Stage

l-r: Rich Hebert, Kittson O’Neill and Kimberly S. Fairbanks. (Photo: Paola Nogueras)

Sweat
By Lynne Nottage
Directed by Justin Emeka
Suzanne Robert Theatre, Philadelphia

http://www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org

Oct. 17- Nov 4

The Philadelphia Theatre Company is back on the boards at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre after a year shutdown to regroup under the artistic direction of Paige Price, who chose Lynn Nottage’s 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning play Sweat to launch PTC’s new season.

Justin Emeka directs a fine ensemble cast of Philly-based actors- Brian Anthony Wilson, Matteo Scammell, Walter DeShields, Kimberly S. Fairbanks, Rich Hebert, Kittson O’Neill, Suli Holum, J. Hernandez and Damian J. Wallace.

Nottage’s drama bounces back and forth between 2008 and 2000 to explore the impact of economic collapse in Reading, PA where factory and industrial plant workers were watching their wages shrink, their jobs disappear as manufacturers outsourced production lines and  their unions splinter. The  worker squeeze was on and it gets very personal.

Sweat opens in 2008 as Jason, a young white man just out of prison faces off with his parole officer Evan who knows that Jason is probably headed back to prison if he doesn’t deal with his rage quick. Jason’s former best friend Chris, black a young black man, also just out of prison but with a plan to rebuild his life.

What brought these two men to this crossroads is told in flashback as they hang out in the neighborhood bar with their families and and a tight group of friends who all work in the same Reading manufacturing plant.

Chris’s mother Cynthia and Jason’s mother Tracey are at the bar celebrating their coworker Jessie birthday and everyone is plastered.  The party is interrupted when Cynthia’s estranged husband Damien shows up strung out on drugs and in dire straits since he lost his job after a union walkout the previous year. He tries to reconcile with Cynthia and convince her he is clean, but she isn’t having it until he gets help. Jason’s mother Tracey is a lifelong factory worker who feels her job is on the line. When Cynthia gets promoted to management it threatens their friendship as rumors of union busting swirls and Cynthia is caught in the middle.

Meanwhile, her son Chris has decided not to waste his life in the factory and plans to go to college for a teaching degree and Jason tries to talk him out of it. Nottage’s carves out the overt and subtle racial divides that surface through the economic crisis as Reading’s white and black workers are pitted against each other. Oscar, a Hispanic who works in the bar, is invisible to the others until he seeks a job at the factory as temp, while management shuts out the longtime workers.

Cynthia frustration living day to day for the possibility of a promotion to management. When she does get promoted, she is used as a corporate pawn and it ruins her friendship with Tracey and Jessie.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Fairbanks, O’Neill and Holum equally dynamic in conveying their private emotional turmoil feeling betrayed by each other.  Scammell and DeShields turn in powerhouse performances as the broken best friends who must come to terms with lives going forward.

Nottage doesn’t short hand much. She drives home the political points in meaningful, if sometimes heavy-handed ways. The images of news politicians from 10 years ago is a bit overdone. But how ripe it is to see them put forth their own empty promises.

There are some some bumpy transitional scenes and Nottage seems to run out of ideas for Tracey, for instance, and O’Neill seems to be stuck voicing the same rant about losing her job. J. Hernadez’s Oscar is almost a poetic symbol and his fate is resolved a bit too neatly. But even with the rough edges and character slights, but is emotionally earned by this cast.

Wallace brings so much depth as Brucie who escapes his reality through drugs and alcohol to the point that it has ruined his relationship with his wife and son. Walter DeShields and Matteo Scammell (Chris and Jason) Kimberly Fairbanks and Kittson O’Neill (Cynthia and Tracey) all navigating the emotional terrain of broken relationships and the path to reconciliation. Suli Holum punch drunk Jessie, seems like comic relief, but Nottage finally gives her a central heartbreaking moment, as she reminisces about her youthful idealist plans.

The set design of the bar by Christopher Ash seems like a real place, with real history. The pool table alone looks like it’s been slept in and spilled on.  Ultimately, ‘Sweat’ wears its raw edges proudly, Nottage has written another brave play that speaks to some of the root causes of where we are as a nation now.

 

Stage

 

 

Fiddler on the Roof

Barlett Sher, director

2016 Broadway revival National Tour

Academy of Music, Philadelphia

Fiddler on the Roof

 

Director Barlett Sher’s 2016 Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof embarked on a National tour with opening weeks Syracuse, then for a week’s run at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.  Jerome Robbins’ 1964 original production was a sensation and this major revival, under Sher’s direction proves Fiddler has lost none of its luster, starting with its powerhouse score by composer Sheldon Harnick and lyricist Jerry Bock is not only vintage musical classic, but all the richer now, with the new orchestrations by Ted Sperling. and a vibrant 10 piece orchestra led by musical director/conductor Michael Uselmann.

Fiddler is based on stories by Sholem Aleichem about the peasants in Anatevka, a Russian shtetl circa 1905 where life was as perilous as a fiddler on the roof. Tyeve, the dairyman, and his Golde are struggling to raise their five daughters , a poor Jewish family keeping the traditions of their faith and culture in a quickly changing world, with revolution in the air and the czar’s dragoons brutalize the Russian Jews.

The original production was criticized for sanitizing many of the brutal realities that Aleichem describes, but Sher’s production in subtle ways gives it a harsher, more realistic edge, especially visually, that resonates.

Meanwhile, it is a musical to behold right from the start with the thrilling prologue number ‘Tradition.’ A showstopper made so iconic by Zero Mostel that it was hard to imagine anyone else but singing it, but the part of Tevye, is such a theatrically big role- full of pathos, humor, musicality that seasoned actors can put their stamp on it.

Yehezkel Lazarov stars as Tevye in the Barlett Sher’s National tour of the 2016 B’way revival of Fiddler on the Roof

There have been many great Tevyes- Topol, Hershel Bernardi (who I saw on Broadway in 1967), Theodore Bickel, just to name a few and Sher has cast Israeli film and stage star Yehezkel Lazarov who can definitely be added to that list, delivering an altogether powerhouse vocal and soulful performance.  Maite Uzal’s makes the most of a mostly one note role as Golde,  especially ‘Do You Love Me’ her touching duet with Tevye.  Golde is one of the sketchier aspects of Fiddler’s book by Joseph Stein

Of course one of the other star of Fiddler is the celebrated choreography by Robbins, also in a class by itself in its spirited documentation of traditional Hasidic dance and Russian folkloric dance, with new variations by Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter giving it even more refinement and cultural depth.  The show’s dance cast in top form throughout.

Tevye and Golde are raising their five daughters in a time of political upheaval in Russia. But Tevye has other things on his mind. Golde and Yente, the town matchmaker have arranged for their oldest daughter Tzeitel to be married off to Lazar Wolf, the old town butcher, who Tevye’s foe. But Golde makes them meet and Tevye consents to the marriage. The set up for a scene for both men to get drunk and the rousing number “To Life” the mens’ dance is fueled to a frenzy after a few drinks and met with the outsiders from the city who fly into acrobat Cossack flips, spins, ground kick outs. The two groups mix into one wild dance bacchanal.

Kudos to Paul Morland for his flawless physicality (& string syncing)  and as the Fiddler, and of course the real violinist Ionut Corsarea playing those solo lines from the pit.

Strong lead cast all around headed by Lazarov and Maite Uzal as Golde, trying to be practical in her love by being rigidly practical by arranging their marriages with the Yente, the matchmaker.  But Tzeitel, their eldest, is secretly in love with Motel, the poor tailor and they want to marry.   Golde tells Tzeitel,  she must marry Lazar Wolf, the 60-year-old butcher.  Tzeitel is horrified and melts Tevye’s heart until he in gives in, concocting an outrageous story of a haunted dream to convince Golde she should marry the young tailor.

Meanwhile, Hodel (Ruthy Frock) falls in love with Perchik (Ryan Nardecchia) a scholar & political dissident.   Tevye sees them intimately talking and intends to put a stop to it.  But  Perchik announces that they are in fact engaged and will not be asking Tevye permission to marry, but want his blessing.  He weighs it out with his discussions with God, and gives in.   Chava (Natalie Powers) falls in love with Fyedka, the young non-Jewish man and this match tests Tevye’s love the most.

Strong performances by all of the supporting lead cast – Meg Wen, Ruthy Froth and Natalie Power, the three eldest daughters all in fine voice right out of the gate with “Matchmaker, Matchmaker.”  Strong chemistry between all of these young couples. Theatrically they have wonderful matches in Ryne Nardecchia as Perchik, the scholar;  Joshua Logan Alexander as Fyedka and Jessie Weil, the sweetest bari-tenor rendition of ‘Miracle of Miracles.’

Carol Beaugard’s Yente is played for all of its comic relief and hearkens back to authentic Yiddish theater of early 20th century.  Even broader comedy comes in Tevye’s made up dream with Golde’s Grandma Tzeitel (Carolyn Keller) and the butcher’s dead first wife Fruma-Sarah, conjured by the hilariously scary soprano range of Olivia Gjurich. Jonathan von Merling also brings character humor to the crusty butcher Wolf.

Wedding scene from Fiddler on the Roof

Absolutely stunning and impressive staging of the wedding scene that shifts from gorgeous ceremonial and the stirring ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ chorale captivates musically and visually.  After the ceremony, it turns into a joyous celebration with the famous bottle dance with the men in those dramatic knee drop steps across the stage with bottles on their heads, is vintage Robbins.  The celebration is destroyed when Russian military come to terrorize the guests and tear the place apart.

The rustic sets by Michael Yeargan, in tandem with Donald Holder’s lighting design, has a poetic realism that conjures memorable stage pictures. The ending tableau of the brutal realities of  the peasants driven out of Anatevka.  even as the Fiddler’s songs haunt with universal hope.

 

 

 

Stage

Once

music by Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová

book by Edna Walsh

Ensemble in Arden Theatre Company’s Once. Photo by Ashley Smith, Wide Eyed Studios.

Directed by Terrence J. Nolen
David P. Gordon, scenic design
Thom Weaver, lighting design
Elizabeth Atkinson, sound design
Ryan Touhey, musical director

Arden Theater, 40 n. 2nd St. Philadelphia

extended through Oct. 28

http://www.ardentheatre.org

Once, the musical is based on a hit indie movie of the same name, about the real life musical journey of singer-songwriter Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.  Their central ballad  “Falling Slowly”  won the Academy Award for best song and their Broadway adaptation of film story picked up  8 Tony Awards including for best musical, followed by a hit National Tour.

The National Tour boasted a top notch cast and which played to capacity crowds at the Academy of Music, but its B’way veneer and stylizations traded off some of the indie spirit of the movie.

The artistic intimacy of Hansard and Irglová’s music is front and center in director Terrence J. Nolen’s scaled down production at the Arden Theater.  The book by Edna Walsh won a Tony, has a quieter theatricality and Nolen’s cast of wonderful singer-actor-musicians conjure that indie fire.

The story unfolds in the pubs and on the streets of Dublin as Guy, a talented Irish singer-songwriter, bitter over a recent breakup with his girlfriend, who is in the US.  A Czech young woman, toting a vacuum cleaner happens in on this scene and hears him sing ‘Leave.’  He tells her of his plans to give up being on his dream of being a singer/songwriter and be content fixing Hoovers repairs working in his dad’s appliance store.

 

They immediately start fighting over his plans to give up and she suddenly is at the piano playing his charts to Falling Slowly. Of course the sparks are flying as they fall hard for each other, but they bury their feelings and concentrate on recording a demo-disc with their ragtag pickup band.

Turns out she is a Czech émigré who also write songs, plays piano and works a musicstore. She is temporarily separated from her husband and raising her daughter Ivanka with the help of her mother.  The Guy is accepted in the Czech musical community and cross-culturalism cues a lot of great music, meanwhile the sparks continue to fly between the songwriters, as their previous complicated relationships keep them apart.

David P. Gordon’s design of Irish pub atmospherics, and its neighborhood environs keep giving, especially in tandem with  Thom Weaver’s masterful lighting design. Nolen eventually uses every corner of the Arden’s all around configuration with the characters making music everywhere in the space and wrapping the audience in immersive musical theater magic all at Once.

The émigrés speak both in English (with Czech supertitles projected on the walls) appear family and friends,  Nolen orchestrates this fine ensemble both dramatically and musically.

Scott Greer is the big hearted music store owner Billy, who has shed 30 pounds busting karate moves (to bounce anyone who gets out of line) and is also game enough  to tango with rocker violinist Reza, played with rocker swagger by Kendall Hartse.

Alex Bechtel’s Andrej, the proud barista who is pumped to shed his uniform for his musical dreams. Lucia Brady is the stage ready Ivanka who can play a mean fiddle just like her grandma Baruska, played by Emily Mikesell, the knowing matriarch who is ready to cook up old world meals at any moment as well as dish out seasoned wisdom.

Ken Allen Neely is an rustic Irish crooner with a wounded emotional reserve a guitar chord away from baring his soul.  Kathleen Fried  can riff on Mendelssohn’s piano concerto and also possesses a gold center voice with  lilting upper tremolo). Fried and Neely’s duets are intoxicatingly romantic. 

Engaging choreography by Steve Pacek, with spirited dances while the cast members are also rigorous playing their string instruments, especially the folkloric dance choreography in the urban- gypsy number Gold.

Some  chamber music via string accompaniment, with Fried on piano and soulful vocal on ‘The Hill.’   In that number and throughout  much credit also goes to Ryan Touhey for muscled musical direction of the score, rendering its full Irish, Czech and urban authenticity. & kudos as well to Elizabeth Atkinson sustaining acoustical power and nuance to all of the orchestration.

 

 

 

 

DanceMetro

Dancefusion&Sokolow Theater/Dance Ensemble at FringeArts

 

(photo courtesy of Dancefusion)

For three decades Gwendolyn Bye, artistic director-choreographer-founder of  Dancefusion has staged reconstruction and revivals of specialized from influential and underrecognized contemporary choreographers, specifically a 20th century modern master Anna Sokolow. Bye’s revivals assuring important choreographic works remain are part of a living repertoire for this generation of dancers.  For Dancefusion’s 9th presentation at the Philly Fringe at the Performance Garage,  Bye partnered with  Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble for a substantive program of Sokolow repertory and Dancefusion premieres.

Opening with Sokolow’s still stunning “Moods” (1975)  scored to music by Gygori Ligeti in a flawless restaging by Nora Naslund, gorgeously performed  by dancers from both companies. “Moods”  entrances with Sokolow’s flowing ensemble lyricism, and more abstract duets and trios mise-en-scenes. The cast included both Dancefusion and Sokolow dancers, with stunning clarity and esprit de corps.

Then three works by Dancefusion choreographer dancers-

“The Space Where You Were” by Jennifer Yackel, suggest a woman looking back on her younger self, or, as a mother/daughter narrative. Danced by Janet Pilla Marini and Kate Lombardi with original music by Philadelphia based composer Cory Neal. The imagery suggests everyday activities moving around in rooms of a house (by way of square spotlights) and when the dancers partner, expressing emotional bonds or conflicts issues coming between them. Both Marini and Lombardi dance with dramatic intensity and unfussy technical artistry.

– “Diaries” by University of the Arts dancer-choreographer Omar-Frederick Pratt with a mix of music by Pratt (& Richter, Zimmer, Winston)and and choreographed for ten dancers in the opening tableau on the floor strewn with rose petals writing on the stage or in the air. Pratt unleashes them in high velocity ensemble movement.

Then Pratt thrilling adagio solo danced by Zaki Marshall that was packed with  technical artistry.  Then followed by an athletic duet with Lamar Rogers, laced with intricate lifts and expressive narrative .  Pratt himself enters the scene in  a mach speed pirouette sequence, turning it into a trio.  The full cast returns for a series of duets, within the group configurations.  Some of the full group passages look choreographically rote- lots of rushing on and off stage, for instance- this is a strong narrative work from Pratt.

“Three Parts Human” choreographed by Camille Halsey, also a  talented University of the Arts dancer-choreographer.  contemporary ballet piece with for five women (in  Athena tunics) and one male dancer.  Halsey also uses some conventional ensemble unison, and some of the duet had a middle draft feel. Still, Halsey’s overall stage composition and ensemble esprit carries the piece..

The second half of the program began with short works by Sokolow from 1984 titled “As I Remember” early work by Sokolow that she  reworked in 1984.  In this revival directed by Jim May, Sokolow’s company co-director and founder of Sokolow Theater ST/DE.

‘Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter’ (1941) Janet Pilla Marini dressed in a black satin gown with a red drop panel that she teased out like bullring cape, a lethal gaze and altogether smoldering precision in this dance of death.

Camille Halsey’s dances ‘Ballad in a Popular Style’ (1936) to music by Chick Corea (which Sokolow changed from the original by Alex North) is a jaunty, skippy free dance, with perhaps some shade to Graham, and anticipating Paul Taylor’s witty approach to postmodern movement.

‘Kaddish’ (1945) from the music by Ravel, with Kate Lombardi, Melissa Sobel and Elissa Schreiber in dramatic black dresses with black piping coiled on one arm, seemed like a beautifully danced parody of a Graham knock-off.

“The Unanswered Question” (1971), scored to music by Charles Ives, it is a meditative group sculptural piece with both the Dancefusion and Sokolow dancers face down on the floor and their bodies slowly lifting  skyward.  The symbolism of universal human struggle and ultimate shared hope, both earthy and ethereal.  This collaborative concert a reminder that Dancefusion remains one of Philadelphia’s most diverse and vital repertory companies.

PhillyStage

The Wilma Theater’s premiere run of Christopher Chen’s ‘Passage’ closed earlier this month. & in the days after I wrote my review of the production, I couldn’t stop thinking about it & tinkering, not really sure I was unpacking all that was happening in the play.  While doing this, I let too much time pass to place the review on one of my regular theater outlets, but am posting it finally because it is in the final analysis this production was not only thought provoking, unexpected and brave theater that confronts profound issues of our time, even as it strips off the veil of theatrical conceits~ Lew

Passage
By Christopher Chen
The Wilma Theater
Directed by Blanka Zizka
 

 

At the Wilma Theater, director Blanka Zizka’s HotHouse ensemble of actors develop new material ala a repertory company, working on a continual basis in the studio even  between productions. The theatrical equivalent of dancers taking morning class, exchanging ideas and developing methods and skills in the allied arts.

Since its inception, Hothouse has tackled a wide range of new material that isn’t necessarily trending in regional theaters around the country. Christopher Chen’s ‘Passage’ for instance, busts through a number of conventions- including Chen instruction, for instance, that the actors not be typed by sex or ethnicity, meaning  any actor, can play any role. The characters in the play are identified only by their initials.

‘Chen’s 2014 play ‘ Caught’ was a funny, biting satire about western appropriation and exploitation of Asian Art, and a hit at InterAct.  ‘Passage’ has some inadvertent character humor, but it is a deadly serious, socio-political drama.

A ‘fantasia,’ according to Chen with glancing reference to themes in ‘E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India” about the inescapable injustices ignited by England’s colonization of India in the 19th Century.

Chen deals with our current era of colonization, xenophobia and the politics of ‘the other.’  An ideological axis of evil, however veiled by seditious regimes vying for total control.  In dramatic lit terms, “Passage” is closer to the political theater of such works as Marc Blitzstein’s 1938  ‘The Cradle Will Rock” confronting top to bottom societal corruption (which was shut down initially by the WPA) or Larry Kramer’s AIDS polemic “The Normal Heart”-  productions with undecorated social messages delivered in theatrical confrontational ways.

The citizens of the occupied country are indeed ‘the other’ in their own land and the rulers employ micro- and macro aggressions to strip them of their humanity. Meanwhile the culture wars rage and  Chen’s characters draw ‘us’ or ‘them’ political fights that  are always one sentence away from getting ugly and personal. Sound familiar?

The pawns in this drama are only identified by letters. The play opens as Q (Justin Jain) is traveling to Country X for the first time to join his fiancée R (Ross Beschler) and along the way he befriends F (Krista Apple) on a teacher returning to the colonized country, but can’t really tell him why. Q is looking forward to joining his fiancé but nervous about adjusting to a culture he doesn’t yet know.

H (Taysha Marie Canales) and M (Keith Conallen) are colleagues and soon to be former friends. At a social gathering they get into an ‘worldview’ argument about the political landscape of Country X. The have a circular fight about protesters who are now in the streets over a teenager being thrown in jail for steeling batteries.

They are joined by B (Lindsay Smiling) the most esteemed cardiac surgeon in Country X, who wants to bridge divides at least with his peers and tries to be the diplomat to no avail.  Later, B’s  view changes when he is reprimanded at the hospital where he works for being late due to the roads being blocked because of the protests.  Then when he attacked at gunpoint, but he is the one who ends up in jail, he is a disposable 2nd class citizen. F (Krista Apple) meets him in the Temple and they are attracted to each other but events have them to distrust each other.

Meanwhile, Q and R are reunited lovers, but Q can’t ignore the social injustices he sees in the country and questions R’s acceptance of them.  R asks him coyly “Don’t tell me I have to walk on eggshells around you” and Q responds, “only if you say the right thing.” R and J (Jaylene Clark Owens) justifies the jailing of the teen with her colleague R, and they justify towing Country Y’s nationalist line.  Q sets forth into the ‘cave’ to go it alone, to begin his transformative moment in a new country and  is confronted with a monstrous entity.

Whatever appearance of stability is, the grotesque mask that obscures police state tactics already at work. And indeed the utopian scenarios by Country X fall away to get to the ultimate political end game. Chen keeps the audience on unmoored theatrical footing, as we try to connect with what is happening and unravel the implications.

B seeks refuge in the Temple and talks about a time when people were more meditative and private about their inner lives and now the inner world becomes an outer commodity- or you lose, socially, professionally, emotionally and certainly politically.
The temple and the cave, cultural touchstones are the backdrops for all the unfolding existential journeys of these amorphous characters.  The maze is ultimately unknowable metaphysical space that is in the end no sanctuary from the dystopian void. Adding to the mysteries, Sara Gliko morphs into other creatures,  a gecko and a mosquito, making pointed comments like a survivalist Greek chorus.

As simmering as all of this surreal landscape is, Zizka’s focused direction is naturalized and a balancing act of Chen’s colliding polemics, while respecting Chen’s jarring narrative structure, some scenes striking as overwritten, others  underwritten.  The cast fully committed in every moment.

Meanwhile, Phil Colucci’s sound and music design transports in tandem with Matt Saunders set is sculpted black and white spaces, with geometric floor designs for the temple and the cave labyrinth carved out with lighting.
Zizka continues to develop plays with substantive social justice themes and this is certainly one, even as it almost collapsing under its own weight. Chen seems to abandon his characters and throw a wrench into his own narrative as Sara Gliko directly addressing the audience ala a motivational speaker in an extended, and unnerving way, even inviting us to leave or stay.  I, for one, had a squirming dislike for this final scene & yes wanted to leave the theater. Other audience members who were bounding to their feet to applaud, were clearly moved by this vaporizing of the fourth wall.

A week later any bets I wasn’t the only one still think about Passage and these characters trying to survive the looming monsters of oppression from without and within.

“Passage” is a brave theatrical experiment by Chen and some of it probably should be more narratively focused,  but without doubt it is daring theater by Chen, Zizka and Hothouse players.   They are committed to new theater that isn’t, by design, meant to be easily, or safely, deciphered.  And that’s what living theater in a hostile, anti-intellectual, oppressive and politically insane time is all about.

BalletMetros~extra

Premier soloist James Ihde bids farewell with ‘Diamonds’

May 13 on the Academy stage ~ Lillian DiPiazza & James Ihde in Diamonds photo: Arian Molina Soca

Red roses sailed over the Academy of Music stage on May 13 landing at the feet of Pennsylvania Ballet soloist James Ides, retiring from the company after 25 seasons, a favorite with audiences and three generations of PABallet dance artists. Ihde’s career with the company is almost unparalleled & he is has continued to dance in top form in his final seasons.  His swansong dance is indeed one of the most demanding roles for a danseur, the male lead in George Balanchine’s ‘Diamonds.’  It was suggested to Ihde by PAB artistic director Angel Corella and in his final performance James would partner prima ballerina Lillian Di Piazza.

Back to those roses in a moment, but first, there the matinee performance of Balanchine’s trilogy “Jewels”~  ‘Emeralds’, ‘Rubies’ and ‘Diamonds’~  representing a range of neoclassical choreography.   The dramatic glittery backdrops and sumptuous costumes by Karinska elicited applause and wows as the curtain went up on each one.  Much credit goes to Balanchine Trust repetiteur Elyse Borne’s for her technical precision and distinct musicality she brings to each ballet in this revival.

‘Emeralds’ is scored to music by Gabriel Fauré and is one of Balanchine’s most decorative ballets, and at its best as it was in this performance, a haunted mystique.  Karinska’s costumes have the mens in velvet emerald doublets and the women in pale green tulle ballet skirts.

Both lead couples, Yuka Iseda-Jermel Johnson and So Yung Shin- Jack Thomas,  captivating in their technical artistry.  The featured trio also proved a dazzling mise-en-scene for corps dancers Alexandra Heier, Emily Davis and Ashton Roxander.  Affron brought forth all of the lyrical mystique of Faure, and among the sterling soloists principal violinist Luigi Mazzocchi, harpist Mindy Cutcher, oboist Nick Masterson & cellist Jeannie Lorenzo.

‘Rubies’ is Balanchine is another defining collaboration with composer Igor Stravinsky and an undisputed masterpiece.  The propulsive drive of Stravinsky’s ‘Concerto for Piano and Orchestra’ inspiring Balanchine to break out of his own signatures and conventions. ‘Rubies’ choreo in a completely different choreographic key for Balanchine, so different from the austerity of his most famous modernist ballets. It’s witty and wry choreography that leaves room for liberated interpretation by the dancers. And lead couple Ian Hussey and Oksana Maslova revel in its propulsive virtuosity as a most fiery balletic romp. Balanchine’s angling the choreography in counterpoint to the Stravinsky dominant piano solos. played with breathtaking command by PAB pianist Martha Koenemann.

And the third lead, a breakthrough role for PB apprentice Sydney Dolan. Commanding technical artistry and star power. Five men are in position to move her around in arabesque variations, a dancer version of the ‘facets’ to a ruby’s inner ‘fire.’  And really that concept extended, in this performance to the corps women,  who throughout with sharp ensemble pointe & (counter)pointe work.

James Ihde about to launch his final performance (photo: Arian Molina Soca)

Then it was all about ‘Diamonds.’ The anticipation for James Ihde entrance was building during the extended corps de ballet scene that opens Balanchine’s ‘Diamonds’ his glittering distillation of  Imperial Ballet classicalism set to the sonic waves of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1.  when they finally exit and then the burst of applause as Ihde and partner Lillian DiPiazza make their entrance,   Di Piazza and Ihde have radiant chemistry together from the start.  Ihde had a few tentative moments and completely pitched out of grand pirouettes, but, powered through, with incredible authority and artistry.

His jete circle nicely paced. DiPiazza’s steely pointe work and subtle expressiveness make this an indelible partnering. The full corps de ballet executing the crucial unison ensemble work without looking mechanical. And this was another opportunity for Corella to showcase what has been developing all season, a more uniform strength in the mens corps.

The curtain coming down on the full company ensemble grande processionale by Balanchine and DiPiazza and Ihde the glittering center. And then it was all over, the applause building as the curtain came back up on Ihde alone on the Academy stage for several moments that were, indeed, like an intimate, a once in a lifetime moment with an old friend…

James Ihde final bow

photos: Beverly Wexler

 

…As the current roster of PABallet dancers came onstage with roses & heartfelt embraces. Many of James’ former dance colleagues were there to bid him farewell including  legendary founder of Pennsylvania Ballet Barbara Weisberger, who was a protégé of Balanchine dating back to the 30s when she was the youngest dance student in his class.

A most memorable moment as Conductor Beatrice Jona Affron came onstage to take a bow with Ihde. Affron has been conducting  PABallet Orchestra since the early 90s, in fact, as long as James’ tenure.  And without doubt, this performance of Tchaikovsky, Faure and Stravinsky has to be among the finest programs this orchestra has ever played.

PABallet founder Barbara Weisberger & James Ihde (courtesy PAB)

Artistic director Angel Corella presented Ihde with a bouquet and champagne as confetti and more roses sailed out from the orchestra pit during the 20 minutes of lusty applause for a great contemporary danseur, an indelible dancer in this and many another ballet season to remember.

Stage

the cast of A Year of Frog & Toad (photo: Mark Garvin)

A Year With Frog and Toad

Arden Children’s Theatre
40 N. 2nd St. Philadelphia PA
http://www.wilmatheatre.org
Through Jan 29

What a perfect winter of collective discontent to spend “A Year With Frog and Toad” those best buddies hanging out in their cabins on the pond in director Whit MacLaughlin’s altogether magical staging at the Arden Theater- in its 3rd revival since 2004, it is perhaps the most beloved show in the stellar Children’s Theatre series. This is a too much fun-for- all-ages musical based on the popular children’s stories by Arnold Lobel, with music by composer Robert Reale and lyricist Willie Reale. And if that’s not enough, its original stars Jeff Coon as always dapper, optimistic Frog and Ben Dibble as charmingly fretful Toad, are also back.

The show in fact is all about loyalty, friendship, diversity and individualism. Arden was full of kids and parents on Dec. 23, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa’s eves, and this audience was not only in a festive mood, but completely captivated by the actors, music and stagecraft of this show.

Dibble and Coon, both fine singers-actors, are also great movers, ready to careen down a snowy bank, or leap around in toady manner or leap frog into a soft shoe for their duet “He’ll Never Know.” They are joined by songbirds, Leigha Kato,Elexis Morton and Steve Pacek, who swoop in to sing about the four seasons, wake up Frog & Toad from their hibernation with some intoxicating three part harmony and this talented trio also double as other forest characters throughout the play.

A favorite with this crowd is a country ditty sung by Pacek as Snail with the tag line “I’m the snail with the mail” pumping his arms furiously, but his feet are still slo-mo, drew peals of laughter as he inches on. Later, Pacek is also a golden voice belter on the showstopper “I’m Coming Out of My Shell.”

“Getta Load of Toad” is a snappy tune about body image sung when everybody finds out that Toad thinks he looks funny in a bathing suit. Turtle (Morton), Lizard (Pacek) and Mouse (Kato) tease him, all in fun, until he gets out of the water and flaunts his body, warts and all.

MacLaughlin knows how to conjure stage magic for kids, with authentic stagecraft that time and again, proves that young audiences give something to young audience that they don’t get anywhere else, especially on tv or at blockbuster movies. Who cares about stale popcorn when Toad is baking and singing about eating as many ‘Cookies, cookies, cookies’ as you want.

The score is a mix of traditional American orchestrals, Charleston swings, and some show-stopping looney tunes and given a rich sound by conductor/pianist Amanda Morton, Mike Reilly (percussion), Dan Perelstein (bass), Spiff Wiegand (banjo/ guitar).

MacLaughlin is a proponent of inventive physical theater that engages kids of all ages. It is especially fluid in tandem with choreographer Lee Ann Eztold dancey character movement. Richard St. Clair’s witty costume designs keep giving the birds in smart cutaways with feathery vests and all us kids were loving Snail’s bedroll and Turtle’s cushy shell. Precision lighting designs by Thom Weaver casting the visual poetry of the seasons on Donald Eastman’s storybook set featuring Frog and Toad’s neighboring cabins on the pond.

How encouraging it is to hear young audience members, inundated with overblown effects and assaulting wall-to-wall media to be completely captivated by real stagecraft and natural singing voices.

After the performance the cast sat onstage and answered questions about the show. When you hear the kids ask questions to the cast, they are interested in how the houses move, how the lights work, how long it takes to rehearse, why the actors moved a certain way portraying different characters and other penetrating questions, this is exciting theater. And who can’t love the fact that the productions are not only affordable for families, its community outreach program arranges for thousands of underprivileged kids will get to experience the Arden’s Children Theatre series for free.

Stage

{photo: Thibaut Baron}

Seuls survivor
Wilma Theater
Broad & Spruce Sts. Philadelphia
Nov. 29-Dec. 11
http://www.wilmatheater.org

In “Seuls” writer Harwan is so preoccupied with his 15,000 page thesis on theater and director Robert Lepage that he barely notices the odd things that are happening in his dingy hotel room- an old phone rings without being plugged in and the shadows move around on its own volition and there is even a little inside snowing. Meanwhile, Harwan is beating back loneliness of a recent breakup, arguing with his family over the phone and loosing his cool trying to track down Lepage for a vital interview. These are the peripheral plot points of in Seuls, Wajdi Mouawad’s 2008 tour de force “Seuls” currently in a limited run at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia.

Mouawad is a prolific Lebanese-Canadian playwright, actor and famed director directs himself in the play, which he performs in French with English subtitles, except when he speaks Arabic, in lines that are not translated. Mouawad’s play “Scorched” (staged at the Wilma Theater in 2009, to wide acclaim) a political drama with themes of refugee exiles and émigrés that is both timely and universal. Mouawad explores these themes in Seuls. Harwan’s father moved his family from war torn Lebanon to Canada, Harwan grapples with what was left behind and what it might mean now in various aspects of his life in his adoptive country. Seul is French meaning alone, so pluralizing it suggests that there may be more than one puzzle to solve.

Harwan cancels a visit with his father over the phone and the conversation devolves into a bitter family fight. Meanwhile Lepage is unreachable by phone and is rehearsing a new play in Russia. Harwan books a flight and at the airport he has to take a visa photo. But he receives a fateful phone call in the picture kiosk from his sister Layla that their father has had a stroke and is in a coma. Harwan goes to him and recalls places, events and images from his childhood and pivotal moments in their relationship that dredges up bitterness and the intractable bonds between father and son.

Flash forward to Europe where he has just found out that Lepage is back in Canada. Harwan takes the news well, but starts to unravel when he realizes that, on top of being stranded again, he has luggage filled with paint canisters. Meanwhile that corded phone is also in the room and it is ringing again, his sister Layla is leaving him a message about their dad on that phone that phone rings without being plugged in.

Mouawad is a consummate actor, believable in every moment over the course of two unpaused hours. Seuls will not be for everyone, as impressive this work is, it doesn’t escape a level of theatrical tedium- There are allusions to Lepage’s work and business wrangling with a publisher that strikes as filler, and way to much business with phones, computers and mobiles that hit the same notes of verisimilitude. In this ‘sixth sense’ moment, Mouawad unleashes a long visually arresting denouement.

Fortunately the play’s artistic designs rescue some of any static theatrical rhythms, chief among them Dominique Daviet’s masterful film projections in tandem with lighting design by Éric Champoux and equally compelling soundscape and original music by Michel Maurer and Michael Jon Fink. The arresting designs framed in Emmanuel Clolus’ stark set prove to be a most poetic visual template for Mouawad’s unforgettable and transformational finale.

Stage

RIZZO  by Bruce Graham

directed by Joe Canuso

Theater Exile & Philadelphia Theatre Company

Suzanne Roberts Theatre, extended through Oct. 23

“Love me or hate me… you will never forget me.” So promised legendary Philly mayor Frank Rizzo used at a climatic end line Bruce Graham’s bio-play Rizzo.  Indeed, Rizzo’s rep lives on. At the 2016 Dem Convention in Philadelphia, members of Black Lives Matter placed a KKK hood over the Rizzo statue near City Hall to remind all what Rizzo represented to Philly’s African American population.

Rizzo premiered last year at Theater Exile and the revival with the same cast co-presented at The Roberts Theater by Philadelphia Theater Company.  The Mummers were in the lobby posing with former mayor Ed Rendell, who recounted a few stories about being DA under Rizzo before the play.

As police chief Rizzo was a flashpoint of racial and minority divides and his police state tactics continued when he became mayor.  White majority voters of the time elected him twice to ‘clean up the city’ and shut down crime, despite his own infamous scandals, like his lie-detector stunt which proved he lied, his flagrant cronyism and other abuses of office.

Graham’s explores the dualities of Rizzo’s character as well as the good, bad and ugly of Rizzo’s political life.  RIZZO debuted at Theater Exile last, directed by Joe Canuso and starring Scott Greer as Frank and Damon Bonetti as a political writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer who covered Rizzo’s years in office.

The story is told in flashback as Rizzo is mounting his 3^rd term bid for office. Rizzo tries is muscling a police officer to swear an affidavit that he saw his opponent Ron Castille drunk and out of control. The highs and lows of his career are depicted in flashbacks about his life growing up in South Philly, becoming a beat cop, then police commissioner, and then twice mayor.

‘The showdowns in black neighborhoods, his routine raids on gay bars and hauling in “faggots” in Center City.  He calls on unions to shut down the Philadelphia Inquirer to prevent papers getting out an unflattering story. His enemies list and his publicity stunts to a lie detector test and Rizzo is exposed. Meanwhile, his affability in many neighborhoods and his personal touch out of the public arena, kept him in power.

Graham covers these episodes, many of them ‘told’ rather than ‘shown’, some with more fluency and dramatic fire than others, more consistently interesting is the private man. Graham builds a portrait of Rizzo as not just political myopic, but a man of uncontrolled impulses, private doubts and not to mention an untamable mouth.

One of the strongest scenes is the newly appointed Police commissioner being dressed down by his father, a beat cop, for using bullying tactics, including striking a “hooker” and giving her stitches.   And all too brief scenes with his wife Carmela.  His chess game with the reporter, also in clipped scenes, is eclipsed by big events.  So Graham constructs an erratic theatrical arc. But, they don’t overshadow the play’s many strengths, starting with a great cast.

Director Canuso keeps everything moving with invention and but Graham’s over use of characters describing action, rather than dialogue scenes, but the cast ably glides through some heavy handed monologues.

Damon Bonetti, in a largely narrating role, until the second act, brings wit and naturalism to this old –style nice guy reporter who still keeps digging until he has the real story.   Amanda Schoonover plays all the women’s roles, most impressive in her instant range from the protective Carmela Rizzo to Shelly Yanoff who took Rizzo on by gathering petitions for an election recall of his win.

All of the supporting players Steven Wright, Robert DaPonte, Paul L. Nolan, William Rahill juggling also juggling multiple roles with ensemble ease.  Wright a standout in his wry portrait of black civic leader Cecile B. Moore who goes head to head with Rizzo over the strife he causes in North Philly.

But the night belongs to Scott Greer, a fine musical theater actor, a five time Barrymore Award winner adds another portrait of flawless performances of a complex man.  His Frank accent perfect, without trying to imitate Rizzo, and embodies the image and conveys the inner turmoil of his many masks.

Stage

Inis Nua Theatre Company

The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning
by Tim Price
directed by Tom Reing

The Proscenium Theatre at The Drake through May 15(photo Kory Aversa)

Private Chelsea Manning is a transgender woman serving a 35 year sentence at Leavenworth Prison for leaking classified military secrets to WikiLeaks in 2010 when she was then army tech specialist Bradley Manning serving in the Iraq War. In the eyes of the military, she is a condemned traitor, but for others who champion whistle blowers, including Sweden’s 2014 nominating Nobel Peace Prize Committee, she is a hero.

The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning, a bold 2013 play by Welsh playwright Tim Price is in its US premiere by Inis Nua Theater Company in Philadelphia. Inis director Tom Reing orchestrating a visually compelling production at the Drake Theater and directing a uniformly fine ensemble cast. Price’s visceral, sometimes surreal theatrical account of the key events leading up to Manning’s imprisonment, is more impressive as an incisive character study to investigate what made Manning a born rebel with a cause.

Price intriguingly depicts the psychological journey of Manning, without coming to any quick answers and this device proves powerfully eloquent with this cast, all playing multiple roles, including each portraying Manning at different times. The cast- Trevor Fayle, David Glover, Campbell O’Hare, David Pica, Isa St. Clair and Johnny Smith- each bringing out different aspects of Manning’s character. There is a lot of stage business and physical demands as the actors play soldiers, officers, lovers, family members and a formidable theatrical boot camp. David Glover, for instance, is a nail-hard drill sergeant and minutes later equally believable a scene later as Manning going through a humiliating interrogation.

It opens with Bradley being dressed and undressed, literally and figuratively, by his platoon mates while they hurl a torrent of accusations and slurs about Manning exposed the realities of atrocities and raw war footage; data that was data is cited by some as being a catalyst for anti-American sentiments in the Mideast.
The play bounces back and forth in time, jarringly at times, to the year Manning spent in a Welsh high school. Johnny Smith conveys so much of Manning’s inner turmoil in these scenes and Isa St. Clair is great as the outwardly sympathetic Welsh schoolteacher who nonetheless tries to force Manning to rat out other students for their classroom antics.

In his early 20s, Manning is now stateside trying to get into MIT, while working dead-end jobs. He begs his disdainful father to pay his tuition and his father orders him to join the army to get a free education. Manning signs up and is targeted as the weakest link in boot camp and is continually singled out for rough treatment as a perceived gay soldier under the military’s DADT policies. He even joins protests of Prop 8 in California where he meets a grad student and they fall in love.

Manning was targeted and harassed under the military’s draconian DADT policies, except when his expertise in the field was needed. He was forced to pretend his boyfriend in the states was a woman to his officers and comrades. Trevor Fayle and David Pica has instant chemistry in Price’s economic scenes that establish their relationship and how its emotional reality inspires Manning’s convictions.

But the pressures of military life and his delayed career plans continue to weigh on him. He starts rebelling in the military and protest being bullied by fellow soldiers and has a reputation for being difficult and acting out inappropriately, including charges of striking a female officer.

Expected to be dishonorably discharged, his programming skills are deemed too valuable as the wars in the Iraq spirals out of control. He works in intelligence gathering and has clearance in the repository of raw Intel, electronic and video of massive atrocities and questionable missions and cover-ups. Manning turns whistle-blower and releases thousands of pages of documents on the internet, is incarcerated, put on suicide watch and, in Price’s narrative, subject to psychological torture by the military.

Some of Price’s jarring narrative structure, especially the high school scenes border on redundant. Meanwhile, Reing’s physical theater elements, with fight direction by Glover, are consistently inventive. A droning scene of mental torture that keeps hitting the same blunt note is contrasted with an inspired breakout dance denouement to GaGa’s LGBTQ anthem Born This Way.
Gritty set designs by Meghan Jones in tandem with precision video projections (Janelle Kaufmann), sound (Zack McKenna) and lighting design (Shon Causer) all well orchestrated elements. The disturbing sights and sounds of war, admirably, more thought provoking than facilitating mere flashy effects.