The Rep’s Solo Triumph

Looking Ahead

The theater season is only a few weeks old, but we may have already seen its best performance. The Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s I Am My Own Wife is the kind of play that earns plaudits like this: one actor plays over 30 “characters” with turn-on-a-dime dexterity. The show won many awards for playwright Doug Wright and actor Jefferson Mays in its Broadway and subsequent touring productions, and they deserved them. Here, actor Michael Gotch and director John Langs, a team well known to fans of American Players Theater, have orchestrated Wright’s cast of characters with great facility. But it’s Gotch’s portrayal of the play’s central figure, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, that will haunt you after the show is over. Surrounded by the other “characters” – some rendered with only a single line of dialog – Charlotte emerges as a full-blooded enigma: a transvestite antique collector who lived through both the Nazis and the Stasi secret police, regimes not particularly friendly to sexual “outsiders.” Gotch’s performance here is abundant with nuance and detail, but its greatest feat is the ineffable spirit of a person’s complex life that saturates the stage and seeps into the audience’s slightly wary hearts. Don’t miss it.

Elsewhere this weekend, Doc Severinson, former Pops Conductor of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, is back with a quartet who are said to play “mariachi” music, the Mexican style common to restaurants and grandmother’s record collections. But this is not your grandmother’s mariachi. “El Ritmo de la Vida” features Django Reinhart-style jazz and contemporary Latin composers like Chick Corea and Astor Piazolla. You might catch a few “Ay-yi-yi-yi’s” during the show, but don’t count on it.

The weather forecast looks good, so it will be a perfect weekend to hang out in the Menomonee Valley. Deborah Loewen’s Wild Space Dance Company continues its exploration of Milwaukee places by focusing attention on the two towering chimney’s that were once part of the Milwaukee Road’s locomotive factory. Loewen is collaborating with the Milwaukee Turners’ rock climbing group, so expect things to get vertical before the evening is out.

Looking Back
 

Dance is notoriously ephemeral. So it was nice to revisit some favorite pieces Friday night at the UWM Dance Department’s anniversary celebration. It started with a bit of pomp and circumstance, with Alderman Nic Kovak reading a proclamation from the mayor declaring it UWM Dance Day. (Note to Mr. Barrett and City of Milwaukee: send a check next time; dance in Milwaukee needs recognition, but it also needs money.)

            But movement speaks louder than words, and the pieces on Friday’s program showed how far the UWM department reaches into the community. Most of the area’s dance groups have close ties with the department, and they were represented well. Wild Space offered “Missing,” a heartbreaking duet (Jade Jablonski and Katie Sopoci) from their recent “Map of Memories.” Also the playfully cerebral “Arc and Axis,” based on some of the ideas of ballet bad boy William Forsythe. Danceworks featured Sean Curran’s “Force of Circumstance,” a recent commission that vacillates between electric and tedious (it just makes too much of a thread-the-needle motif that doesn’t do the rest of the dance justice). And Danceworks’ Melissa Anderson reprised Peter Sparling’s “Ombra Mai Fu,” a solo that embraces the romance of a soaring Handel aria while sending up contemporary star culture, as well.

            On the traditional end of the spectrum, Rolando Yanes showcased the Milwaukee Ballet II company with steamy tangos and lots of red dresses set to music by Astor Piazzolla. And there was red-a-plenty in Elizabeth Johnson’s not-so-traditional piece, “Constructed Woman Up Above (Ode for a Dakini),” an exploration of body image and patriarchy that elaborates on the poetry of Marge Piercy. Johnson also danced a light hearted and feisty Trey McIntyre duet with the Milwaukee Ballet’s Marc Petrocci.

            Winding things up: the always celebratory Ko Thi Dance Company and Musician’s Ensemble. It’s a shame Milwaukee doesn’t see them perform more often.