Looking Forward….
Sure, they’re Having an
Affair but this weekend’s tryst between Danceworks and Present Music is
more of the Same Time Next Year variety. Now on their sixth
collaboration, the meeting of these varied artistic minds always yields
something interesting. Here, our money is on the collaboration between composer
Jason Seed and choreographer Kelly Anderson, who have created a piece starting
from scratch. Also look for new work from Danceworks Artistic Director Dani
Kuepper, UWM professor Simone Ferro, and other Danceworks ensemble members.
It’s been a good year for Shakespeare. In addition to Milwaukee Shakespeare’s
fine productions, we’ve had Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
at the Milwaukee Ballet, and now I Capuleti e i
Montecchi at the Florentine Opera. Not one of Vincenzo Bellini’s better
known works, his take on Romeo and Juliet (based more on the original sources
than Shakespeare, actually) is filled with great Bel Canto melodies, and a
particularly fine part for Juliet, here sung by rising star Georgia Jarman
(shown at left).
No doubt Florence Foster Jenkins tried her hand at Bellini in her day, but
anyone who saw the Skylight’s production of Souvenir can guess the
results. Playing Jenkins, Linda Stephens showed just how hilariously awful bad
singing could be. To see what the talented Stephens can really do with a song
(she’s a Broadway veteran who can bring out the sweetest emotions of a great
standard), take a trip out west to the cabaret stage at Brookfield’s Sharon Lynne Wilson
Center, where Stephens and pianist Jamie Johns will feature songs about
nature – from James Taylor to Kurt Weill.
And finally, no spring weekend would be complete without Neil LaBute’s
fearless exploration of human dysfunction, right? Renaissance Theatreworks is
happy to oblige with Fat
Pig, one of the bravest offerings of this year’s theater season. One of
the more controversial playwrights working today, LaBute isn’t afraid to cause a
bit of trouble on stage. Here, he gives us the skinny on America’s obsession
with weight, but does so through probing character studies that dig deep into
the way we think about ourselves and each other.
Looking Back…
Duet for Two Hearts
A little over an hour into the Milwaukee
Chamber Theatre’s big-hearted production of Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly,
Jonathan West stands center stage, looming over the audience under the tattered
gazebo of the Talley family boathouse. “People in Europe are very wasteful of
people,” he muses, remembering a horrific event of his past. The entire play has
lead to this moment, and West brings it home with a wizened detachment that
masks a pain that has nearly paralyzed him all his life. But more than that, he
embodies a particular clash of American cultures at mid-20th century.
A European Jew looking back (and presciently forward) at horrors visited on his
people, framed by America’s sunny infatuation with tradition – faux Victorian
brick-a-brack, frayed and crumbling as history marches forward.
Wilson’s play is decidedly a personal story, but also one
that resonates with the echoes of global events. West is Matt Friedman, a Jewish
tax lawyer who has come to Lebanon, Missouri, to woo Sally Talley, who has done
nothing less than revitalize his faith in the power of love and humanity. She’s
not exactly a life force. As wonderfully played by Laura Gray, Sally is bitter,
fatalistic and closed off from the world. But Friedman senses in her the
possibility of connection, and the play spends its 97 minutes peeling away
layers of the characters’ psychic armor until those possibilities are
beautifully clear to everyone.
Talley’s Folly is a duet filled with great charm and a kind of
American vernacular poetry. Wilson’s great slight of hand is to start things by
showcasing the show’s artifice. Friedman takes the stage, announcing just what’s
going to happen in the time before the lights go down. He talks about the sound
effects, the audience, the whole theatrical kit and kaboodle. But damned if
Wilson doesn’t create characters and dialogue that sweep you right into their
world as soon the real dialogue begins. When Friedman pulls out his watch at the
plays end – “We’re right on time,” he says – it’s a magnificent coup de
theatre, as gasp-inducing as any tumbling chandelier or flying car. We’ve
been pulled in.
Director Michael Wright, who studied with Wilson’s New York company, Circle
Repertory, has a feel for the dynamics of the music, and his actors play it
beautifully. Opening night jitters made a few moments sound a bit forced and
mechanical, but West and Gray find truth in this relationship. And you’ll find,
guardedly, some hope and romance in their story.
Photo: Jonathan West as Matt Friedman and Laura Gray as Sally Talley.
Amanda Schlicher Photography
We Love Edo!
Milwaukee’s love fest with Edo de Waart continued last
Thursday night, and he gave back in sonic spades. The Music Director Designate
conducted Holst’s The Planets in the informal setting of the Milwaukee
Symphony’sClassical Connections series. Taking the stage after a snappy
promotional video, De Waart received a standing ovation from the substantial
crowd even before he lifted his baton.
Classical Connections
concerts are designed to appeal to the less snooty music fans. This one featured
a video program with images (both real and computer generated) from around the
solar system. It was originally scheduled for all the concerts, but the MSO
scrapped the screen for the “serious” weekend program. The Connections concerts
are also shorter, and are peppered with conversations about the music in between
selections. Tonight, however, there was very little said about Holst and a whole
lot said about De Waart. Both concertmaster Frank Almond and principal cellist
Joseph Johnson put on their Regis Philbin hats to ask De Waart about his history
and his path to Milwaukee (they have both worked with him in the past). Charming
but hardly gregarious, De Waart chatted about his early years. He started on the
piano, switching to oboe at age 12. His desire to be a conductor, he said
demurely, was rooted in a little boy’s inability to sit still. But it began in
earnest when he saw Josef Krips conduct at the Concertgebouw.
He’s led a lot of orchestras since then, and conducted The Planets, by
his estimation, around 25 or 30 times. It was scheduled by the MSO before De
Waart was on the picture, but it proved to be a nice populist showcase. It’s
varied, splashy, and familiar. De Waart isn’t as animated a conductor as the
current MSO leader Andreas Delfs. But he is gently commanding and authoritative.
The ensemble was tight, the textures appropriately ethereal. One string player
commented after the concert: “He’s a really good conductor. Things are looking
pretty good around here.”
Amphibians ‘R’ Us
Children’s theater has a lot of street cred
these days, and part of the reason is A Year with
Frog and Toad, a sweet little tadpole of a musical that gave The
Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis a Broadway hit in 2003. The show
received three Tony nominations, and helped CTC nab a Tony award for Best
Regional Theater the following year, a first for a youth-oriented company. Based
on Arnold Reale’s charming, simple children’s books, the show’s strengths are,
well, its charm and simplicity.
There’s plenty of that in the new production by First Stage Children’s
Theatre. There isn’t much story here – the play doesn’t really aspire to
anything but what its title suggests – but director Tony Clements is a music
theater veteran, and he knows how to keep things springing right along. Sarah
Hunt-Frank’s set is magical assemblage of pop-out windows and rotating nooks.
And Kim Instenes’ costumes are a delight.
As Frog, Brian Gill is sunny and sincere without being the least bit cloying.
John MacClay plays Toad with a permanent furrow in his brow and a slouch in his
shoulders. And to the show’s credit, he isn’t forced into some epiphany that
brings on good cheer, a la When Bad Things Happen to Good Bufonidae.
Paul Helm, however, gets the big show-stopper, playing a snail who takes
quite a long time to deliver a letter. Helm’s got an aw-shucks manner and a
sweet, high tenor that’s easy on the ears. But when he lets loose, it’s a hotcha
Broadway moment, bringing smiles to kids and grumpy grownups alike.
