Arts Runoff: PERFORMANCE IMPROV

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Summary: An hour of short dance pieces. EVERYTHING is improvised: music, sound, lighting, and of course, the dance itself.

Good: Local multi-instrumentalist Ron Rost was fantastic as a part of the band. His main role was percussion, but I had no idea what bizarre instrument he would pull out next–drums, bells, sticks, flutes, even mouth-accordions. And they all fit. // Eamon Fogarty can make an electric guitar sound like anything. // The dancers really hit their stride about halfway through. The turning point was a great group piece in which I immediately understood each dancer’s relationship to the others, and also understood that they were in control.

Bad: During an improvisation, whether in music, dance, or acting, participants usually have three basic options: repeat a pattern, repeat and modify, or start a new pattern. The dancers chose the first option more often than I would’ve liked, watering down some great choices by not letting them go soon enough. // Maybe I think too much in terms of plot and characters, but I sometimes get the feeling in modern dance shows that each dancer is in a little individual bubble, moving out of sync with (and looking right past) the other people onstage. Especially since this was improv, things started to slide when the dancers lost touch with each other.

Broad: This is contemporary dance at its contemporary-danciest. It’s not at all pretentious–the energy in the dancers’ faces and bodies makes that clear–but it does obey its own kind of logic, a kind you don’t see too often in movies, novels, or plays. So be ready to abandon your normal ways of thinking for an hour. // Don’t take this review too seriously, since the show will be totally different tomorrow!

Contextual Rating: If you have something important to do this weekend,
…do it, and see this show if you can. [Although fantastic, perhaps not ideal if it's the first dance concert of your life. As I've said before, watching choreographed shows by some of these same folks is really incredible.]
…put it off and go watch some performance improv!
…skip it. SEE THIS SHOW.

In the CFA, 8:00 Saturday. $10/8/6.

Arts Runoff: IF

Summary: A series of theatrical vignettes generally dealing with missed connections and “what-ifs” at different stages in life. Runtime ~ 45 minutes. The whole thing was written, acted and staged by the cast.

Good: Great use of the Gamut Room. It’s an awkard space for staging, but the group made the right choice in flipping around the usual layout. // The visual atmosphere was fantastic: black clothes for the actors, white sheets put to a good variety of uses, warm light from candles and faerie lights. // Songs and silent mini-scenes added variety, and a couple of recurring narratives added consistency. // Six-word love stories!

Bad: For being in such an informal space and having such a down-to-earth visual scheme, the performances in If felt a little too serious: words and rhetorical points were given more emphasis than characters. If the characters themselves had been given more attention, their speeches would’ve been that much better. // Individual scenes were good, but I lost the thread of the piece at times, in a way that would have been unacceptable if the show were any longer than it was. // Unfortunately, the cast couldn’t overcome one major limit of the Gamut Room: there’s really only one place to enter and exit.

Broad: It’s always good to see different worlds overlap. If was not created as part of a class, and it was put together by a group largely unaffiliated with the Theater Department. It also brought in a venue that the campus never seems to know how to use properly.

Contextual Rating: If you have something important to do this weekend,
…do it, and see this show if you can.
…put it off and see If.
…skip it. SEE THIS SHOW.

If in the Gamut Room (bottom floor of Gifford), 8:00 and 10:00 Saturday. Free!

Arts Runoff: HECUBA

Whew. Three reviews.  And I didn’t even get to the orchestra concert, the Moth or Verbal Onslaught.

Summary: Written by Euripides in 420-ish BCE (trans. Kenneth McLeisch).  After the fall of Troy to the Greeks, Hecuba (Troy’s queen, now a slave) must contain her sorrow and use the only power she has left — persuasion — to attempt to save her children and take revenge. The fall Theater Department show: directed by Professor Claudio Medeiros.

Good: Michaela Lieberman ’10.5 is fantastic as Hecuba. The role requires a lot of weeping and grieving, but Lieberman drives away any potential monotony with powerful acting. She makes you care. // Impeccable tech: a sweeping set to represent refugee tents, precise lighting and sound, masterful makeup and costumes (esp. in the disturbing Polymestor scene). // Brilliant reinterpretation of the traditional Greek chorus.

Bad: The video (two TVs set up to look like surveillance-camera feeds) had potential but left me confused. Clips came and went somewhat unpredictably, and I always had to stare a few seconds to figure out what was being shown, a puzzle that distracted me from the actors. // At one point, the screens showed some helicopter-bombing footage and a shot of the rubble of the World Trade Center.  These clips muddled the metaphor (if defeated Troy is America, why are the occupiers dressed in US-style uniforms?). The production didn’t quite earn the right to show the images; it felt like a gimmick to artificially inflate the power of the scenes — not necessary.

Broad: In many ways, this play mirrors Medeiros’s production of Lysistrata three years ago: ancient-looking costumes mixed with modern military garb, the daring interpretations of choral parts, the focus on a fierce female protagonist trying to take power from a society run by venal men.  It’s interesting to see professors’ work over time, to watch them tackle similar ideas from different angles.

Contextual Rating: If you have something important to do this weekend,
…do it, and see this show if you can.
…put it off and see this show.
…skip it. SEE THIS SHOW.

Hecuba in the Seeler Studio Theater (CFA). ONE SHOW LEFT: Tomorrow at 8:00.