177. “It Just Catches,” Cherry Lane Theatre, Feb. 16: Carol Hemingway is the big guy’s daughter-in-law, and this attempt to set several of his short stories on the stage – and link them together with Cole Porter songs – it at best a miscalculation and at worst a cynical attempt to cash in on a famous name. Hemingway needs to be read, not staged. His blunt prose is almost too angled, too severe, to thrive in a spoken environment; his words need the cushion of the printed page for them to be able to soak in. As for the Porter songs – such standards as “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” – I couldn’t make the connection. (Carol Hemingway explains in her program notes that her father-in-law really liked the songwriter – a tenuous connection at best.) One thing stands out from this otherwise lackluster production, and it’s a testament to the durability of Hemingway’s words: In the scene adapted from his story “Cat in the Rain,” I recognized one of his lines – about the poor cat trying to make itself so compact it wouldn’t get wet – from what must have been a high-school reading. But I knew it instantly.
178. Elisa Monte Dance, Joyce Theatre, Feb. 16: There’s a joyful, communal feel to some of this work: In the dance “Amor Fati,” for example, the dancers are in a clump, then peel off one by one for a solo moment in the spotlight, then return to lie together, limbs intertwined, on stage. That particular dance ends with a spotlight racing across the empty stage, finally catching up with the group of dancers – a nice touch. Lots of nice individual moments, but there was something missing – no real sense of an arc to any of the pieces, no musical line that ebbed and flowed with any sense of passion. (It’s like in choral music: You can never just hold a note; it has to be constantly going somewhere.) Add to that Elisa Monte’s preference for a relentless techno beat, and the results seem artistically crisp but repetitive and a bit soulless.
179. “Poems Not Fit for the White House,” Avery Fisher Hall, Feb. 17: A few weeks back, Laura Bush organized a poetry reading at the White House that she subsequently cancelled after some of the scheduled poets announced they planned to use the forum for anti-war poetry. So this hastily scheduled event was devised instead. The results: fairly predictable, from the thoughtful (Stanley Kunitz read a poem he wrote 60 years ago during World War II, an act in itself that carried considerable emotional heft) to the insipid (Suheir Hammad, the poet I didn’t like in “Def Poetry Jam on Broadway,” offered a simplistic “if war was not an option” message in the form of nursery rhyme. Among the highlights: Odetta leading the crowd in “This Little Light of Mine” (‘60s flashback?), Arthur Miller asking why can’t we just wait for Saddam to die – and then we can go after Bin Laden, and Steve Coman’s (also from “Def Poetry Jam on Broadway”) rousing invective against the use of terrorism to fight terrorism. All in all, a pretty good turn-out for the day of the big blizzard.
180. Playwrights workshop, Lark Theatre Company, Feb. 19: Session No. 3 featured playwright Tina Howe as Arthur Kopit’s loyal guest lieutenant. Several times she reminded the playwrights their characters were too well-spoken, especially in times of emotional upheaval – that sometimes inarticulate grunts and trailed-off sentences are far more realistic than seamlessly crafted speeches. Kopit chimed in, too, noting that plays aren’t really about language but about body language – about action.
181. “Private Lives of Dancers 2003,” Pick Up Performance Company, Joyce Theatre, Feb. 20: (I wrote the following short review for my Cultural Criticism class:)
Like an aging, overstuffed rooster strutting through his barnyard, David Gordon paces the perimeter of the stage. He makes a circle around his dancers, whose taut bodies are busy making moves that require artisans at the top of their form: impressive leaps, graceful extensions, demanding rhythms.
Gordon, by contrast, literally sags as he shuffles in desultory fashion around them: prominent belly spilling over his belt, shoulders hunched, his half-kicks and tra-la-la gesticulations little more than parodies of their smooth, accomplished movements.
Is he making fun of his dancers? Is he making a wry commentary on the fleeting nature of youth, on the cruel way that nature eventually beats down even the best-toned body? Is he mourning the loss of his own mobility, anticipating his own mortality?
Who cares?
By the time Gordon’s snarky, pompously post-modern, stridently inane presentation of the “Private Lives of Dancers 2003” by his Pick Up Performance Company is over, his overbearing attempt to offer a wry take on modern dance has long since worn out its welcome. Filled with awkward stretches of leaden dialogue and built around sketchy “characterizations” of the dancers on stage, the production very nearly grinds to a halt before Gordon, thank god, finally has the decency to remove his bloated ego from the stage long enough to let his dancers do their thing.
The tone for the evening is set when Gordon and his wife – at least I think she’s his wife -- wander onto stage and begin setting up backdrops. They’re miked, and the conversation that ensues is purposefully banal: “I have the first panel,” she says. He grunts. The conversation then moves on to 1) breakfast; 2) the second panel; 3) the third panel; 4) back to breakfast again. At one point, she tells him, “Let’s never get divorced. I’d be shy snoring in front of a stranger.”
Whatever.
Finally the house lights come down after 15 minutes or so, and we meet the dancers, who recite Gordon’s fictionalized dialogue with the sullen air of dogs forced to perform humiliating tricks for their dinner. There’s a rumor that one of the dancers is pregnant, and much of the conversations amble around to that topic, but not before we learn that one of them threw up yesterday morning and that the one straight guy in the bunch sometimes resents it when people assume that he’s gay.
There is some dancing, finally, and some of it is rather nice, but through it all, Gordon inserts himself into whatever is happening on stage. Those stage panels have cut-out spaces that look like windows, and often Gordon parks himself behind one as if he’s watching through a window as spectator.
Ah, but you don’t understand, I can imagine Gordon saying. You aren’t smart enough, or suitably dance-literate, to appreciate my cunning and insight. You don’t realize that I’m poking fun at the conventions of performance itself, that I am taking the word “choreographer” to absurdist lengths. By exposing the superstructure of dance for all to see – even extending to the dancers’ private lives – I alienate the audience even as I enlighten it.
To which I would reply: Thanks, but no thanks. Doesn’t work for me.
182. Group discussion with Thelma Golden, Studio Museum of Harlem, Feb. 21: There’s a lot of energy concentrated in this small bundle of a woman, and after a brief tour of the museum – I have to get back there – we met in Golden’s conference room and talked the politics of museum curating. In Golden’s case, that means figuring out what it means to be the preeminent museum of African-American art in the nation: What is her relationship to mainstream museums? How about to African-American artists? To art critics?
183. “Il Trovatore,” Metropolitan Opera, Feb. 21: There’s a tattered feel to the production of this old warhorse, even with its oh-so-symbolic minimalist staging (huge black and white scrims painted with wispy clouds that shift every scene) and its molten anvil chorus (which includes a steel-working scene that breaks every OSHA rule on the books). There’s a cheap, haphazard look to the production, as if the Met didn’t want to spend a cent more than it had to. And why not? People will buy tickets for the name alone, and the easily accessible music, and I guess you can’t blame the Met for trying to be avant garde and inexpensive at the same time, though it’s interesting that there’s no production designer listed in the credits. Did those black-and-white scrims spontaneously produce themselves? The singing, too, was lukewarm at best: Only Irina Mishura, as the gypsy Azucena (“Whoops, I threw my own baby into the fire because I was in a blind rage over the burning of my gypsy mother, silly me, now I curse you all”), filled the house authoritatively with her voice. Francisco Casanova, quite simply the fattest opera singer I have ever seen, as Manrico, could barely huff and puff his way through the duel scene with dire enemy (and, unknown to each other, his brother) Count di Luna, who both love the same woman. And Marina Mescheriakova, as Leonora, squeaked and faltered at times. And those stupid scrims!
184. “Showtune,” Theatre at St. Peter’s, Feb. 22: This small-scale, modest musical revue of Jerry Herman tunes features six big voices – which is good, because Herman’s songs are what the Broadway belt is all about. I particularly liked those moments in which Herman’s music – from such shows as “Hello, Dolly!”, “Mame,” “Mack and Mabel” and “La Cage Aux Folles” – is sung out of context. So when we hear “I Am What I Am,” say, it isn’t the torch song of a proud gay cross-dresser but a solemn group anthem of diverse people expressing their individuality. And recasting “Bosom Buddies” with the characters of Mame and Dolly dueling it out was an inspired twist. Directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely, starring Sandy Binion, Paul Harman, Russell Arden Koplin, Tom Korbee, Karen Murphy, Bobby Peaco and Martin Vidnovic.
185. Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Feb. 23: The theme of the day: “Music and Dictatorship: Russia Under Stalin.” One of the subjects we’ve been discussing in my aesthetics class is the political implications of art. For some art forms – painting, theater, movies – it’s easy to read political meaning, and even when a piece doesn’t mean to be political, it’s easy to see how it could be interpreted (or misinterpreted) in such a way, even within an abstract form. But it’s always been harder with classical music. Is it really possible for a piece of music that doesn’t have lyrics or any explicit message to be political? (Excepting, of course, snippets of national anthems and such.) Josef Stalin obviously thought so. Poor souls like Prokofiev and Shostakovich found themselves forced to compose in the style of Socialist Realism, which was supposed to uphold the glory of the Revolution while at the same time be “accessible to the widest audiences.” The result: Composers took something of a risk, it seems, anytime they ventured out of a major key or offered passages of slow, somber introspection. (Critics could say: Is this darkness trying to say something about the failures of socialism?) And the standards could change depending on the political situation: Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 6 in E-flat Minor was received very well at its premiere in late 1947, but only a few months later, it was officially denounced and banned from the concert platform. (His Fifth Symphony, which isn’t very different stylistically, had received the Stalin Prize for artistic achievement, and he was the Soviet Union’s most honored composer.) Suddenly the Sixth was “difficult” and “esoteric.” The same could be said for Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 77, performed vividly and with great feeling at this concert by Vadim Repin. The Czech Philharmonic was big, brash and created a wall of sound. Even Prokofiev’s most earnest efforts – such as his suck-up-to-the-government “The Meeting of the Volga and the Don,” to commemorate a canal – didn’t come across by the Czechs as smarmy or overly earnest; it instead sounded bright, clean and triumphant.
186. “Radiant Baby,” The Public Theater, Feb. 26: There’s a moment in this witty, touching, superbly crafted musical about Keith Haring that will stick with me for a long time: Keith (a skinny, nearly nebbish but palpably charismatic Daniel Reichard, who looks just enough like the real thing to be creepy) is singing in the second act about his own mortality. He has AIDS, and he knows he’s going to die. The stage is dimly lit, black backdrop, no set. And then – through the wonder of stage projections – Haring’s artwork starts in the corner opposite him, and it actually looks as if it’s drawing its way toward him, across the floor, spreading along the wall. As he moves toward the back opposite corner, it’s as if his artwork is pushing him there. It’s a moment so powerful that my mouth dropped. This is the best integration of artwork into a show I’ve ever seen – it’s as if Haring himself has come back to make a guest appearance. Director George C. Wolfe keeps a snappy pace as we learn Haring’s story: his precocious childhood, his journey to New York, his early struggles becoming an artist, his wild times at the Paradise club, and eventually his celebrity and an empire based on his work. And then, of course, his illness and the eventual spurt of artistic activity before his death. Yet Wolfe never allows the proceedings to become maudlin. Riccardo Hernandez’ scenic design, Howell Binkley’s lighting design and Batwin + Robin Productions’ projection design captures the essence of Haring’s art: bold strokes, vibrant colors, a whole story told in the sweep of a line. The show is light, funny, intense, beautifully staged and ultimately so moving it left me in tears. I loved it.
187. “Man Measures Man,” barebones production rehearsal, Lark Theatre, Feb. 26: A chance for me to watch director Rajendra Maharaj at work as he’s preparing his actors for an upcoming production.
188. “La Boheme,” Broadway Theatre, Feb. 26: Baz Luhrmann and the Australian Opera wanted to draw younger audiences to opera with this production 13 years ago – and the result is an extravagant visual experience. But it’s not quite as fresh, sexy or as moving as I anticipated. Part of the problem, I think, is the sparseness of the amplified sound. I’ve been watching so many operas at the Met that I’m used to a barrage of music coming at me. With a scaled-down orchestra and younger singers picked as much for their youth and sex appeal as their voices, this “Boheme” simply doesn’t have the heft I think a tragedy such as this should have. (I saw Jesus Garcia sing Rodolfo and Janinah Burnett, an understudy, sing the part of Mimi.) I also had some quibbles with Luhrmann’s decision to set the action in 1957. He notes in the program that death by tuberculosis was still a credible reality back then, but the idea of simply watching Mimi expiring without any attempt at medical care seemed a little overwrought. Can you really compare the Bohemians of the 1840s to those of the late 1950s – and why would you want to? I’m filing this one away under Visual Spectacular and little more – a bit of “Moulin Rouge” glamour transplanted to Broadway.
189. “My Life with Albertine,” Playwrights Horizons, Feb. 27: Marcel Proust isn’t exactly the first guy who leaps to mind at the mention of musical theater, and perhaps the best thing that can be said about this new production from Ricky Ian Gordon and Richard Nelson is that they don’t squeeze the brooding, philosophical author into the happy box you find in so many biographically based outings. Then again, I wonder why you’d want to musicalize the story of Proust’s obsession with Albertine found in his “Remembrances of Things Past” – a story of garden-variety jealousy, passive-aggressive romantic desire and incessant whining. (After 135 minutes, if I heard the word “Albertine” wailed in moody musical motif one more time, I was ready to scream.) It’s set up as a memory play: an older narrator (Brent Carver, who plays a composer rather than an author), flashing back to a time when his younger self (Chad Kimball, who played Milky White the Cow in “Into the Woods”) meets the beautiful Albertine (Kelli O’Hara, who has a gorgeous voice), a woman whose lower social standing complicates the relationship. The musical is played as a sort of pantomime with a drawing-room sort of feel; when the cast isn’t playing their roles on the small procenium stage, they lounge about the older Proust’s comfortable quarters as if they’re enjoying a small dinner party. That conceit comes across as a little gimmicky, as does the concept of the older Proust interacting with his younger self. Gordon’s music has some nice tuneful, contemplative moments even as it contributes to the overall dour mood. But the philosophical underpinnings of the play are never really given the space they need; when you get to the end, the Proustian concept of self, of never really being able to know someone else because it’s impossible to know oneself, of half of humanity at any given time being unhappy, are sort of hurriedly pasted on.
190. Meeting with Finnish cultural attaché, United Nations, Feb. 28: A lunch at the Finnish consulate to discuss our upcoming trip and learn about 1) heated sidewalks; 2) saunas; and 3) receive a warning not to drink too much. Should be fun. More later, of course.
191. Buglisi-Foreman Dance, Joyce Theatre, Feb. 28: (I wrote the following full-length review for my cultural criticism class):
Who wouldn’t want to touch the sky? As human beings, we’re forever locked inside our own brains and confined by the physical limitations of our bodies. But dancers – perhaps with greater success than anyone -- reach for more.
In one world-stretching moment in Donlin Foreman’s “Here on the Cliffs of the Heart,” currently in repertory at the Joyce Theatre through Sunday, solo dancer Kevin Predmore extends one arm overhead as far as seems humanly possible, pulls it back, then extends the other. Dimly lit and appearing regal – almost haughty -- in velvety, blood-red tights, he cuts an imposing figure as he slowly moves to Gerald Finzi’s haunting musical score. Even when he speeds up, he maintains icy control. At one point Predmore suddenly thrusts his left leg out in abbreviated fashion, then the right – almost a stunted scissor kick.
But it’s his outstretched hands that convey the drama in the piece. Predmore practically glares at those hands, peering past his fingertips as if he’s purposefully willing his long limbs to become even longer, taking up even more physical space than already displaced by his tall, lanky body. Dancers often stare at a fixed point off-stage to convey the feeling of a vista -- of openness -- that extends beyond their immediate world, but Predmore’s gaze fixes with such intensity on that unseen place that it’s as if he isn’t just looking at the horizon but wants to forcibly occupy it as well.
Foreman and co-choreographer Jacqulyn Buglisi create this expansive element in much of their work – a feeling of tangibility, of heft, of their dancers occupying a space with such solidity and verve that they seem larger than life. Indeed, in Buglisi’s mesmerizing “Requiem,” a 2002 work performed later in the program, five women dancers swaddled in long-trained dresses stand atop wooden crates, and suddenly they become tall, fantastical baroque figures towering over the stage.
Buglisi/Foreman Dance, as the company is known, presented two world premieres Friday: “Here on the Cliffs of the Heart,” which features Predmore in the first contemplative movement and eight dancers in a warm, pastel-colored swirl of strength and motion in the second; and “Sacred Currents Through Bamboo,” choreographed by Buglisi to music composed by Tan Dun. Of the two, “Bamboo” was the showcase piece: last on the program, elaborate projection design, big-name composer, passionate cellist, the heady appeal of ending with a cultural exclamation point. There’s even a big, shiny gong.
Yet “Bamboo,” while graceful and beautiful in its athleticism, merely fills the stage instead of overflowing it. It doesn’t have the same emotional potency of “Cliffs of the Heart” and “Requiem” – it’s colder, more cerebral. Buglisi pairs her guest artist – Chinese sensation Dou Dou Huang, who dances with such body-stretching physicality you’d swear he can kick himself in the head – with members of her company in a sometimes awkward combination of East meets West.
There isn’t much contact between Huang and the others, and while Buglisi notes in the program that she is striving for a significant transcultural experience, the two halves remain curiously separate. We’re treated to Huang’s leaps and astonishing prowess, and then the other dancers troop onto the stage, offering up what seems a lyrical Western-style response to the implied Asian-curiosity wonder of the feats we’ve just witnessed . When Huang and another dancer finally make a connection, the moment is meant to unify and strengthen, but it feels little more than a nice, if expected, gesture.
Still, if “Bamboo” doesn’t overwhelm, it’s mostly because of the strength of the material before it. In “Here on the Cliffs of the Heart,” Predmore’s long-limbed stage presence brings to mind the comforting branches of a sturdy tree. In “Requiem,” the collective impact of the five women dancers is that of quivering religious ecstasy. (The piece is dedicated to Newsweek photojournalist Bill Biggart and all those who lost their lives on Sept. 11 and was originally inspired by the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, according to the program.)
With the opening scene, it’s as if we’ve stumbled upon the women playing dress-up in the attic: Each is crouching behind a wooden crate covered with swaths of luxurious fabric in rich shades of burgundy, gold, creamy brown and ivory. As they rise, it becomes clear that they’re wearing these fabrics – yards upon yards of the material wrapped around them like satin sheets.
Intense white spotlights slowly diffuse into a soft spectrum of color through the dark haze. We watch the women maneuver around their boxes, hands skyward – again with the intensity of the hands! – and arms outstretched. They look as if they’re exhorting the heavens and being drenched in light in return, bathing in its warmth and cleansing power. (Clifton Taylor’s lighting design is exquisite.) As the voices in Gabriel Faure’s “Requiem” build, the spirituality of the scene intensifies. One of the dancers stands with her hand in front of her face, as if she’s gasping at the wonder of it all. Another takes her voluminous skirts and – as “In excelsis” booms – thrashes them in the air. Still another rests her cheek gently on her crate, just a beat after the other women have reached a moment of stillness, betraying her weariness.
The choreography is saturated with feeling and filled with overstated Baroque splendor. It feels like walking into a cathedral and swooning at the audaciousness of Man trying to build his way closer to God. With Buglisi/Foreman Dance, we get a glimpse of what it might be like to be bigger than yourself, to exceed your own physicality. These dancers might not be quite able to touch the sky, but they almost brush against it.
192. “Fucking A,” The Public Theater, March 1: The title of Suzan-Lori Parks’ new play (which can’t even be reprinted in the Times) refers to the large symbol tattooed on the chest of Hester Smith, an abortionist in “a small town in a small country in the middle of nowhere.” The theme of fertility – of procreation and the lack thereof – rumbles through this sprawling, fantastical, messy play that uses the guerrilla tactics between the sexes as a metaphor for the screwed-up state of humanity. Hester has to wear her “A” visible at all times (get it?), and she’s spat upon by everyone else in town, but it’s telling that her services not only are tolerated but codified. (She attracts rich and poor clientele alike.) Among her friends are Canary Mary (Daphne Rubin-Vega), the mayor’s flamboyant mistress; and the Butcher (Peter Gerety), who loves her despite her occupation. “Fucking A” gives us people at their worst – bounty hunters who relish torturing their prey – and at their best, with Hester sacrificing nearly everything to free her beloved son from prison. (But even those good intentions don’t go unpunished.) Bleak and bloody, the play is daring mostly in its lack of redemption, of daring to go the distance and portray the ways that men and women – all of us, by extension -- hurt each other.
193. “Our Lady of 121st Street,” Union Square Theatre, March 2: Sister Rose, beloved matriarchal figure to scads of inner-city Catholic youth, was also a drunk. She died in a gutter. But that doesn’t keep many of the children whose lives she influenced from trekking back to New York for her wake and funeral. The only problem: Someone stole her body! Such is the premise of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ darkly comic tale set in the waiting room of a funeral home. The crowd who returns to salute her carries with them a grab-bag of current-day relationship woes, school-yard rivalries and sweet nostalgia for these streets. Director Philip Seymour Hoffman plumbs Guirgis’ brusque, street-wise words for maximum comic effect in the first act. There’s Flip (Russell G. Jones), the gay lawyer who doesn’t want his school buddies to know that Gail (Scott Hudson), the flamboyant man he introduces as a business colleague, is actually his lover. Rooftop (Ron Cephas Jones) is scared to see his ex-wife, Inez (Portia), who still lives in the neighborhood. Norca (Liza Colon-Zayas) is a feisty fireplug of a woman who still remembers fifth-grade insults. (In the funniest scene, Norca slaps a woman she thinks looks like a schoolmate who turned her in for cheating on an earth-science test; when someone else apologizes for her, the meek woman merely replies, “It’s happened to me before.” She’s been bitch-slapped by mistake before? Well, she says, she’s the kind of person who reminds people of someone else.) In the second act, the exhilarating comic buzz settles into darker humor: murdered children, missed opportunities, middle-aged angst. And through it all, a portrait of a dead woman (only half of whose body is eventually found) who helped shape their lives. The most remarkable thing about this play is the way that it doesn’t resolve itself in expected ways: The gay couple doesn’t reconcile; the ex-husband and ex-wife fling insults at each other and remain bitter; the legless priest confesses that he doesn’t like black people; and poor Sonia (Melissa Feldman), the woman who gets bitch-slapped and doesn’t really have a reason to be there, gets dismissed and is never seen again. If anything, Guirgis is so careful not to resolve anything that the device itself becomes a little predictable: Sometimes things in life do wrap up. Otherwise we’d be in total chaos instead of near chaos.
194. “Elegies: A Song Cycle,” Lincoln Center Theater, March 3: A profound, beautiful evening featuring songs by William Finn – all of which in some way deal with themes of life and loss. Among my favorites: “Anytime (I Am There)” sung by the throaty and impassioned Carolee Carmello; “Dear Reader” (Carmello and the incomparable Betty Buckley); and the awe-inspiring “14 Dwick Ave., Natick, Massachusetts,” about a dying woman (Buckley) being taken around her beloved town one last time by her son (Christian Borle). It still gives me shivers. What I marvel most about Finn is the way he tells such gripping stories and spins such convincing worlds within just a few minutes of a song. He’s wonderful.
195. Paul Taylor Dance Company, City Center, March 5: The first in my scheduled series of three performances of one of the country’s finest modern dance choreographers. (I’ll be doing a major paper on him for my cultural criticism class.) This was a nice introduction. On the program: “Cascade,” to music by Bach, with sprightly, wood-nymph-flair costumes, a maddened feel of abandon in contrast to the controlled flavor of the Bach; it was like watching a boisterous, enthusiastic forest outing in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Next up: “Last Look,” my favorite, a quivering, shaking explosion of movement performed in satin pajamas in front of a panel of mirrors, lots of rolling, leaping, falling to floor, tremendous gyrations, perhaps a feel of impending doom or death? Last: “Dream Girls,” a silly, almost cheesy series of dances done to barbershop quartet music. One dancer wore a fat suit, which was pretty much over the top.
196. “Turandot,” Metropolitan Opera, March 6: The second time was the charm for this over-the-top spectacle – especially because this time I had orchestra seats. (When I saw this production last fall, I didn’t even get to see the emperor holding court because of the obstructed view from the balcony’s standing-room section.) The plot is one of the silliest on record, of course, and for an opera, that’s saying a lot, but the lush music and Franco Zeffirelli’s stuff-the-stage-with-wow production design made it all worthwhile.
197. Paul Taylor Dance Company, City Center, March 7: Taylor tends to be either very light or very dark in tone, and this program could have benefited from a little more darkness. “Images,” to music by Claude Debussy, was a prissy little shot of playfulness that had some nice moments. “Black Tuesday,” a riff on Depression-era bravado, turned out to be my least favorite dance of the nine I saw performed over three nights – it was just this side of smarmy. (Though the dance ostensibly focused on the jobless and downtrodden, the crisp choreography, the dancers’ bland smiles, the Chaplinesque mugging and the pristine backdrops made the whole thing feel too clean and blandly suburban, wide; it’s as if Disney turned the Great Depression into an animatronic ride. The dance did end with a beautiful visual impression, however, with the line of dancers walking forward, arms stretched in front of them in a begging motion, sticking their hands into a fierce white light while the music played “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.” The third dance on the program was my favorite of the evening: the 70s-era “Esplanade,” which exploded with pastel joy (loved those bright orange pants) and lots of sliding across the stage and running at breakneck speed.
198. “A Little Night Music,” New York City Opera, March 8: It’s good that I’m so familiar with the lyrics and music of this Sondheim classic, because the New York State Theater is far too big of a house – especially when you’re sitting in the Fourth Ring. But even though I was a long ways from the likes of Jeremy Irons, Claire Bloom and Juliet Stevenson, their apt comic timing and delightful chemistry still traveled the distance. What surprised me about seeing “A Little Night Music” for the first time – as opposed to just listening to the soundtrack – is how truly funny it is, and bawdy, and delicately subversive. I especially liked Michele Pawk as Countess Charlotte Malcolm, whose toleration of her husband’s affairs and quick quips masked the emotional hurt of knowing that the one you love is being intimate with someone else.
199. Lecture by New Yorker writer/editor Henrik Hertzberg, journalism school, March 10: Hertzberg was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, and he had some interesting observations about the job: The whole idea of a presidential speechwriter is an “embarrassment,” really, because having a 30-year-old writing your words is something to hide. And there’s the fact that the media perceives a prepared speech as little more than hype, that’s what is said off the cuff is what’s truly important. But the “official line” is policy – shouldn’t it be covered more? As far as the current administration, Hertzberg thinks the media has been covering it with kid gloves – perhaps petty scandals (blowjobs) aren’t as scary as big ones (Haliburton). He blames most of what’s wrong with our country on the mechanics of the political system – that Congressional races are almost always locked up, and that the system of two senators from each state favors conservatives.
200. “Man Measures Man,” Lark Theatre barebones performance, March 10: A powerful performance of a work still in progress: no sets, simple costumes, rudimentary lighting. But David Robson’s story of a pair of American doctors who travel to Bosnia – and of the young man with the terrible wartime secret whom they treat – was quite effective theatrically.