Dave Read

Les Ballet Trocadero de Monte Carlo at Jacob’s Pillow

Aug. 11, 2010 performance reviewed by Jocelyn McGrath.

The Trocs are simply magnificent, as only a troupe of alternative-reality Russian divas can be. Great-hearted athleticism meets historically-steeped, gestural devotion/parody, and takes a pratfall. It is hard to pin down exactly what makes it all work so powerfully, because there’s so much happening at once, so many cues and directives, the dramatic content changing on a dime from one moment to the next. Some of what you can reasonably expect: slapstick; cross-dressing; extreme bravado and exuberance; bunhead wigs and turbans; over-the-top virtuosic ballet technique; not-so-great, but passable ballet technique; bringing attention to the not-so-great technique with comic effect; hairy chests peeking out of bodices; and some of the largest pointe shoes you are ever likely to see. 2014 Jacob’s Pillow schedule, Contact info. and links

At the time it was founded in 1974, Les Ballet Trocadero de Monte Carlo’s alternative status meant that a dancer wouldn’t generally consider the company until his career in the conventional ballet world was wrapping up. This pattern altered in the 1990s, and for the last twenty years or so younger dancers have made it a primary career choice, allowing for slow but appreciable rise in technical excellence.

The evening’s program is extensive, the show running for two hours and twenty minutes with two intermissions. Some of the pieces are super famous—selections from Swan Lake, The Dying Swan, as well as a beautifully partnered pas de deux and solo variations from Le Corsaire. The other selections, La Vivandiere: Pas de Six (1844), after Arthur Saint-Leon, and Raymonda’s Wedding (1898): A Traditionally Confusing Divertissement in Two Scenes, after Marius Petipa, are the sorts of ballets that seem to have dropped out of the repertoire of most contemporary ballet companies for good reason. And yet, the penultimate and the mediocre are both fertile ground for the Trocs.

Nor do they limit themselves to only romantic three-act ballets. We were treated to an interpretation of Merce Cunningham’s Patterns in Space, complete with black-clad, live musicians performing a cutting-edge soundscape with the most cutting-edge instruments—at one point literally using a scissors and hair buzzer. Also used: a paper bag, a rattly box that seems like a metal lozenge container, bubble wrap, and, oh yes, barnyard sounds also figured in the mix.

The Troc’s best moments involve stretching the laws of physics with a joyous rapture, resulting in hilarity. In the four cygnets variation of Swan Lake, though continuously arm-linked to her fellow birdlings, one odd duck ballerina dances to the beat of a different drummer with a kind of insane abandon, transforming all of the usual tightly controlled synchronicity with her special bungee cord inspired counterpoint.

Other gorgeous moments involve reversing our accepted notions of size and gender; a monumental ballerina is paired with a petite male partner. The social ramifications pale in the face of the physical leverage required to support and promenade so much ballerina beauty. A satirical take on sustained balances on pointe follows. The ballerina prepares to take a balance en arabesque, quickly balances, claps her hands as if between push-ups, and then immediately grabs for her partner again, beaming at the accomplishment. In motion, she smiles beatifically, revolving slowly in her turns like a planet, sailing majestically through space in her jumps. Her weighted grace is stunning.

The predominant gender bending goes in many directions with many different effects—men playing men who actually look like women; men playing women who look like women; men playing women who look like men. For a traditional art form in which a dancer’s biological sex is usually destiny, and huge swathes of vocabulary and technique are rigidly gender-based, the effect of mixing and matching has the effect of revealing what is neither wholly male nor female, but what at the heart of it all, is truly human. Ultimately, a sliding scale androgyny breaks open the conventions of the art, leaving the Trocs free to revel in a fresh and vibrant joy of ballet.

Les Ballet Trocadero de Monte Carlo on the Jacob’s Pillow schedule through Aug. 15, 2010. Find hotels near Jacob’s Pillow.

Herbie Hancock The Imagine Project at Tanglewood

August 9, 2010 performance report by Dave Read.

Herbie Hancock brought his The Imagine Project tour to Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, and just about blew the roof off the joint. Mr. Hancock, more youthful and fit than any 70 year old man should expect to be, was accompanied by Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, James Genus on bass, Lionel Loueke on guitar, Greg Phillinganes on keyboards (and vocals), Kristina Train, vocals (and violin). They played one immense set that opened with Actual Proof (1974 “Thrust”) and closed with Chameleon (1973 “Head Hunters”), which we caught on video, while the usually staid Tanglewood audience got busy!

The day before this gig, while Mr. Hancock and the Imagine Project were headlining the Newport Jazz Festival, Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble were putting on a festival of their own in Tanglewood’s Koussevitsky Music Shed. That’s notable because the former has a mission to “utilize(s) the universal language of music to express its central themes of peace and global responsibility” and the latter seeks to “connect the world’s neighborhoods by bringing together artists and audiences around the globe.”

Yo Yo Ma tops Tanglewood program

Report of August 1, 2010 perfromance by Dave Conlin Read.

The composition of a Tanglewood program itself sometimes enhances the enjoyment of the various compositions that comprise a program; a transcending element to go along with the enjoyment of the program as performed by the musicians. On paper, this program at Tanglewood was sure to attact a large audience because of the presence on the bill of cellist Yo Yo Ma and the inclusion of the broadly popular Pictures At An Exhibition (the Maurice Ravel orchestration of Mussogorsky’s composition), under the direction of conductor Charles Dutoit, who has been a frequest guest here and in Boston for nearly 30 years.

And, with the cooperation of the iffy Berkshires weather, the Koussevitsky Music Shed was full and a few thousand more patrons and picnicers populated the lawn. But it was the opening item on the program that we found most remarkable; Jean Sibelius’ “Karelia” Suite, Opus 11, which had never been performed at Tanglewood, and only once by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Not only would we like to hear it again here, but we wonder why it hasn’t made it onto the regular rotation (if there is such?); it felt like a paean to this place – particularly the immediate Tanglewood environs as well as the greater Berkshires.

Which comports with the composition’s origin as a commission on the history of Karelia, the densely wooded region in northern Europe. Besides a delightful variety of sounds from the percussion section, the piece has an overall deeply sonorous feel. Gazing outside the Shed, the surrounding trees seemed to be as attentive to the music as the paying audience was.

When Yo Yo Ma settles onto the soloists chair near the podium, as he did to perform the Cello Concerto in E Minor, Opus 85, by Edward Elgar, holding cello and bow, it’s as if a new entity comes into being. Well, a pedestrain witness does himself no favor trying to describe artistry at this level. Berkshires resident Ma, who by all accounts is a friendly and humble gentleman, makes music at a level that could inspire composers, as a profound event or dazzling landscape would.

On the other hand, having such a popular soloist, or widely familiar piece on the program, always attracts patrons who are unfamiliar with symphony audience protocal; they’re like new parents who applaud every movement.

Our Town at Williamstown Theatre Festival

July 29, 2010 performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town shows us again, no matter how many times we have seen it, or even directed it, as I have, just why this play is important—especially when the play is presented in such a finely nuanced manner, faithful to the original, as with this Williamstown Theatre Festival production.

Wilder himself complained that critics had been led astray on his seeming innovations of a bare stage on which a chair could be a tombstone (an innovation only for American realist theatre; Yeats and French dramatists had been doing that for years).

For Wilder the importance was in the simple (but ever present references in the script to ther dimensions of time and space and the recurrent words “hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, pointing to the vastness in which the events of each life flowers, lives and dies. The universality and importance of each small event in which each life is lived.

It is that quality of the enormous vastness and the simple day to day life of ordinary people that is so honestly captured in the play Nicholas Martin, director, has led his talented cast through. An affirmation of life, presented faithfully, joyfully, and sadly—so gently but accurately presented that a line like ‘Where is my birthday girl?” can break the heart.

The cast is stellar on all counts. Campbell Scott as Stage Manager so audience friendly and confiding, strolling the stage casually, weaving it all into its daily patterns (with only a reminding concerning cell phones to jerks us mildly to recognition of an earlier time when that line was not in any life or script). Brie Larson, central in this “Emily’s Play.” Taking that lead only when her turn to do so and shining especially in her sudden outburst at the soda-fountain, and, of course in the final act when her awareness finally takes hold. Jessica Hecht and Dylan Baker as moving parents, but both too busy with their daily lives too much of the time to have time to really see the children they love fiercely but too seldom time for expressing to them.

And the whole Gibbs family into which Emily marries, too young, and is wrest from (again too young) Mrs. Gibbs (Becky Ann Baker) with her modest dream of Paris if she sells the antique never full-filled; Dr. Gibbs (John Rubinstein) opening the play with his delivery of the twin babies as life goes on. Will Rogers as the inarticulate baseball hero son in the Gibbs family who loves Emily so fervently. And Emma Rosenthal as daughter Rebecca who receives the letter with the address into infinity and has the short remarkable line “And it got here just the same!” .

Be assured the current Our Town at Williamstown Theatre Festival gets here all the same too. With more glories than can be praised in a short review. Wilder, who once long ago appeared as the stage manager at Williamstown, would be happy with his message ringing loud and clear, and grateful to all the others in this vast talented cast who made it possible. Go.

2010 Williamstown Theatre Festival schedule

Williamstown, MA hotels

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2010 A Prairie Home Companion at Tanglewood

As completely satisfying as the weekly 2 hour broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion is, it can seem like a souvenir when compared to a live broadcast, such as we’ve witnessed at Tanglewood the first Saturday of summer since 2000. The radio audience gets 120 minutes of humor and music; those in attendance get all that, plus the chance that the strolling serenading Keillor will help himself to their picnic goodies before airtime, and the opportunity to sing along with him, the show’s musical guests, and the Guy’s All Star Show Band for another hour afterwards.

Garrison Keillor and Andrea Suchy sing America the Beautiful, 2010 Tanglewood encore

With BSO opening night two weeks away, the show was without the usual participation of BSO/TMC musicians. Rather, it featured 3 musical guests, all drawn from the distaff side: Andrea Suchy, Hilary Thavis, and The Wailin’ Jennys. Expanding upon that gynocentric theme were the Lives of the Cowboys skit and the introduction of Erica Rhodes as Keillor’s replacement as the show’s host (once certain issues are resolved, that is).

The localised scripts were funny; especially Guy Noir on the case of the imaginary grandson of Edith and Teddy Wharton showing up to claim the Mount and convert it into a dirt bike race track. Scripts and podcast of the show are available at PrairieHome.org.

Update: Your intrepid reporter is seen on the Prairie Home Youtube clip (above) capturing Flip video of the encore:

The Winter’s Tale at Shakespeare and Co.

July 25, 2010 matinee performance reviewed by Frances Benn Hall.

This reviewer is still reeling with delight and praise for Shakespeare and Co.’s production of The Winter’s Tale. Joyfully, the play continues through September 5, and I urge people of all ages, including children, to revel in this stream-lined production, running only three hours including one intermission.

The miracle that sets right in this production, the one problem that has for me plagued previously seen productions over the years, is making moving and believable the too-sudden jealousy of Leontes. Shakespeare moves swiftly into his plot, giving time for little motivation. The Queen (Elizabeth Aspenlieder) is so happily innocent in her playfulness and bountiful pregnancy.

Epstein and his insightful director, Kevin G. Coleman have solved this magnificently by inserting the presence of the child, son Maxmillius (played alternately by Parker Bell Devaney of Colin Young) into a strong bonding presence in Leontes’ world. If all else is false, surely, even fleeting doubts concerning this one link of love show his heart, his feeling for family. So he will banish all, but not the son. (Though fate will punish him even here: “A sad tale is best for Winter.”)

Shakespeare’s four final plays, the romances, all bear a strong shattered family, long lost but in the end reunited, a daughter–father relationship is always present, and the grace of the return of the long lost daughter may include a supposedly dead mother. (T. S. Eliot’s beautiful poem Marina celebrates such a moment in Pericles )

Just as Epstein, in both his unreasonable anger and repentance is moving and totally convincing, Elizabeth Aspenlieder, so charmingly radiant and ponderous in her pregnancy and innocence is so moving in the first act, suffering her indignities in dignity until they undo her literally, is in the play’s second half so magnificent in her immobility one cannot see her breathe, but one can and does weep.

If you want a plot outline, go early, the program includes one. Otherwise, if you do not know the play, understand only that the first act is tragedy in Sicily and the second mainly comedy in Bohemia – until it spills back into Sicily for a happy, weepy ending. It is a lovely play when played with the grace and joy of this production.

The star-studded cast is mainly of Shakespeare and Co. actors long with the company, and leads and second leads all played by Equity members, supported by fine actors, usually playing several roles and donning many costumes. Outstanding character interpretations include those of Jason Asprey as Autolycus, whose comic abilities, gestures, and gusto enliven Bohermia; Malcolm Ingram, comic old Shepherd or Gailor, stellar work; Johnny Lee Davenport, especially in king in his own land; Corinna May as the ever-faithful Paulina who never deserts and can work the occasional miracle. And Wolfe Coleman, Ryan Winkles, Justin Aaron McCabe and Kelly Galvin are outstanding in supporting roles

I always approach this play with worry, having never quite found it to work. This production does. So beautifully that all I can really say is, Go, it should delight.