“It’s POHHH-ET-TREEE, Rod-Neee!!!” 
It’s no more than a single wave in a hurricane of relationship invective. Feuding lovers Charlotte and Rodney have nothing good to say to one another. And let’s not even get started on the various weapons (both real and rhetorical) at their disposal. But in the midst of their Battle Royale, Tami Workentin turns this throwaway line into an air-clearing, soul baring, declaration of existence that hasn’t been hear d since Horton saved Who-ville.
Poetry is Charlotte’s thing, you see. But her love of verse and metaphor is hardly the main event of Morris Panych’s 7 Stories. She’s just one character in a seventh-floor menagerie encountered by The Man (Mark Ulrich), a lanky fellow who looks like he just stepped off the floor of the London exchange, and is rather unprepared for the crush of confusing humanity that bursts out of several adjacent windows. We find him on the building ledge at the start of the play–freeze-framed with umbrella open and one foot poised over the abyss. Through most of the first act (the one-act play has unfortunately been clumsily split in two), we don’t really know why he’s there. But if he isn’t there to jump, Panych doesn’t waste any time surrounding him lots of reasons to give it some thought.
The Man’s encounters with this clutch of crackpots are great fun, but there’s also a method to Panych’s mayhem. While our hero finds life meaningless, his new friends have each zoned in on a particular and rather obsessive raison d’etre. Percy is a party animal who numbers 948 friends (and not the Facebook kind—the play was written in 1989). Lillian (Debra Babich) fancies herself God’s angel of mercy, lowering tidy bundles of both doom and salvation to her neighbors one floor below. Leonard (Robert W.C. Kennedy) puts his faith in psychiatry of the most paranoid sort. And most hilariously, Nurse Wilson (Workentin) is a sour-faced hospital aide who calls herself a humanitarian (“The race as a whole, I love. It’s the individuals I can’t stand”). Thus, they offer the option of a “meaningful” life, but one that still doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Eventually, our hero finds someone who listens—the Nurse’s 100-year-old charge who offers some surprising wisdom. When we finally hear The Man’s story, and meet him on his own terms, the play takes a philosophical and magical turn. It’s a little like Samuel Beckett, leavened with touch of optimism Pixar-style. It’s a credit to David Cecsarini’s savvy direction that the finale hits home with wide-eyed wonder rather than disbelief. A cynical fantasy for our cynical age, it will nonetheless leave you ready to face another day.
Saturday night’s performance by the Luna Negra Dance Theater suggested a company in transition.
Luna Negra celebrates its 10th anniversary this season, and the Chicago-based troupe is looking for a replacement for its founder, Eduardo Vilaro, who was just appointed to head New York City’s Ballet Hispanico. Vilaro’s Danzon was the big event of the evening, a performance with live music by Paquito D’Rivera and the Turtle Island String Quartet. Rivera and the members of Turtle Island are accomplished improvisers, and the music—despite the drawbacks of being heavily miked—was stellar.
Vilaro’s dance, however, was rather tame alongside it. Traditional variations on an indigenous Cuban dance, it hewed close to the tradition, and didn’t display the imagination that would give it a needed punch. Instead, it was almost an accompaniment to the musicians driving and inspired playing.
The other two dances on the program cast Vilaro’s work into stark relief. Azucar Cruda (Sugar in the Raw), by interim artistic director Michelle Manzanales was a delight of atmosphere and subtle stagecraft. With the entire company onstage for almost the entire work, Manzanales found variations in mood and movement that kept things interesting, and the soft-edged romanticism blended perfectly with the sepia-toned lighting and costumes.
But the clear highlight was Nube Blanco (White Cloud) by Annabella Lopez Ochoa. A reminiscence of the choreographer’s Cuban childhood, the piece featured a soundscape suggesting vacant buildings that was interrupted by the gorgeous and raw voice of the Spanish singer Maria Dolores Pradera. Against this backdrop, Lopez Ochoa sets a hilarious deconstruction of traditional Spanish dance. Starting with the company in traditional Flamenco garb—high waisted pants and flowing, knee-length skirts, she mixes and matches the costumes and develops hilarious and sometimes dazzling takes on Spanish traditions. It was great fun, and showed off the company’s terrific technique and spirit.
