty Years," "Black and Whites," and "John Wayne," a tribute to what it means to be a man. I think my brother would have loved that one.

Not being much of a music critic, I would have a hard time putting Vassar's music into a particular genre. He's a piano man like Billy Joel, with blues accents and an occasional '80s pop vibe (at one point I was "hearing" the soundtrack to a movie like Big somewhere in there). But Wikipedia labels him a country artist, so there you go. At one point, the self-described ADD Vassar joked that he was going to rap. And country rap is ... crap. 

Bah-dum bum. (See, we did need percussion, if only for the rimshot!)

love, hosaa

grateful for digital souvenirs after the live experience has ended

eta, photos of the live performance courtesy of The Birchmere's Facebook page:

And, thanks to Twitter, this fun convo with the artist:

Having Driven Miss Daisy

Back from yesterday's Ford's Theatre matinee of Driving Miss Daisy, starring local favorites Nancy Robinette and Craig Wallace.

promotion art for Driving Miss Daisy, Ford's Theatre

Like the theatrical ballet Chéri over at the Kennedy Center, Daisy covered the arc of a relationship, principally between two people but supplemented with a third-party narrative thread weaver--in this case, Daisy's dutiful but condescending son Boolie (new to Ford's Ron Heneghan).

I was familiar with the film version of Daisy but hadn't seen it in a while. Fortunately, the lady sitting behind me was helpfully providing her companion information about what she remembered would be coming up in several scenes. [/sarcasm]

Unlike the movie, though, the stage production extracted the essential drama out of a realistic environment and placed these crucial moments on small vignettes, smoothly driven on and off stage on gliding platforms. The feel of the play was thus more like a series of memories.

Nancy Robinette ("Miss Daisy") and Craig Wallace ("Hoke"). Production photography by Scott Suchman, via Ford's Theatre

As interesting as Nancy Robinette always is to watch, it was Wallace's embodiment of "Hoke" that really impressed me. His voice for Hoke was as strong as that for his Frederick Douglass, which brought all the more dignity to a role so vastly different from the latter.

Despite the vignette-to-vignette "memory" feel of this production, I liked the realism in the characters' interaction; they actually acted with each other. In some shows I've seen in recent years (Carpetbagger's Children, ReEntry), the actors seem to be standing alone or talking out over the audience's head to an unseen character, even though their fellow dramatis personae are standing next to them. What's that about?

As always, I was impressed with the economical creativity of staging at Ford's (credit scenic designer Tony Cisek), a stage that never seems as small as it is. And I was delighted to find at least one more good seat in the house besides the one up in the dress circle that seemed to work for me. Sight lines are bad almost throughout the theater, especially when the tall tourists are in town. So, gentle readers, please save L-1 in the orchestra for me. Thanks.

Ford's Theatre | 511 10th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004
Driving Miss Daisy
by Alfred Uhry; directed by Jennifer L. Nelson
September 26-October 26, 2014

Love, hosaa
A seat with a view

Their Chéri

I've mentioned before that my favorite pieces of theater incorporate choreography in the staging; two examples from Round House Theatre in past seasons were Around the World in 80 Days and (astonishingly) Lord of the Flies.

So the theater-as-dance model was turned on its head in Martha Clarke's brilliant Chéri staged at the Kennedy Center, giving audiences the opportunity to see brilliant artists from dance (Alessandra Ferri and Herman Cornejo) demonstrate their acting abilities. Normally at the ballet, acting extends only a millimeter or two beyond the pantomimes of silent films, with a stock of simple gestures and expressions to convey. But Ferri and Cornejo took their characters' emotional journey through a narrative of real and tactile emotions, spinning out the repeated gestures of passion from playful to bitter, through anguish and shame.

Alessandra Ferri as Lea, Herman Cornejo as Cheri. Unidentified photographer, via Kennedy Center

Rounding out the theatrical side of the production was the exquisite Amy Irving as the mother of young lover Cheri and friend of the aging femme Lea. Irving's star quality has never been so sparkling, yet there was no question of her stealing the stage from Ferri and Cornejo, who brought the dreamlike musical selections (Ravel, Debussy, Mompou, Poulenc, et al.), performed by Sarah Rothenberg on solo piano, to full-fleshed life.

Though she didn't dance, Irving moved eloquently and elegantly through the narrative to create an emotional pas de tois, creating tension between two loves: maternal and carnal. Irving was perfectly cast as the controlled and controlling matron, witty, wise, and tragic.

With such an unusual form of theatrical experience, mixing drama, ballet, and concert, the audience may feel a little uncertain about when to clap and when not to. After a brilliant piece of dancing in, say, Don Quixote, you know you're allowed to offer some thunderous appreciation. But this production was more of a chamber piece, and the presence of Rothenberg on stage served as a reminder to treat the production as one would a concert. The moments between movements were for breath catching, and the spell was unbroken for 65 minutes.

love, hosaa
mesmerized