Stage

The Illusionists are a band of millennial magicians currently touring their hit Broadway show ‘Witness the Impossible.’ The magicians brought their Vegas-slick production for a week at the Academy of Music, playing to a sold-out house opening night Feb 24, the magicians appear, with mock gravitas, like reality TV show stars on the edge of the stage laser lights slashing and rock band crashing in,the dazzling atmospherics swirling.

Emcee Adam Trent, aka The Futurist, set up the acts, his boyish charm coaxes audience involvement. Trent is very talky getting to his first real trick, a nifty illusion of body prestidigitation, with an ancient codger in the audience (or was he. Later Trent has futuristic magic to do, punching through 3-D screens with LED lightning tricks.

The show seeks to conjure something to everyone’s taste. Along with state of the art smoke and mirror tech, The Illusionists indulge in tricks that could have been rummaged in a Vaudevillian kit left backstage at the opera house in 1900. And a heavy lean on card tricks- lots and lots of card tricks with live feeds on an arena screen, above the magician’s sleights of hands.

Yu Ho-Jin (The Manipulator), is the Academy of Magician’s Arts (AMA) 2014 Magician of the Year. Ho-Jin is the Fred Astaire of hand dancing card tricks, bringing the art to a new level. Fanning deck after deck, that appears and vanishes, morphed from his elegant scarf, his fluidity and simplicity of movement utterly entrances.

For the highest dramatic tension, Andrew Basso (The Escapologist) performs Houdini’s famous underwater tank escape without a tank cover for those crucial seconds that Houdini dislocated his joints. Basso uses a bobby pin to uncuff himself, while he is underwater, upside-down, nostrils clipped. There edge of your seat suspense while he tries to spring himself to safety, as the digital clock ticks off the cringing minutes, down to gasping seconds.

A Vegas throwback and apparently comic relief for many is Jeff Hobson (The Trickster). Good with those musty card and egg tricks,and fun enough to laugh at his own shtick. But dial the petrified gay camp a bit. Fey jokes with middle-aged straight men in the audience for Liberace laughs is more than a little cringe-worthy. (Full disclosure though, the audience loved him, so the trick’s on me.)

Aaron Crow (The Warrior) decked out in leather and feather regalia to compliment his sneering good looks, Crow plucked a couple from the audience for a little archer practice involving an apple, the couple’s ring and a crossbow. Kevin James (the Inventor) performed levitating paper tricks that were memorizing the kids in the audience, but his grisly scenes of sawing lab techs in half is too stagy and relies on grisly shock value, a little goes a very long way.

But it is the comic prestidigitator Dan Sperry (The Anti-Conjurer) with in Marilyn Manson melting make-up and Goth-punk hair ala The Cure. His stream of consciousness banter who could give Beckett a run for his money. Sperry’s inventive and dazzling mini-acts- the first involving a life safer, dental floss and his neck has gross out edge, later he riffled through explanations of Russian Roulette gone wrong with one a very good sport from the audience. But Sperry’s finale, showed him as the masterful magician he is, working with doves, some real, some mechanical and his sleights of hand, a mind-blowing conjuring despite his moniker of The Anti-Conjuror.

The live music by the band Z, has precision and swagger and not a little parody Vegas moments, the sound design for the magicians though, was very ragged and needs tuning. The dance team of magicians’ assistants are underused and could benefit from more show dance tightness. But, this show, for all its pastiche, ultimately seduces more than it dazzles and that is always the best trick, aces out or not.

Classical Philly

It was not without irony that Russian maestro Valery Gergiev was conducting Russian classics by Sergei Prokofiev and Dimitri Shostakovich for his two concert evenings in front of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Gergiev is principal conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra and artistic-general director of the storied Mariinsky Theatre, is a longstanding guest conductor with the Fab Phils.

He has been fielding criticicism where ever he appears lately for his reported close association with Vladimir Putin. In front of the Kimmel Center there were protests against the maestro and Putin’s aggression in the Ukraine. Gergiev’s association with Putin has also ignited protest by gay rights groups who accused him of being anti-gay, a charge he flatly denies, claiming publicly that he was, in fact, for worldwide pro-GLBTQ rights.

Whatever the political truths, concert-goers can’t ignore these issues and decide for themselves if they are making a statement by not going because of the actions, or reputed actions of one player. Gergiev is not the only person on that stage. There are the musicians, the technicians, the theater employees and, indeed, the long gone composers, who in fact were making statements about living under the iron fist of Stalin.

A discussion for a separate article.

Meanwhile, back to the musical ironies, both Prokofiev and Shostakovich worked with impunity under the Soviet Composer’s Union, a censoring mechanism of Stalin who was in control of the Iron Curtain play list. But both composers knew how to disguise the free-expression of their music, below the sanctioned surface.

Gergiev hustled onstage without much of a nod to the audience and he did look distracted (at least) for the opening work Stravinsky’s Symphony in C, and the Moderato opening movement sounded rushed and under-powered. Deeper in the piece, Stravinsky’s razor sharp orchestral turns fueled its surface luster. But this work is more of a pastiche (if witty) Stravinsky, with a quality of a warmed over ballet score. Its balance proved an erratic performance for Gergiev, with hazy mis-en-scenes crowding out more potent sections. Through its bouncy coherence, Peter Smith’s oboe swirled masterfully around all of the orchestral filigrees.

Sharper focus and intensity came with Shoshtakovich’s Symphony no. 9. In a controlled and completely thrilling symphonic arc. Perfect and vital volume fluctuations and striations of the lower strings with Gergiev accenting the Russian effects of fuller bowing. All of the woodwinds stellar and Daniel Matsukawa essaying a solo bassoon line with profound, penetrating clarity, floating over shadowy strings. A passage so intimate that its humanist intent was probably a complete enigma to the Soviet censors.

The capper actually proved to be Prokofiev’s Symphony no. 5. Gergiev seeming to go for every detail with attack and clarity- summoning crystallized brass swallowing counter-melodies and clashing against Prokofiev’s cascading strings. Pianist Kiyoko Takeuti ‘s masterful on the composer’s dodgy piano voicings, not to mention the steel chamber violin leads by David Kim. A triumphal performance without doubt. When the maestro finally faced the audience at the end, as the lusty ovation thundered in, he seemed to finally breathe.

Stage

Doubt at the Lantern TheaterBen Dibble & Mary Martello in Doubt (Photo by Plate 3 Photography)

Doubt : A Parable by John Patrick Shanley won the 2005 Tony award for best play, huge critical acclaim and deservedly the Pulitzer Prize for its economical, evocative dramatic power. Shanley directed his fine screen adaptation in 2008, starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, in which he was able to open the play up for the screen, hedge some bets by adding plot points, but retain its potent theatricality.

The plot is ostensibly about a possible case of sexual abuse by a parish priest with a 14-year-old black student at in St. Nicholas Church School where Sister Mary Aloysius Beauvier, the principle, wants to bring the progressive teaching methods of Father Flynn to a halt by any means necessary.

The playwright calls the play a ’parable‘ and sets in the Bronx circa 1964 as he examines the church as disconnected from the culture around them. The play‘s themes of abuse by priests in society reflected explosive headlines a decade ago of not only pedophile priest scandals, but the chain of command hierarchy of the Catholic Church that tolerated known abuse. Shanley challenges us to question our assumptions, prejudices and critical thinking vis-à-vis the explosive topic of sexual abuse by the clergy.

Lantern Theatre director Katherine MacMillan returns the play as a powerful, spare theater piece, but by now, its familiarity exposes the thinness of some scenes in the original script that were fleshed out a little more clearly on screen, but mostly Shanley‘s original concepts are fully realized. The Lantern Theatre’s current production is a strong interpretation of a great chamber theater piece for a quartet of actors.

Of course, the play is anchored on the veracity of the showdowns between Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius and Mary Martello and Ben Dibble deliver fine technical performances, and have formidable chemistry in the confrontational scenes, but it felt like they were still working out some of the more interpretive elements of the script.

Working actually better than the film is the relationship between Sister Aloysius and Sister Jane, played by Clare Mahoney, who doesn‘t come off as so willingly servile. They convey the guarded, but powerful emotions that roil under the surface of the physical language of their order. Mahoney subtly shifts and strengthens some of the focus of the play. It works.

After Sister Jane brings incriminating evidence against Flynn to the principal, everyone’s motives and value systems are brought into question. The student, Donald Muller, is the only African American in the school and he is dealing with racism and further being ostracized for being shy and what is mother realizes is “his nature.” But his mother wants desperately to keep him enrolled so he can matriculate to a better high school and have a chance at college.

Lisha McCay plays Mrs. Muller in the single pivotal scene when Aloysius and the boy’s mother have a conference that is brilliant crafted exposition with a lot of dramatic reach. McCay brings much to it, except that the scene, as played on opening night, seemed a bit rushed.

Building the intensity of the drama through austere visuals is Lance Kniskern’s fine set of a breakaway stone abbey, stairwell and warm dark wood principle’s office, without a paperclip out of place, keeps giving. Shon Causer’s lighting design gives the Lantern’s stage space airy dimension and definitely musing on every shadow of a doubt.

The Lantern Theater’s production of Doubt runs through Sun., Feb. 15.. Lantern Theater Company at St. Stephen’s Theater, 923 Ludlow St. 215.829.0395 | http://www.lanterntheater.org

Poetries

Tags

poetics

Vernissage fr Right Before I Met Vincent
The crumbs & vapor
distinct enough not to
Even need to know
If we were going
Uptown, downtown
or crosstown
Claude and me
stumbled out of the
Wander In’ breathing heavy
Fire, to clear the way
not knowing
Even when or why it that we
headed out
last night?
A willful blur
Some micro-pill mixed
Or so Montreaux at lunch
Vodka for dinner
A floor show at the Met
With Aida Mann
Storming down the aisle
proclaiming in disgust
“That hideous soprano stole my act!”
(We escaped but not before
pouring Aida in a cab)
“take me to the Silhouette
I go on in five minutes and pick me up
In a half hour and bring me back here for
The last act.”
We were dodgy in a separate hitch
To Larry’s opening
Which the artist
usually doesn’t attend until
Everyone but possible
Fuck buddies leave
so we swung
By his flat to see
And magically
Of course
Everyone was there instead
Apparently we were the last to arrive before
Two men in kilts stood guard
Drinks were shoved
In our hands
And Claude collapsed
In a sullen heap
as everyone fell
Silent
Violin and piano music
Engulfed the room
With hostile phrases
razor sharp
note bends
furious contrapuntal
Interlocks that
faded to
echoes of blue
whisper
“I heard that once before
In Prague, after
The war.”
Vincent said
And without a word
We left on the
Steal shadows
dragged out of the room
Unwritten, unspoken
swallowing escape
vanquished eye
To truths
another day
Remembering to forget
scarred waltz time
released in the pages
Of a lost book
in transit
Riveted to the track
Crushed repeatedly
then entering a new night
When it is played again
silent nocturne

poetries &

From Gyroscopes

 ~Western Italy
The Shroud of Turin
Has been digitally
Enhanced and cleaned
Up from the fire
Repair done by Nuns
In the 13th century.
Of course none of the
Stains have been touched
The Vatican official
Statement is that its
Authenticity should be taken
With a pillar of salt
Correction a grain of salt
In a related story
salt is good
For removing blood stains
And thrown over the shoulder
It can also blind someone who
Might be sneaking up on you
Convening
~ North of Moscow
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
scientists collided
Isotopes 20,97
Calcium and berkelium
For sub chamber
Supernova
In milliseconds
scrambled more
void time
Than big bang
betting odds
against infinite
But longer in
Dormant time
Fortunately the
Fire sat in what
Looked like
A realm of
Cobalt
onyx dream
But for the moment
It is called
Un0un septium by
International Union of
Pure and Applied Chemistry
Placing it on the periodic
Table as no. 117.
No one could leave the chamber
~  In Southern Africa
The skeletons of humanoids
A couple of million years
Older than Lucy (found
On the West Coast of Africa
And everybody’s grandmother
The mother and teen were
Taller than Lucy and
More evolved physically
Between simian ancestors
And Neanderthals
This opens up new
Evolutionary avenues
kind of blows Noah
Out of the water
But he would want
The text amended
Without pause                   ~Later that night West Village

a Refraction that
told of the
tip of a
Millionth
heaven
quarter
Moon
that
appeared on the
ping of that
frequency
reported
only on early
radio news
there was the
Freedom
Through
Europe
that took
over the rest of
the day
by that night
an
Eacart
Silver
moon
Erased
memory
floated in
and Universal
Studios had sent
over coal clouds
to shadow
in shadow
to shroud
radiance
meanwhile you spin the dances of Isadora
& I drink mercury

Classical Philly

Juilliard String Quartet
Philadelphia Chamber Music Society
Perelman Theater, Philadelphia
Jan. 25

For their second appearance at The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society this month, The Juilliard String Quartet was scheduled to perform with premier pianist Leon Fleisher playing Brahms’ Piano Quintet. Unfortunately Mr. Fleisher had to bow out due to illness. JSQ substituted the Brahms with a handy string quartet. Violinists Ronald Copes and Joseph Lin, violist Roger Tapping violist and Joel Krosnick performed one of their regular season programs an altogether sterling concert of Haydn, Beethoven and contemporary composer Shulamit Ran.

Music scholar Paul Schiavo points out in excellent program notes that Haydn was the first to develop mature string quartets. It is evident in his String Quartet in G Major, op. 33, it states, defines and even anticipates so much in this form. The witty and vibrant baroque-ness leads to intense, and adventurous string dialogues with the intricate baroque-classical mixes, sounding to an extent free form. Scherzo brightness gives way to somber clusters. Joseph Lin’s passionate and precision playing can’t help but take the spotlight early on, but the ensemble synergy is as resplendent as the composer’s timeless musicality.

Connected in form, but at the other end of the musical spectrum in effect is Shulamit Ran’s String Quartet, op. 2, Vistas composed in 1988-89, was occasioned by a musical cultural exchange with Russia. Shulamit is the second women to win a Pulitzer Prize for composition and her voice in this piece also displays her compelling voice and the drama she brings to this form.

Ran An overt and virtuosic challenge of form under subheads- Concentric, Stasis, Flashes, Vista- is musical architecture in constant structural and dazzling motion, like a chaotic, but fully formed sonic world with muscled, sometimes hostile phrases, razor sharp string interlocks , note bends, roving contrapuntal language and subtle, lyrical echoes of Hassidic music. Each musician has challenging solo lines, with the two final movements cued by Krosnick with a somber dissonant line that pushes, almost furiously, in different directions. This piece and JQ’s playing grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go.

Beethoven’s String Quartet op. 26 doesn’t sound like Ludwig’s epic symphonic work, cathartic solo pieces or even his violin concertos, but almost a liberated form, even with Beethoven’s defining technical prowess, this admirably, is without any signatures. Beethoven showing that the viola is not second string to the violin and Tapping making the most of those movement lead-ins. This string quartet has an almost self-mocking edge in moments, one of the composer’s rare instances of musical levity.

Without pause, Juilliard String Quartet’s trademark full sound and technique is always in the musical moment with the audience.

Cabaret

Tina get the Ax! & put a beard on it!

The mighty MQ chorus singing their anthem ‘Don’t Fuck With Me Fellas’ (photos courtesy of Beardeds)

Yes, Mommie, they are all there onstage- Boozy, OCD Joan, victimized adopted daughter Christina, faithful idol worshiper Carol Anne, the lowly housemaid Helga and Barbara from Redbook navigating wire hangers, lethal shoulder pads, Kabuki make-up & Joan’s Medussa-eye glares.

Philly’s premier cabaret troupe the Bearded Ladies will unveil Andy: A Popera, about Andy Warhol and his fab Superstar world, a collaboration with Opera Philadelphia, in September. Meanwhile, the Bearded’s unleashed Mommie Queerest troupe fundraiser at the Wilma Theater. It is their unhinged spoof of Faye Dunaway’s incarnation as Joan Crawford from the 80s camp classic Mommie Dearest. If you missed it last week, you can catch it Feb 2.

What’s scarier than one Joan stalking the stage in come fuck me pumps and a bejeweled turban? Two Joans. John Jarboe plays Joan (except when Dito van Reigersberg does some scene pilfering). When Christina (Dito in blond pig-curls) and Joan (Jarboe) tuck up in black and white one piece suits for the famous swim scene, things go even more haywire. Dito even has to curtsie in spike heals, not easy for a 6 ft 3 chanteuse with muscular legs, but his Martha training kicks in big-time.

In the famous scene where Joan strangles Christina (“Barbara please, wait in the other room) Joan asks Christina why she can’t give her the respect that any stranger on the street would and Dito turns into hair-raising blues vamp. “Because I’m not one of your FANS!”

Musical director Heath Allen has also riffed other instant Bearded classics from famous MQ lines– ‘Don’t Fuck With Me Fellas’ is turned into a rousing gospel tune and ‘No Wire Hangers’ turn is a fierce art song by a transcendent Jarboe that is this side of Benjamin Britten. Meanwhile the beefed up 12 member MQ chorus is truly fab.

Mommie Queerest may have been a fundraiser but it was no walk through, but as usual Jarboe can’t resist playing hard and loose with his own script, moments of diva bickering and fueled for round two.

tickets, info & hangers http://www.beardedladiescabaret.com