Looking Ahead:
We’ve heard some good Latin music lately: El Gran Combo at Summerfest, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra at Alverno. Here’s a chance to experience some great salsa (and more) in an intimate venue. Percussionist Pauli Mejías, a recent Grammy nominee, has so many musical ideas that he plays on four conga drums (rather than the usual two), and likes to add international touches to the music of his native Puerto Rico – recent recordings have included rhythms from India and the Mediterranean. The 350-seat theater at Latino Arts, Inc. should be the perfect venue. And before Mejías’ 7 p.m. show, be sure to stop by the opening of “Dialogues and Diagrams… In Search of a Path,”an exhibit of paintings inspired by Puerto Rican churches by Annelisse Molini.
If you like a lot of muscle and sweat in your choreography, head out to Brookfield for a performance by Desmond Richardson’s Complexions Contemporary Ballet. A former star with Alvin Ailey’s company, Richardson loves speed, athleticism and Broadway (he starred in both Fosse and Twyla Tharp’s Movin’ Out). And now he’s found a choreographer, Dwight Rhoden, who shares his fondness for pizzazz, and the company has been both praised and chastised for its kinetic, frenzied style. But don’t expect the same old dance music either. Recent pieces on their program have been set to music ranging from Chopin to Marvin Gaye to The White Stripes.
Something about this time of year calls out for excess. Perhaps it’s the monotony of the snow-thaw-freeze weather cycle. Perhaps it’s those long, gray days. Well, the Artist Series at the Pabst is happy to oblige your yen for extravagance. The Five Browns might sound like the latest VH1 reality show, but they are actually one of the hottest acts in classical music: five 20-something piano-playing siblings who play together. Simultaneously. On five concert grand pianos. Recent recordings and concerts have featured arrangements of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” and, of course, Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” Just don’t get smart and shout out “Theme from ‘The Brady Bunch’” when they offer to take requests.
Looking Back:
It’s no secret that Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play and a story about love. But most people associate it with the wild and crazy love of its mortal youngsters, a pair of couples who are thrown into various uneasy permutations until they finally wrest themselves of various magical spells and march down the aisle (or in this case, the path) of temporarily wedded bliss. At Sunday afternoon’s performance of Bruce Wells’ Midsummerat the Milwaukee Ballet, a different vision of love lingered.
Long after the wooded shenanigans have sent the youngsters ricocheting around the forest, Titania and Oberon, king and queen of the fairies, face each other on an empty stage. Since the story has begun, they’ve battled over a child, and Titania has fallen in and out of love with a donkey. But they are still king and queen. Wells’ pas de deux charts the couple’s tenuous journey from chilly formality to genuine intimacy. Slowly, the coldness and empty pomp of the relationship gives way to little flourishes of affection. Always regal figures, Tatiana Jouravel and David Hovhannisyan never lose their statuesque bearing. But in the course of the dance they emerge as full-blooded human beings in the midst of a journey. Passion and gravitas united.
Wells’ approach to the play is contemporary without drawing attention to itself. Few classic styles are stretched or morphed, and many of the individual dances could easily pass as part of the classical repertoire. But he handles the story with an eye toward modern compression that, as it turns out, is quite Shakespearean. Short scenes move swiftly from one to the next, and he keeps the mime to a minimum. The work of the corps is understated but exceptional. And the Sunday principals found the gleeful energy at the heart of the story, particularly at the beginning of Act Two, when Wells throws in a measure of slapstick to buoy the comic coupling and uncoupling.
Still, it was the mature grace of the royal couple that stayed with me. When the fun and games are over, that’s the stuff that lasts.
If you’ve ever skimmed through a copy of Crime and Punishment, you’d expect lots of words in the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s novel. And there were. Curt Columbus and Marilyn Campbell’s adaptation of the book compresses it into an impressionistic 90 minutes, but there are still moral quandaries to be debated and life mysteries to be plumbed. Still, the most striking thing about Patrick Holland’s production is its silences. The play starts in complete darkness – and I mean complete – and the scene reveals itself with one of the slowest fade-ins I’ve ever seen in a theater (the lights are by Jason Fassl and Kurt Schnabel). In the murky gray, you can make out two figures, but even before you see them clearly, you can hear one of them breathing.
It’s a great moment, and there are several more through the course of the production. The performances (Drew Brhel, Mic Matarrese and Leah Dutchin) are polished and eloquent, which fits the language of the play, which often floats into the kind of philosophical debate you’d expect from Tom Stoppard. I sometimes wished for a little more grubbiness in the script and in the acting, something more akin to Josh Schmidt’s richly textured sound design or Keith Pitts’ dilapidated set. But Brhel and Matarrese have great fun with the interrogation mind games their characters play. And making Dostoyevsky fun is no simple task.
There’s no doubt that Avenue Q is a great show. Or that the Uihlein Hall audience on opening night (Tuesday) had a great time. But seeing it has made me wonder about the future of “road shows” as the nature of Broadway musicals changes with the times.
But first to the show itself. The conceit behind Avenue Q is juicy. Creators Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx (with help from book author Jeff Whitty) took “Sesame Street”-style puppets and had them tell an adult story. Humans and puppets occupy the same world. And the show’s irreverent, ironic tone draws more from the likes of “South Park” than South Pacific.
The main character, Princeton, arrives in New York, finding the only place he can afford is an apartment on Avenue Q, the most eastern part of the East Village (where the real streets actually go up to Avenue D). Once there, he begins to search for his “purpose,” finding friendship and love among the curious denizens of his street. There’s Rod, the deeply closeted gay Republican; Gary Coleman, former child star who is now his apartment superintendent (played sans puppet by human actor Carla Renata); Trekkie Monster, a furry recluse with an affection for internet porn; and Kate Monster, a sweet assistant kindergarten teacher with whom Princeton falls in love.
The show takes the toddler-TV conventions and sweet talk to an extreme, with hilarious results. Digital-screen “Sesame Street”-style animations illustrate the definition of “one-night stand,” and the guardian angel-like “Bad Idea Bears” use their best sing-song voices when urging characters to buy beer, have sex, or order another Long Island iced tea.
So there is much pleasure in the way the show’s irreverent “adult” ideas are couched in the saccharine style of kiddie-vision. But the true magic of the show is in the performances – the way the cast can breath life into very simple constructions of felt and foam rubber. That’s where the problems start. And the bigger questions emerge.
Avenue Q started at the Off-Broadway Vineyard Theater, which also developed shows like How I Learned to Drive and Fully Committed. When the show transferred to Broadway, the producers picked the 800-seat Golden Theater with good reason. It’s a show that needs a small space.
Uihlein Hall isn’t (it seats over 2300). From where I sat (in Row Q, as it turns out), you could see the way the vibrant Robert McClure gave Princeton his innocent edge, the way his dangly arm would swing wide when belting out a song. Or the way Kelli Sawyer made Kate Monster’s head inflect every swoop of her belt-‘em-out song phrasing. But you couldn’t feel it. Recognizing wonderful physical acting is not the same as having it work its magic on you. And while it was impossible not to enjoy the show’s arch take on Broadway conventions (its “happy ending” closing song, “For Now,” is spoofily conditional), the venue kept it from completely working its magic.
So here’s the issue: The changing economics of Broadway is creating a body of work at two extremes. Small shows like Avenue Q or Spring Awakening are starting in Off-Broadway or regional theaters and need a small venue to work (Spring’s Broadway home is the O’Neill – capacity 1,100). Huge mega shows created by Disney or other corporations require an extraordinary amount of stage technology. In either case, they present a challenge for road houses around the country. How do you make them fit? How to you wedge a huge show into a production that can be driven around the country and built and disassembled quickly? Or how do you take a small-venue musical and make it work in a large, multi-purpose theater? A good, good question.
