Baritone Gregory Keil and mezzo-soprano Maria Zifchak, as John and Elizabeth Proctor, made effective highlights of their second act scene, filled with hurt and recrimination, and loving final encounter in jail. Keil also contributed a warm, solid rendition of his solo welcoming spring to his farm and attempting reconciliation with his wife, a dramatic dénouement to Act Two, protesting Elizabeth's innocence of the charge of witchcraft, and defiantly heroic climactic confrontation with Judge Danforth, who has condemned him to hang.

Lori Brown Mirabal proffered a vivid portrayal of the slave Tituba, reveling in the attention of the Salem leaders, who seek her confession of trafficking with the Devil, and following it up with a sultry Barbados song in the prison scene. Suzanne Lustgarten, as Mary Warren, delivered a chilling description, imbued with zealotry, of her work with the court and forceful confession, before Danforth, of the devastating hoax perpetrated by her and her friends, accusing innocent citizens of witchcraft.

Other leading roles were taken by Brigitte Bellini as Abigail Williams, Walter MacNeil as Judge Danforth, David Dillard as Reverend Hale, Barbara Norcia as Rebecca Nurse, Larry Raiken as Reverend Parris, Martin Broms as Giles Corey, and Gary Giardina and Mazzelle Sykes as Thomas and Ann Putnam.

Dicapo Opera Theatre's next season will consist of Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," paired with Gaetano Donizetti's "Il Campanello," on September 29 and October 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10, Jules Massenet's "Le Jongleur de Notre Dame" on December 10, 11, 12, 17, 18 and 19, Samuel Barber's "Vanessa" on February 11, 12, 13, 18, 19 and 20, 2000, and Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" on April 7, 8, 9, 14, 15 and 16. Call DiCapo at 212-288-9438 regarding subscriptions, which sell for $99, or $85 for seniors. [BMG]

The Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse
68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenue
212-772-4448
March 18-March 28,1999
Reviewed March 22,1999 by Margaret Croyden

If you are hungry to see a great artist perform, go immediately to the Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse and catch the inimitable mime Marcel Marceau, who will be there until March 28th. His return to New York, I am happy to report, is a remarkable event in that Marceau, at the age of 76, is still in fabulous form. Blessed with a body that retains its original dimensions--not an ounce of fat, not a thickening waistline--he is wondrously graceful and sprightly just as he was when he premiered here more than 40 years ago. In fact, one is amazed at how perfect his movements are, and indeed how beautiful.

The first part of the program is devoted to long pieces, the most successful is "The Trial" a scene at court. In a display of phenomenal virtuosity, Marceau acts out all the roles--the prosecutor, the judge, the defense lawyer, the client. He slips into one character after another and, of course without uttering a sound, I swear I understood the dialogue. As the prosecuting attorney, he is hard and forceful (expressed through his hands, his stance, and his flexible face) determined to get a conviction. In contrast, as the defense attorney, catering to the emotional side of the jury, he is self piteous, sentimental, and soft spoken. The judge sits there, old and half asleep and in fact, disinterested. A hilarious piece of brilliant acting.

In sharp contrast is Marceau's great piece, his famous "Youth, Maturity, Old Age and Death," no longer than five minutes. Devoid of humor, quiet in tone, Marceau is crouched in the infant's position at first; gradually he grows up, his face becomes exuberant, his body longer and muscular and, slowly he changes from a powerful, happy youth to a somber, mature being. Then moving slowly and gradually, he grows old and painfully realizes that his end is near. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this work is Marceau's timing, and the gradual transitions that are so clearly and perfectly captured.

An important part of the program centers on Bip, Marceau's famous alter ego. Close to a Charlie Chaplin type, Bip with his hat and flower, is the epitome of everyman. Nothing he does works out, although he tries. He travels by sea and gets seasick, he sells china in a shop but is unsuccessful, he looks for a job but is turned away; he hopes to meet a woman though a matrimonial agency but comes up against undesirable types. Marceau's depiction of the human condition, the absurdity of life, the expectations and the lamentations, the joy often blasted by disappointment are the source of his ironic humor and overall sympathy for the underdog. And this underlying content of his work coupled with his extraordinary technique is what makes seeing Marceau a remarkable experience.

"The Maskmaker" is another tour de force. A Maskmaker tries on a number of different masks. Changing his expressions with astonishing speed, Marceau's faces are varied: some are hostile, some nasty, some sweet, some angry. Finally the maskmaker tries on a laughing mask, struts around with it and, then, as he tries to remove it, he realizes that it has become stuck to his face. Writhing in agony on the floor, pulling and tugging at the mask, he cannot get it off. Finally he succeeds. And a real face appears--a sad, tragic look of man's inner condition. Underneath his smiling face is the real human being diametrically opposed to what the mask projects.

Marceau, in his white face, exaggerated eyebrows and mouth and gorgeous hands exquisitely used, is a deeply humanistic artist. He is an astute observer of people's foibles, and has a sharp understanding of human emotions. With a remarkable technique-- control of the body, the use of his hands, his spatial arrangements, and careful attention to minute details--he creates his world with all its foolishness and sweetness. A shrewd observer of life, keenly aware of the ironic and hilarious situations that accompany good intentions, and clearly sympathetic to the endeavors of the everyman-- Bip--trying to overcome life's vicissitudes.

Finally it is Marceau's genius that captures the entire range of the human condition in one evening. We recognize his amazing facility to create mankind's universe without uttering a single word. And that universe, despite its hardships and bitterness, its downfalls and disappointments, Marceau, the great artist, alone on the stage, imbues the audience with a marvelous sense of poetry and everlasting beauty. [Croyden]

MARCEL MARCEAU; 50 YEARS OF GENIUS
The Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse (Hunter College)
March 18 through 28 (closed)
by Perry A. Bialor March 24, 27, 1999

It is an occasion whenever Marcel Marceau comes to town. The last time was 1995. Although this is a review, one cannot “review” genius. And Marceau is, indeed, a genius of the art and craft of mime, the silent drama of gesture and action. He is now 76 years old. One could have been forgiven for expecting to see the noble ruins of a great artist. I admit to having looked for the signs of an edifice with peeling paint and cracked walls. Yes, his face under the white makeup has aged. How could it not have? But Marceau seems to have weathered without losing any of his incredible ability to encapsulate a multitude of characters and transform his face, fingers, figure, and actions from one to another in the blink of an eye.

He presented two programs, each one in two parts separated by an intermission. The first part consisted of several vignettes in which he performed the roles of from one to a dozen characters; the latter half consisted of Bip adventures. Program A, part I, contained: “The Painter,” “The Little Café,” “The Trial,” “The Pickpocket’s Nightmare,” “The Soliloquy of Three Poor Souls,” and “Youth, Maturity, Old Age, and Death.” Program B, part I, contained: “The Seven Deadly Sins” and “The Hands.” The former consisted of seven scenes: Laziness (A very busy day), Lust (The painter and his model), Envy (The great sculptor and his pupil), Greed (A charity dinner), Pride (The General plays chess with his orderly), and Anger (A quiet Sunday drive). The Bip adventures were: Bip travels by sea, ….sells China, ….looks for a job, ….and the matrimonial agency (Program A); ….as a babysitter, ….as a street musician, ….commits suicide [Don’t panic; he fails every attempt.], and ….remembers (Program B); the first group ended with the non-Bip “The Maskmaker,” one of his most famous tours de force.

Everyone will have his/her own favorite(s), probably depending on individual life experiences and the nature of his/her imagination. My favorites are: “The Little Café,” “Envy: The great sculptor and his pupil,” “Greed: A charity dinner,” and “Bip commits suicide.”

In the claustrophobic “Little Café,” the central character is the Waiter who must nudge his way through the clientele and the little tables and busy himself with whatever the seated patrons are engaged in; he shifts from one role to another. Just when we think that the skit has finished when he bids goodbye to each departing customer and closes the door and sliding gate, we are treated to a surprising epilog. The waiter, now a dandy, primps himself up and goes out on the town for a drink.

In “Envy: The great sculptor and his pupil,” the word “great” proves to be highly ironic. The Master, chiseling away at a large stone masterpiece, is indifferent to the defential student, building up his own clay work from a small nodule, intermittently seeking the Master’s approval. The “great sculptor” ignores the student, when not being condescending---until the student builds an enormous masterpiece that the master, now inceasingly disturbed, reacts to with envy and, finally, impassioned aggression.

Great mime is not imitation. It involves creating a character-symbol that inhabits the imagination of the audience—even the collective imagination (e.g., “the tramp” and “Bip”). Although the mime’s gestures and body shapes are an extension and elaboration of natural daily-life movements and not a codified system of movements and gestures (e.g., ballet, the mudras of Indian dance and the shadow-puppet-like movements of some Javanese dance-drama), they are not mere imitations. The Eyes, the gaze, the mouth, the muscles of the face, the hands, the fingers, the whole body is employed in a non-formalized expressive manner. That is the actor’s technique, not his empathy or emotion or “living in” the character. Marceau’s sense of timing, for example, is formidable.

Marceau is the inheritor of a tradition whose prehistory can be traced back through the Commedia dell’arte of the 16th century, to the Middle Ages to Roman and Greek times. His immediate predecessor and teacher was the famous French mime Etienne Decroux who revived the art of mime in the 1930s (although it never quite died as pantomime spectacles in England and in Denmark (the Tivoli Gardens) during the 19th century and to this day testify). Marceau is not a stock character, such as Pierrot or Harlequin or “Joey” or “The Tramp” or even his trademark “Bip.” He is a master of multiple personas conceived with telling wit and played with nuance and subtlety. [PAB]

When, on the same evening, you’ve prayed for a performance to end sooner than its allotted time, and you’ve craned to see and hear another performance, wishing it might continue longer but thankfully satisfied, in any case, when it ended, you know you’ve been to Off-Off-Broadway. Only the genius and fame of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig could have, more-or-less, justified dramatizing their banal correspondence in “Topsy on the Boardwalk.” By the end of the presentation, I was exasperated by both geniuses. By contrast, the playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie presented his own vulnerabilities and triumphs in a dozen wry and witty dramatic one-man sketches that had the ring of reality and endeared the playwright-actor. He was ably abetted by Steve Sweeting at the piano.

Topsy on the Boardwalk
at La MaMa, E.T.C. (74A East Fourth Street)
March 25 to April 11, Thursday through Saturdays at 8 pm; Sundays at 3:30 and 8 pm
Tickets $12/tdf

War, Sex, and Dreams: an evening with Jean-Claude van Itallie
at La MaMa, E.T.C. (74A East Fourth Street)
March 18 to April 3, Thursday through Saturday at 10 pm (closed)

“Topsy” (on the Boardwalk) was adapted into a theatrical form by Edward Kinchley Evans (who also directed) from the love letters of Isadora Duncan (the creator of modern dance at the beginning of the century) and Gordon Craig (the innovative stage designer that was in good part responsible for revolutionizing the romantic and realistic staging then prevalent into abstract and expressionist mood settings and lighting) who had a passionate affair for five years, a child out-of-wedlock (Deirde) and corresponded until Isadora’s death in Nice in 1927.

Both actors, Glen Z. Gress as Gordon Craig and Adrienne Wehr as Isadora Duncan, gave “awesome” performances. I am always awed by actors’ feats of memorization. However, call me an “agist,” but it was like watching Beauty and the Beast. I could not reach the point of suspended disbelief. I dreaded the moment when he was about to touch her, hoping it would be a grandfatherly gesture. He also tended to sputter. I am not competent to tell whether he was attempting to imitate Gordon Craig’s enunciation (not having read accounts of his life and character traits) or merely being histrionic. I would like to think the former.

Call me a “curmudgeon,” but, despite her beauty and talent, I could not believe for a second that Wehr was Isadora, despite Evans’ (the director) intrusion of a few “Isadora poses” which was supposed to pass for dance. Most of the performance Wehr spent in languorous repose in a chair—and she could have stayed there for all her inability to project any of Isadora’s charisma and instinctively vivid movement (from all first-hand accounts). Back-lighting and a shapely body (but not enough meat) do not create an Isadora nanosecond.

As for the content….Here we have two of the great artistic personalities of the age, and their mushy thoughts are completely banal, when not floridly stilted (Craig). I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have written to each other any way they wished, only that it doesn’t bear reading by anyone but themselves and certainly not dramatization. What drama? If this correspondence hadn’t been between Duncan and Craig, no one with any literary sensibility would have gone beyond page one.

What a contrast with van Itallie’s presentation and performance in his autobiographical “War, Sex and Dreams.” Maybe Joel Gluck’s directing made the performance move, maybe not; there were some awkward moments and a bit too obvious vaudevillian hop-skip-and-dancing to “liven” things up in this 75-minute, no intermission, twelve-sketch revue, accompanied by the piano playing of Steve Sweeting. First, of course, there was a real person impersonating himself. Then there was substance: wit, irony, sentimentality, some tears, and much laughter that justified the evening. Even when you knew that your emotions were being manipulated by a playwright, you wanted to go along with him to enjoy the vignettes. Sure, it wasn’t high literature, and it only touched lightly on anything really serious. Even so, one felt closer to van Itallie--and wanted to know him better--than the off-putting melodrama of the Duncan-Craig nearly 20-year correspondence that never brought us to an appreciation of the personalities of the dynamic, creative ogre that was Isadora and the egotistical, driven genius of staging that was Craig. [PAB]

"I saw her come on to an empty platform to dance," he would one day declare. "It was Berlin, the year 1904, the month December . . ."

She came through some small curtains . . . and walked down to where a musician, his back to us, was seated at a grand piano; he had just finished playing a short prelude by Chopin when in she came, and in some five or six steps was standing by the piano, quite still and, as it were, listening to the hum of the last notes.

Quite still. You might have counted five, or even eight, and then there sounded the voice of Chopin again . . . it was played through, gently, and came to an end, and she had not moved at all. Then one step back or sideways, and the music began again and she went moving on before or after it. Only just moving, not pirouetting or doing any of those things we expect to see . . .

She was speaking in her own language . . . not echoing any ballet master, and so she came to move as no one had ever seen anyone move before. The dance ended, and again she stood quite still. No bowing, no smiling, nothing at all . . . yet no one present had a moment's doubt . . . and I, I sat still and speechless.

They would be lovers, very passionate lovers, for some five years, Gordon Craig, the spoiled, ill-adjusted pathbreaker of modern stage design and lighting, Isadora the self©indulgent, free-spirited creative flame of modern dance.

"You send me poems that are caresses and words that are like kisses or a flock of little soft birds that fly down and nestle in and all about me and take away my senses," she would cry.

"Our bed," he would remember of their first night on the floor of his studio, "was two carpets on which [was thrown] a fur cloak (hers) with my overcoat as pillow and two blankets and a sheet as covering. We do not sleep much all night. It is lovely to have her here."

This love story of two tempestuous artists, and its inevitable end -- inevitable for a million reasons, not least that old devil, money -- is retold in their own words in a show called "Topsy on the Boardwall" at La MaMa E.T.C. "You know," says Glen Z. Gress, "the behavior of artists of this caliber on a personal level can be difficult." Gress is the Gordon Craig of the performance, Adrienne Wehr is the Topsy -- the name by which Isadora often signed her letters to Craig. The script of "Topsy on the Boardwalk" has been devised by Edward Kinchley Evans -- who also directs the piece -- from those Craig-Duncan love letters and other sources.

Love letters?

Pretty soon in one of them Craig is bitching for an answer to his request (demand?) for 6000 marks. "Or is the ship to go down once more? . . . You don't seem to realize how serious this whole thing is."

Shortly thereafter, in a huff, he to her: "Write no more to me. Think about me no more. I no longer exist for you, since that for which I live is less than nothing to you . . . "

Craig, says the man who plays him, was "pretty arrogant, and pretty much a male chauvinist of his time. Quite a cad. He had nine children we know about, by various ladies, and God knows how many others we don't know about."

And Isadora?

"Despite the creative artist, pretty much a dependent woman. Her family lived off her, as did Gordon Craig. He and she would play games with one another. She, the helpless female, begging him to come hold her. He: 'Where's the money? -- if you send the money, I'll come and see you.' "

Gress does think "theirs was one of the truly passionate great love affairs -- two people who were artistic and sexual soulmates, but could never stay in the same room together very long."

It was also of course also a love affair stamped by tragedy. In 1913, in an accident spookily prefiguring Isadora's own death 14 years later, an auto slid into the Seine, drowning two of her allªtoo©much©neglected children and their governess. The children were 3-year-old Patrick, Isadora's son by Singer Sewing Machine heir Paris Singer, and 7-year-old Deidre, her daughter by Gordon Craig.

Edward Gordon Craig was himself the illegitimate son of actress Ellen Terry and architect and producer Edward Godwin. What's interesting is that Ellen Terry was to have her own now famous romantic correspondence with George Bernard Shaw -- "what would be phone sex today, I guess," says Glen Gress dryly.

What's further interesting is the following appraisal of Craig by a contemporary:

If ever was a spoilt child in artistic Europe, that child was Teddy [i.e., Gordon] Craig. The doors of the theater were wider open to him than anyone else. He had only to come in as others did, and do his job, and know his place, and accept the theater with all its desperate vicissitudes and inadequacies and impossibilities, as the rest of us did, and the way would have been clear for all the talent he possessed.

Glen Z. (for Zaccashen, a made-up name) Gress has a past in theater that goes back to the old Circle in the Square and the Barr/Albee Playwrights' Unit on Vandam Street, a present in films that includes roles in "Lorenzo's Oil," "Ragtime," and three Woody Allen movies.

Born in Saltillo, Pa. -- "Fourteen houses, six churches, a couple of thousand cows, cats, and dogs" -- he came out of Juniata College to New York City in 1950, and drifted into costume design when all he wanted was to be hired as an actor. At one time he had three design schools running in this town -- "and a wonderful reputation for bringing in a show [costume-wise] under budget and on time."

In 1969 he moved back to paint and read and think in Pennsylvania, where he lives to this day, with playwright/director Evans, in a big house on a hill, "the old Crawford mansion," that, as Gress only learned after moving in, had been where Sunny Crawford von Bulow grew up -- some few years before topsy got turvy. [Tallmer]

(TOPSY ON THE BOARDWALK played March 25 to April 11 At La MaMa E.T.C., 74 A East 4th St.)

Neodanza from Caracas, Venezuela with world premiere of "Carne en doce escenábolo," choreographed by Alexey Taran. February 18 to 28 (closed)
La MaMa E.T.C. (Annex Theater), 74A East Fourth Street
Presented by La MaMa E.T.C.
reviewed by Perry Bialor February 16

Neodanza made its third appearance (1991, 1996, 1999) at LaMaMa Annex Theater from February 25 to 28. I had seen the troupe in 1996 and was impressed by its all-out vigor, expressionist intensity and grotesque imagery (somewhat like Pina Bausch but with its own character) and was prepared to write a glowing review. Alas, no such review is forthcoming.

First, however, let me warn you of my bias. I love dance. I hate postmodernism---the word, even more than the product. I love plain speaking. I hate the rhetorical nonsense with which the choreographer explained the meaning of the piece (in the program). Thus, I am probably not the best reviewer of the performance of "Carne en doce escenabolo" by the Cuban-born choreographer Alexey Taran, who was also one of the three performers---the other two being Arais Batlle and Ines Rojas (Daniela Pinto, mentioned in the press release, apparently did not appear).

I was somewhat intrigued by the first scene in which three people (mentally challenged?) don slaughterhouse aprons and, sitting in chairs, at first lethargic, become increasingly more spastic and violent, calm down and then flare up uncontrollably again (which went on too long---unless that was the first, second and third scenes), but then I gradually became aware that the rest would be more of the same---or worse, much worse.

The "12 Scenes" of the title, although having "no internal relationship," according to Taran, seemed (loosely) to be a kind of "Ages of Man." In a series of scenes the performers, wearing full-body padded costumes, went through youthful tantrums smashing dolls (or real life babies?) while squealing, grunting and tumbling over each other; pissed and defecated (symbolic, or otherwise)---the male (Taran) from an elevated height seemed to be pissing on one of the naked women in a tub; struggled with their individual curtains of entangling strings (a message about daily life?); slammed each other like slabs of meat on a metal table (that could have been a butcher's table, an operating table or a morgue slab); did a "dance" of the disabled with arm-clasped canes, and, finally, lapsing into a nearly comatose state on upstage chairs with holes in them (commodes?), stirring only to relieve themselves (using bottled water to produce the puddle) while a TV monitor replayed the whole performance (life?) in superfast time (including the missing fourth person).

The "music" by Bz12=Miguel Noya+Wyzton Borrero+Julio Alonso consisted of electronic, percussive and whistle sounds and alternated with periods of silence through which the performers performed.

Sunday, February 28^th, was Neodanza's final performance at LaMaMa, so this review is a post mortem. A final word: the company is dedicated, intense, intelligent, and, if this is the direction it is taking, has little to do with dance. I should add that, according to Taran, this piece "creates a piece of clear contemporary Latin American personality" and apparently won the company the prix d'auteur general de la seine-saint denis, France.

Teatro Flamenco, presented by Maria Benitez (its founder, artistic director and lead dancer), is stamping the boards at The Joyce Theatre (175 Eight Ave) from February 23rd to March 7th.

Is it possible to be hot, virtuosic, vivid, and still be drained of life's juices? Teatro Flamenco proved that the apparent oxymoron is, indeed, possible. Using the vocabulary of flamenco, Maria Benitez and Cecilio Benitez (her husband and co-artistic director) staged and choreographed away the essence of flamenco under a pall of conformity. The emphasis for the company as a whole was battery dancing (like the Irish "Lord of the Dance," which I detested). The straightjacket effect of dancing in unison under spots in a darkened stage was neither diminished nor alleviated by the virtuosic displays of Antonio Granjero, Immaculada Ortega and Maria Benitez who each choreographed their own solos in Solea, Alegrias and Seguiriyas, respectively.

The single program consisted of: Estampa Flamenca, a NY premiere choreographed by Antonio Granjero for the whole company (Idalia Molina Bascos, Sasha Morena Caponi, Martin Gaxiola, Antonio Granjero, Jose Junco, Adriana Maresma-Fois, Julian Martin, Rosa Mercedes, and Immaculada Ortega), Alegrias, a NY premiere choreographed and danced by Immaculada Ortega, Folies d'Espagne, a NY premiere choreographed by Maria Benitez for herself and company, Aires de Cadiz, a NY premiere choreographed by Antonio Granjero for the company, Solo Guitarra by Jose Valle Fajardo "Chuscales," Formas e Imagenes choreographed by Maria Benitez for herself and company and Antonio Granjero (his too lengthy solo), and the Finale. The accompanying musicians were "Chuscales" and Roberto Castellon on guitar and Francisco Javier Orozco Fernandez "El Yiji" singer with Rosamund Morley playing the viola da gamba in the piece by Marin Marais.

The heart of flamenco (and the joy for the audience who participate vicariously) is epitomized in the communal, good-humored, gypsy cuadro when all the fiery individualistic display is brought together in a final contest of dancing egos, admiringly abetted and judged by those only temporarily sidelined, and the singers, as well, play a prominent role. Everything up to that communal gathering, when the whole meal is laid out, is appetizer. Creative artists, such as Maria Benitez, with companies of their own and a desire to expand the domain and boundaries of flamenco dancing, eliminate the cuadro at their peril.

Nevertheless, it is possible to realize new forms through which flamenco vocabulary, style and dynamics flow. It is possible to use flamenco interpretively as Benitez, herself, successfully demonstrated in her dramatic piece Folies d'Espagne to the baroque music of Marin Marais, and as others have done before her.

My chagrin with Teatro Flamenco's presentation is the dominant role given to in sync stamping and the lighting design (by Clifton Taylor) that isolated the performers (as a group and individually) not only on the stage but from the audience, that is, me. Unlike the reviewer for the NYTimes, I went with an open heart but felt cheated---like cutting into an orange and discovering that it is dried up inside. [Perry Bialor]

Saluting Richard Rodgers
by Bruce-Michael Gelbert

With a Song in My Heart: the Music of Richard Rodgers.
Lincoln Center’s American Songbook at Alice Tully Hall
March 5, 1999.

Her tone dark and plangent, Ann Hampton Callaway tugged heartstrings with a wrenching "My Funny Valentine," from Rodgers and Hart’s Babes in Arms, played as a jazz reverie, and waxed ecstatic in the concert’s title song, taken from their Spring is Here. With Richard Rodney Bennett at the piano, Mary Cleere Haran took us on a sentimental tour of the city in the team’s "(We’ll Have) Manhattan," from The Garrick Gaieties, and urged keeping one’s eyes firmly on one’s goal in the waltz "Over and Over Again," from Jumbo. Soprano Harolyn Blackwell captivated listeners with a sweeping "Falling in Love with Love," from The Boys from Syracuse, capped with a ringing top note. She and Howard McGillin gently lamented a loveless state in a medley made up of "Nobody’s Heart," from By Jupiter, and "The Sweetest Sounds," from Rodgers’ solo outing No Strings. Composer Adam Guettel, Rodgers’ grandson, honored his grandfather with a wry, lyrically sung "Glad to Be Unhappy," from On Your Toes.

After a hushed, intimate initial verse of "Isn’t it Romantic?" from Love Me Tonight, Michael Feinstein changed gears for a rarely heard, sarcastic second verse. He sang a honeyed "My Romance," from Jumbo, as well, and traded barbed repartee with Wesla Whitfield in "Everything I’ve Got Belongs to You," from By Jupiter. In a voice redolent of experience, Whitfield, assisted by pianist spouse Mike Greensill, proffered a poignant "This Funny World," from Betsy, and torchy "He was too Good to Me," written for, but cut from Simple Simon. She went on to laud a clean melodic line in "I Like to Recognize the Tune," from Too Many Girls. If an odd note was struck here, it came with Mark Murphy’s swung "This Can’t Be Love," from The Boys from Syracuse, accompanied by pianist Mike Renzi, which left that melodic line choking somewhere in the dust. Murphy’s "Surrey with the Fringe on Top," from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, was similarly jarring.

Faith Prince paired a brassy "I Cain’t Say No," from Oklahoma, with "I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Outa My Hair," from South Pacific, her deadpan "hick" accent in the former delightfully at odds with her red diva gown. McGillin sang a dulcet "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning," from Oklahoma, and, unfazed by its wide range, "If I Loved You," from Carousel. Drawing on this last pair of musicals as well, Blackwell delivered a caressing, crystalline "Out of My Dreams" and, with Stern at the keyboard, a no less limpid "What’s the Use of Wondrin’?" Whitfield took a pessimistic view of love in up-tempo rarity "The Gentleman is a Dope," from Allegro.

Callaway, Haran, and Prince brought down the house near the end of the evening with their honest look at deliciously discombobulating love in "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," from Rodgers and Hart’s Pal Joey. Orchestral excerpts from South Pacific and The King and I, written with Hammerstein, framed the vocal selections. [Gelbert]

Mass Appeal
by Bruce-Michael Gelbert

Symphony Number 8 in G major ("Le Soir") by Franz Joseph Haydn
Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings by Benjamin Britten
Mass in C minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Angeles Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall,
Lincoln Center Great Performers series
March 12, 1999.

Following Salonen and the Philharmonic’s brisk and breezy account of Haydn’s evocation of evening in his Symphony Number 8 in G major ("Le Soir"), came a haunting Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, written by Britten for his life partner, tenor Peter Pears, and French horn player Dennis Brain. Drawing on texts representing four centuries of English poetry, the Serenade takes us through diverse aspects of night, from gentle to splendid, through somber and nightmarish, to mischievous and playful, and back again. To these six songs, Paul Groves lent bright, ingratiating lyric tenor tone, which was as fluid as one could want it for the melismas of the setting of Ben Jonson’s "Hymn." The varied horn part—now rustic sounding, then all but calling down Judgment Day’s wrath—was expertly executed by Jerry Folsom, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s principal horn player.

Guiding the quartet of soloists; the sonorous New York Choral Artists, directed by Joseph Flummerfelt; and the orchestral forces, Salonen firmly but sensitively molded a formidable and mellifluous Mass in C minor by Mozart. Substituting for an indisposed Barbara Bonney, soprano Janice Chandler made a finely floated florid contribution to the opening "Kyrie" and, singing lightly, with agility, proved herself just about equal to the challenge of the long, filigree lines of the graceful, dulcet "Et incarnatus est." Mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer proffered a vibrant rendition, replete with cleanly articulated coloratura, of the demanding bravura "Laudamus te." Chandler and Mentzer blended well in "Domine Deus," their duet, and delivered, with Groves, a no less harmonious "Quoniam." Joined by bass-baritone Nathan Berg for the "Benedictus," these singers helped bring the work to a stirring conclusion. [Gelbert]

Gory Story
by Bruce-Michael Gelbert

Lizzie Borden (new production) by Jack Beeson, Kenward Elmslie and Richard Plant.
New York City Opera at New York State Theater, March 6, 1999.
Also March 10 at 7:30 pm, 13 at 8 pm, 18 at 7:30 pm, 21 at 1:30 pm, and 24 (PBS telecast) at 8 pm.
Tickets $20-90 at New York State Theater box office at Lincoln Center, 63rd Street and Columbus Avenue
phone 212-870-5570.

The grisly tale of Lizzie Borden, the repressed, driven young woman from Fall River, Massachusetts, accused but officially acquitted of murdering her father and stepmother late last century, has long fascinated the American public and found its way onto the stage as opera, ballet and drama. In March, near the start of its Spring season at the New York State Theater, the New York City Opera staged a gripping revival of Lizzie Borden, turbulent American opera by composer Jack Beeson and librettist Kenward Elmslie, with scenario by the late Richard Plant. This new production stars Phyllis Pancella and Lauren Flanigan and is conducted by George Manahan, directed by Rhoda Levine, and designed by John Conklin (sets), Constance Hoffman (costumes), and Robert Wierzel (lighting). The production originated at Glimmerglass Opera. City Opera had given the work its world premiere at City Center in 1965 and last aired it in 1976 as part of its American Bicentennial celebration.

With Manahan and Levine presiding, the company’s forces fully succeeded in realizing the now spiky, now lyrical music drama and making palpable the tension and acrimony abounding within the dysfunctional Borden family in its grim, gray surroundings. Vibrant mezzo-soprano Pancella contributed a vivid, knowing portrayal of the tightly wound, loveless Lizzie, frustrated and increasingly unhinged. Of note were her second act "mad scene," chafing under her father’s prohibitions and flinging chairs and papers about; singsong solo about death, as she sat, tightly clenched, in her rocking chair, in her dead mother’s wedding gown; Straussian rhapsody when she finally gave vent to her desire for her sister’s fiancé; suggestion of incest in a chilling scene with her father in which, already stained with Abigail’s blood, she saw herself taking her mother’s place; and ultimate embrace of isolation, rejecting even her friend Reverend Harrington (tenor Dennis Petersen in a worthy debut), while the voices of children chanted mockingly of the bloody deed in the words quoted above. A highlight as well was her confrontation with her stepmother — the frilly and spoiled, but unyielding Abigail, ever expressive soprano Flanigan — who taunted Lizzie for her hopeless lust in a bustling line set against her stepdaughter’s firm and proud statement of relief at having helped her sister, Margaret, elope with a sea captain. Claws were bared at the climax, when the women declared open hostility toward each other, with Lizzie accusing Abigail — once hired help and Andrew Borden’s secret lover — of anxiously awaiting her mother’s death, which freed Lizzzie’s father to remarry. In contrast, were Pancella’s loving, dulcet duets with pure-voiced soprano Robin Blitch Wiper, as Margaret, marking the passage of time, lamenting their untenable situation, and plotting the younger sibling’s escape.

To bass-baritone Stephen West — as stern, stingy paterfamilias Andrew Borden — were entrusted gruff, miserly and bigoted credos. To the more baritonal Dean Ely, the dashing Captain Jason MacFarlane, fell responsibility of beginning a striking set-piece, a quintet in which he and Blitch Wiper exchanged warm words of love, and Flanigan and Petersen nattered on about gardens and weeds, while Pancella ruminated over her needlepoint. Flanigan’s fluent account of Abigail’s sentimental parlor song, with coloratura flourishes, and the orchestra’s stormy interlude after the ax murders — not the only time Strauss’ Elektra came to mind--must also be mentioned. [Gelbert]

Chez Melinda
by Melinda Given Guttmann

A BILINGUAL "SOPRANO"

Debut production of Ubu Repertory's Bi-Lingual Ensemble
directed by Françoise Kourilsky
Performed in tandem in French and English by Genvieve Shartner, Louise-Marie Mennier, Simon Fortin, Isabelle Cyr, Marc Forget, and Michel Moinot.
Presented by Ubu Repertory Theater as part of the 1999 UBU @ FIAF program.
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street
March 4-6 (closed)

Ms. Kourisky chose to direct "The Bald Soprano," which was first produced in Paris in 1950, for both its hilarious comic effects and for the contemporary relevance in its tragic undertones. "It's a possible danger that in New York or in Paris, for example, or anywhere, that people will forget how to speak, how to feel, and that they will all become interchangeable with the same name, Bobby Watson," as the play portends, Ms. Kourilsky explained.

The "Bobby Watson" to whom Ms. Kourilsky is referring occurs in an early sequence of Ionesco's play (subtitled an anti-play). Ionesco, who had always hated theatre except for Punch and Judy puppet shows, sets up a petit- bourgeois couple, the Smiths, who are violently funny puppet-like caricatures themselves. Ionesco was studying English from a book when all of a sudden the phrases in the lesson took on a life of their own and he was impelled to write a play. Most critics call it a play about impossibility of communication and the empty language of clichés. The non-sense logic which dominates our quotidian lives becomes a dead-pan, hysterically funny colloquy between the Smiths based on the rapid, increasingly absurd and repetitious use of the name "Bobby Watson." Bobby Watson's, children, parents, and innumerable relations are uniformly named Bobby Watson regardless of gender, age, or any trait whatsoever.

Ms. Kourilsky based both the French and English characterizations on the Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton and in the vocal and physical mannerisms of the actors, adding to the wild inter-cultural mix. The two English couples are French-Canadian and the Fireman is French. Watching the two productions in tandem was like looking at an Andy Warhol Diptich, for example the photographs of Marilyn Monroe, in which one is tinted in rose, the second in violet. Watching the play in French then in English mimics the repetitious, dislocated language of the play in the nuances between the two languages. During the French production, the wild absurd humor and frantic pace are mesmerizing; in the English version, the tragic impulses underneath the language rise to the surface.

Ms. Kourilsky has changed the ending of the original production in which the words at the end of the play repeat the words in the beginning. In line with Ionesco's fantasy of standing up at the end of the play and shooting at the audience, Ms. Kourilsky invented a brilliant violent ending with all the characters as cannibals, coming to blows with each other, with dismembered parts of legs and arms appearing and disappearing while the language disintegrates into the empty cries of vowels and consonants.

Ms. Kourilsky has produced bi-lingual productions in the past, including Sartre's "Huis Clos " (No Exit) and Camus' "Le Malentendu" (the Misunderstanding). This back to back bi-lingual production of "The Bald Soprano" is a further part of an experiment worth watching develop. Who knows what innovations Ms. Kourilsky might try next? Perhaps, she'll mix styles in the next piece between naturalism and expressionism, or apply the approach to plays which focus on themes immigration and assimilation, in which divergent tongues could be a useful tool. Ubu's audiences look forward with great anticipation to her future experiments with all the languages of the stage. [MGG]

Electra by Sophocles (adapted by FranK McGuinness)
Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St.
Presented by McCarter Theatre/Donmar Warehouse and Duncan C. Weldon
Tues.-Fri. at 8, Sat. 2 & 8, Sun. at 3; until March 21
Telecharge (212) 239-6200/ (800) 432-7250
by Perry A. Bialor

Zoe Wanamaker played Electra as an aging, hysterical waif with dishevelled, patchy hair---a combination of Julietta Massima, Charlie Chaplin and a volcano. One critic aptly characterized her as a "child-woman," stunted by the trauma of her father's murder (with Freudian implications). She pounced around the stage ranting, moaning and emoting her anguish non-stop about her miserable captivity, that Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (her mother and step-father, her father's assassins) were not yet dead, and that her brother Orestes had not yet appeared to execute her vengeance. When Orestes finally does appear and make himself known (following disinformation that he had died), Electra leaps on him, placing a "lingering kiss" on his lips that is less "ambiguous" than arbitrary in suggesting that her blood lust is accompanied by incestuous lust (a directorial decision?). This was clearly Electra's play, that is, Zoe Wanamaker's. No wonder it is considered such a wonderful part, for the play itself is no great shakes. Some scholars even consider it Sophocles' worst (of the handful of plays that survived).

Michael Cumpsty played a wooden Orestes to all his 6 foot something stature, even when emoting at top decibals still stiff as a board, except when grasping Electra---thank god that Sophocles didn't draw out the recognition scene as did Euripedes in his Electra. Apparently, the drab gray outfits that everyone wore (except Claire Bloom in red and Aegisthus in white) did not bring greater "realism" to the role. He could have been playing the house at Epidaurus. Moreover, the gore up to his elbows (it wasn't enough to have it on his hands) after killing his mother could probably be seen from the last row of that amphitheater. A bit of Grand Guinol seemed out of place when the murder itself-in ancient Greek style-took place offstage. How he managed to get so much blood on himself when he never wore a sword or other sharp implement during the play is puzzling.

As Clytemnestra, all Claire Bloom had to do was walk on stage to be quietly regal. It was a small but important role, played simply, with sincerity and the pathos of conflicted emotions on hearing the report of the death of Orestes (false, as she was soon to learn to her detriment). Her second "appearance" was as a voice screaming inside the palace as she was being slaughtered by her son Orestes.

The old man, Orestes' servant was played by Stephen Spinella. He was miscast. He didn't know when to declame and when to simply describe a scene (perhaps one should blame the Director, David Leveaux, for not providing the proper rhetorical balance). His extended description of the chariot race in which Orestes was presumably killed in an accident (perhaps because it was his moment in the spotlight) was orated more dramatically than almost anything else in the drama. It must have thrilled an Athenian audience. The outrageous length of this bit of flummery, however, must be blamed on Sophocles (who also put Orestes as a competitor at the Delphic Games, which did not exist at the time of the plot), not Spinella.

Daniel Oreskes appears as Aegisthus near the end of the play only too submissive and ready to be killed by an unarmed Orestes. He would have been more convincing as a petty mafia boss than as the king; fifteen or so years in office apparently did nothing to increase his dignity or credibility as a king. Pat Carroll, as the Chorus of Mycenae, was as solid as the Rock of Gibralter-forceful when giving Electra advice; part of the landscape when not. Chrysothemis, Electra's compromising sister, was played by Marin Hinkle. It is a thankless role, mainly a common sensical foil to Electra's obsessive desire for vengeance. Sophocles couldn't have liked her much. We aren't given a chance to like her much too. Ivan Stamenov played the forelorn Pylades (a mute part); Mirjana Jokovic and Lyra Lucretia Taylor were Chorus, which, in this play, took up more room than words. [Bialor]

Music of Henry Purcell.
Les Arts Florissants at Brooklyn Academy of Music
February 28, 1999.
reviewed by Bruce Michael Gelbert

The admirable solo quintet was made up of soprano Rachel Elliott, countertenor Stephen Wallace, tenors Rodrigo del Pozo and Joseph Cornwell, and bass Clive Bayley.

The brightest spots in the birthday ode were the spirited celebratory introduction, entrusted to Cornwell and acquitted nobly; the stirring responsive duet "Sound the trumpet," proffered with flair by Wallace and del Pozo; and "Strike the viol," the Chilean-born del Pozo’s dulcet solo.

Highlights of the ode to music’s patron saint were the florid "Hark! Hark! Each Tree its silence breaks" with the contrasting agile instruments, in striking synchronization, of Wallace and Bayley; the peaceful "’Tis Nature’s Voice" and more vigorous "And lofty Viol," illuminated by del Pozo’s bright, limpid high tenor, with its skillful voix mixte; the airy "Thou tun’dst this World below," estimably dispatched by Elliott; the quietly exultant "In vain the Am’rous Flute," mellifluously limned by del Pozo and Cornwell; and the coloratura martial aria "The Fife and all the Harmony of War," ringingly delivered by Cornwell. The full choral complement’s moment of greatest glory was "Hail! Bright Cecilia, Hail to thee!" the jubilant climax.

Played as encores were the Grand Passacaglia, "How happy the lover," and joyous drinking song, "I call, I call, you all to Arthur’s hall," from King Arthur, the latter boasting del Pozo’s florid solo, and "To the hills and the vales," the final chorus of Act One of Dido and Aeneas.

The company returns to the United States in November with Purcell’s music for King Arthur and that of Jean-Baptiste Lully for Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, appearing in Richmond, Virginia’s University Concert Hall on the 5th, in Fairfax, at George Mason University on the 6th, at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall on the 8th, at Ann Arbor’s Hill Auditorium on the 10th, at New York’s Alice Tully Hall on November 12th and 13th, at the Orange County, California Performing Arts Center on the 16th, and at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Auditorium on the 19th and 20th.

BAM Opera continues with Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, at the BAM Opera House, under René Jacobs and director and choreographer Trisha Brown, on June 10th, 11th and 12th at 7:30 pm and 13th at 3 pm. Tickets, priced at $25, $55 and $75, are available from directly from BAM, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11217-1486, phone 718-636-4100, or through Ticketmaster at 212-307-4100. [Gelbert]

The Singer’s Art, a Celebration of the Beauty of Song, with Håkan Hagegård, Elizabeth Futral, and Elisabeth Boström, at the 92nd Street Y, March 4, 1999.

Hagegård and Futral began breezily enough. In Johannes Brahms’ "Vor der Tür" ("Unlock the door"), the baritone sang from offstage as if genuinely denied admission by the mischievous soprano. An excerpt by Mozart from the collaborative opera "Der Stein der Weisen" ("The Philosopher’s Stone") found a bewitched Futral sporting long cat’s whiskers and giving voice solely to a series of "Miau"s and Boström wandering briefly into Gioachino Rossini’s better-known "Cat Duet." Benjamin Britten’s "Underneath the Abject Willow, (Lover, sulk no more)," to W.H. Auden’s words, continued this airy vein.

With alienation next on the agenda, Futral gracefully pondered her predicament as "The More Loving One" of the mates in Ricky Ian Gordon’s setting of another Auden text. The singers shared their sorrow in an almost operatic "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt," Franz Schubert’s version of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s lament of Mignon, and kept agony in check in Claudio Monteverdi madrigal "Ardo e scoprir."

The lovers looked deeply within themselves, probing feelings and motivations in his "Troget och milt" ("Faithful forever") by Ingvar Lidholm and her showpiece, the "Brentano Lieder," Richard Strauss songs to poems of Clemens Brentano, beginning with a haunting "An der Nacht" ("Ode to Night"), boasting echoes of Tristan und Isolde. If Futral seemed determined to emphasize the tears over the notes in a plaintive "Ich wollt ein Sträusslein binden" ("I meant to make you a posy"), it became clear that reconciliation was in store from her rhapsodic "Säus’le, liebe Myrthe" ("Whisper, dear myrtle") and ecstatic, high coloratura "Amor," diction and tone crystal clear throughout the stratospheric ascents. Still singing, she strode down an aisle of the auditorium, whereupon Hagegård stole back onstage, to Boström’s strains of the joyous postlude from Der Rosenkavalier, in time to observe Futral’s exit.

Suffering, ruminating, and confronting his mortality, Hagegård plumbed the depths of torment in his own tour de force, soliloquies from the play Jederman (Everyman), penned by frequent Strauss collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal and set to music by Frank Martin which conveyed urgency without indulging in Straussian expansiveness. Boström provided an interlude of tranquility with Mozart’s "Fantasie in C minor" and the singers made peace in a flowing "Herbstlied" ("Autumn Song") by Felix Mendelssohn.

Futral and Hagegård reveled in their pre-recorded voices, seeming to issue from an ancient gramophone horn, in a conciliatory "Bei Männern," from Zauberflöte, complete with 78 rpm "hiss," and toasted their domestic paradise regained with sugar- coated duets from—what else?—romantic musical comedy and operetta. These were Vincent Youmans’ "Tea for Two," from No, No, Nanette (in which an opportunity was missed to strike a blow for sexual equality when Futral changed "you" to "I" on repeating Hagegård’s lines ordering "you’ll awake/ and start to bake a sugar cake"); Franz Léhar’s "Merry Widow" waltz; and Emmerich Kálmán’s "Weisst du es noch?" from Die Czárdásfürstin. The singers sent the audience off with Brahms’ Lullaby, which made one wonder if a visit from the stork was supposed to be imminent. [Bruce-Michael Gelbert]

I Masnadieri byGiuseppe Verdi.
Opera Orchestra of New York at Carnegie Hall
Reviewed by Bruce-Miuchael Gelbert March 7, 1999.

Hvorostovsky played the part of Francesco Moor, would-be patricide and fratricide who, in addition, covets his cousin, Amalia, beloved of his older brother Carlo. His rich cocoa-colored instrument fully at his command from the start, Hvorostovsky displayed the dramatic but flexible sound that his music demands, and, not the least inhibited by the concert format, cut a magnificent figure as the snarling image of evil incarnate in his scena "La sua lampada vitale…Tremate, o miseri" ("His vital lamp burns low…Tremble, you wretches"). The baritone made the most of his opportunity later to depict the villain undone by his misdeed, like Macbeth and Attila, as he recounted his nightmare and expressed his fears in his haunted sounding "Pareami che sorto da lauto convito" ("I dreamt I had eaten a sumptuous feast").

A character akin to Ernani, Carlo is a dreamer and intellectual, forced by circumstance to become leader of a band of bandits, who stabs his love in lieu of letting her wed an outlaw. Antonio Nagore sang Carlo’s music in a basically solid and ingratiating spinto tenor, which, however, sometimes spread at the top.

Tailored to the voice of the popular "Swedish nightingale" Jenny Lind, a lyric bel canto singer rather than a dramatic one, florid writing for Amalia has a sound more graceful and Bellini-esque than does most rough-and- ready early Verdi. In music once embraced by Joan Sutherland and Montserrat Caballé, Sally Wolf made a favorable first impression, drawing on dark and bright timbres, her soprano warm, limpid and fluid in Amalia’s restrained declaration of love for the absent Carlo. She offered fairly smooth soft singing in her prayerful cavatina "Tu del mio Carlo al seno" ("You’ve flown to the bosom of my Carlo"), acquitted herself nobly in its exposed, bravura cabaletta "Carlo vive" ("Carlo lives"), and capped later climaxes with strong stratospheric top notes. Under pressure, though, as in her confrontation with the menacing Francesco, Wolf’s voice could turn pallid or shrill.

Metropolitan Opera stalwart Paul Plishka made a solid dramatic contribution as Count Massimiliano Moor, the brothers’ father, brutalized by his ruthless younger son. The opera had a second imposing bass in Julian Konstantinov as Moser, the priest who refuses to absolve Francesco of his crimes. Tenors Christopher Pucci and Brian Nedvin, and the New York Opera Ensemble gave admirable support as well.

Opera Orchestra continues its season under Maestra Queler with French grand opera La Juive, by Jacques-François Halévy, with Hasmik Papian, Jean-Luc Viala, Olga Makarina, Francisco Casanova, and Carlo Colombara, on April 13, and bel canto opera La Sonnambula, by Vincenzo Bellini, with Ruth Ann Swenson, Octavio Arévalo, Lynette Tapia, John Relyea, and Carla Wood, on May 12. Performances are at 8 p.m. and tickets, priced from $20-$85, are available at the Carnegie Hall box office, at 57th Street and 7th Avenue, or by calling CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800.

The company concentrates on bel canto next season, with Bellini’s I Capuleti e I Montecchi, with Vesselina Kasarova, on October 25, and Donizetti’s Adelia, with Mariella Devia, on November 11, and Lucrezia Borgia, with Renée Fleming, on February 14, 2000. [Gelbert]

NANTES, FRANCE -- Jet Lag, a collaboration between New York-based The Builders Association and the internationally prominent architectural team of Diller+Scofidio, is a fascinating cross- media project combining the presence of live performers with new technologies; video on the one hand, and computer graphics on the other. Seen in Nantes, France, during the "New York-Turn of the Century Festival" [December 28, 1998 - January 2, 1999] where for four days, New York's "finest" in experimental theater/performance played to sold out houses, Jet Lag is the latest creation of Marianne Weems and her excellent team of artists and players.

Directed by Marianne Weems, designed by Diller +Scofidio, and scripted by Jessica Chalmers, with video by Christopher Kondeck and lighting by Jennifer Tipton, and computer animation by dbox-James Gibbs, Jet Lag weaves together two true stories about modern travel.

In Part One, yachtsman Roger Dearborn sets off on a solo race around the globe as part of the 1969 Round The World competition even though he is not adequately prepared. He is little more than a weekend sailor. When he encounters severe setbacks, he refuses to admit defeat to the outside world. Instead he stays off the coast of South America, circling round and round, sending home faked reports documenting his progress and producing a counterfeit log. The media make him into a popular hero while in reality his mind slowly deteriorates at sea and he takes his own life by drowning.

Part Two tells the story of an American grandmother who kidnaps her grandson and flies with him across the Atlantic 167 times within a period of six months in order to the keep the child's father from taking him to a psychiatrist for treatment. Stopping only briefly in airports where the she does her best to make a home for her grandson, the grandmother finally dies of jet lag.

In order to recreate Dearborn's experience at sea, its 30 foot waves and roaring winds, the yachtsman, played by Jeff Webster, either sits on a stool or moves about in front of a large screen. His publicist and members of the media broadcast news of his latest position from behind their desks placed in front of him. Video images of the ocean, the swaying deck of his boat, his cabin, projected onto the screen behind him combine with sounds of roaring water and seagull shreiks to create the illusion that the sailor is indeed out in deep waters. His initial attempts at videotaping himself with the video camera he uses to keep a log of his journey, produce shaky images and a snowy screen. In fact, everything moves - the screen moves from side to side as Dearborn moves back and forth on his stool and the waves rise and fall on the screen. Dearborn's projected image on the screen and footage from his videotaped log add to the impression that we are reliving the sailor's terrible adventure.

In Part Two, computer generated scenography creates the airport and airplane in which Doris Schwartz and her grandson live in deferred time. On a gigantic screen, a tiny point of light opens up to become the moving walkway at an airport. The grandmother and her grandson [played by Dale Soules and Dominique Dibbel] are seen moving along the walkway, carrying their hand luggage. Soon the walkway becomes the interior of an airplane with a row of seats facing the audience. Real plane seats are then moved onto the stage and placed in front of the rows on the screen, creating the illusion that we are inside of the plane. This is where the boy and his grandmother sit during their many transatlantic flights. When they are not in flight, we see them moving among the computer generated images of the airport; up and down escalators or settling in on a bench to rest and wait for the next plane. Spreading jackets on the benches, changing into more comfortable traveling clothes, or choosing an isolated corner of the waiting room for their brief moments of respite, Mrs. Schwartz does her best to create a domestic atmosphere for her grandson.

Jet Lag is "a meditation on travel in contemporary culture," in the words of Marianne Weems. For these voyagers, time as we know it is obliterated and space is compressed. The grandmother feels the full impact of this. "She is a contemporary heroine," according to Paul Virilio in The Third Widow, "because she really lived in deferred time." This may well be but it is her choice to remain in constant motion and she pays the terrible price of her perpetual jet lag; death. The yachtsman is an equally tragic figure. Having taken advantage of the lag in communication with the outside world in order to create the illusion that he is traveling, he becomes as much the victim of media hype as of his own folly. [Wehle]

"The Blue Room" A Shocker--Not
The Cort Theater
138 West 48th Street
239-6200
Opening December 13, 1998
Reviewed December 15, 1998 by Margaret Croyden

What is most perplexing is that British playwright David Hare, whose work has always dealt with important social and political themes, would stoop so low as to associate himself with this so called satire on sex. "The Blue Room" is no satire at all, it is not even sophisticated comedy, but an adolescent depiction of the many ways one can indulge in sex. And, as everyone knows, these ways are exceedingly limited. It is this limitation that reduces the play to a high class peep show, a soft porn exercise designed elegantly and cleverly to exploit Ms. Kidman body, which is thrust at us at every possible moment. Ms. Kidman and her leading man, Iain Glen, are versatile performers but very much misused and exploited, especially Ms. Kidman whose main contribution here, though she tries hard to act, is to display her physique, not her acting talents.

But it does not help that the most untheatrical aspect of this production is its repetiousness. The plot, what there is of it, is a series of vignettes depicting the sexual encounters of eleven people--types really--a married woman, a model, an actress, a cab driver, a politician, a playwright, to name a few, all played by Ms. Kidman and Mr. Glen. After having sex with his/her partner, each character moves on to the next sexual rendezvous creating the daisy chain pattern, expressed in "La Ronde." In each eleven scenes the characters get dressed and undressed repeatedly, either on, or off stage. After the fifth time, seeing the characters in their underwear one gets the point, and hopes for a speedy finish to this predictable play.

Unfortunately Ms. Kidman taking off her clothes, appearing in different colored briefs, or in short short dresses that reveal plenty of skin, is not actually exciting; the scenes are forced and redundant and, despite her physical attributes, Ms. Kidman is strangely unerotic. For all the hoopla about her nudity, her backside is on display for exactly five seconds. If you wink, you'll miss it.

Although Ms. Kidman and her co-star try hard to whip up some heat they succeed only in conjuring up a lot of hot air and cold draughts. Mr. Glen, also constantly undressing, strutting around in his underwear and, in one scene, is completely naked doing a hand stand, or performing various sexual acts including cunnilinguism, cannot lift this play out of the doldrums. Scene after scene the action is the same: kiss, kiss, grab, grab, feel, feel, undress undress, fornicate fornicate. End scene. On to the next. Repeat action.

One wonders what was in David Hare's mind? Is he trying to say that all sex is just a silly overrated game, and that people feel very little as they participate, or is he saying the obvious-- that in the absence of love, sex, superficial or not, is the convenient substitute. Perhaps the mystery of human sexuality would be better understood (and more interesting) by reading Freud rather than watching a play where the men are all seducers the women, all enablers and the overall atmosphere is retro. Why write about group of characters who turn out to be sluts, deceivers, drug users, prostitutes, call girls, mistresses, and hypocrites. It is hard to see what is interesting about these people.

Nicole Kidman, in her many roles, works hard and is adequate. But virtually all her characters seem similar, with the exception of the actress. Kidman relies on quick changes of hair style, different accents and speech patterns, not to speak of the various outfits. These tricks are clever; nonetheless, her characters resemble each other. The same is true for Iain Glen for his predatory men. With the exception of his intellectual playwright (a take off on Tom Stoppard?) and the repressed, stiff upper lip aristocrat, Mr. Glen's men are indistinguishable, despite accents, hair styles and body stances.

Sam Mendes, who so cleverly directed "Cabaret" is not so clever here. The evening drags; the performance lasts only one hour and 40 minutes, it seems like three. And throughout, his direction seems contrived and ostentatious.

Once again Broadway has outdone itself in dumbing down the theater, in hyping a play and a performance that is cleverly merchandized but has little to do with a serious work, be it satire, or comedy. One is left to think that David Hare never expected us to take him seriously, though he has a reputation for being a serious writer. He is right if that is the case. One cannot take the play seriously, in fact, one cannot take this play at all. [Croyden]

MOST OF RICHARD HOEHLER

"Ma, I told you, don't call me here. No. No. I'm not supposed to get calls. I know it's a public phone, but it's their public phone . . . Ma, did you take your pill today? Jesus Christ. Ma, you gotta take your pill, you know what happens when you . . .

"Sorry, Mr. Diaz. It's just my Ma, she's not doin' so good, you know, upstairs [points to his own head]. I know, I only gave her the number in case of emergency, but . . . "

It was when actor/writer Richard Hoehler was walking along 14th Street a couple of years ago that he first began thinking about those men on those ladders outside those stores.

"One day," Hoehler says, "I saw one guy who was particularly poignant. Preoccupied. Not very happy about what he was doing. I thought: If I could only go inside his head to see what's happening in there."

What came out of Hoehler's own head he put into the words he speaks as above and enacts [ENACTED for X recent weeks] from the stage of the Kaufman Theater, far west on 42nd Street. The sketch, "Last Call," is one of five short pieces by Hoehler that under the heading of "Human Resources" go to make up a straight-from-the-shoulder evening of tough, compassionate portraits of the insulted and injured.

The program can have its abrasive moments, as in the opening number, "Bum's Rush," when Hoehler eyeballs the audience, takes a swig from a bottle, and snarls:

"What're you staring at? This ain't Oprah. Nobody flew me in here. I walked . . . Look at you. Poor sons of bitches drag your tired asses downtown for some 'cultchah.' and this is what you get. But hey, at least it's better than that Disney [stuff] where the furniture sings and dances."

Richard Hoehler, passing an hour in a coffee shop in the Village, is not at all abrasive. He is a quiet, youthfully bearded, idealistic fellow in his early 40s, and the cultchah he came from is working-class Carteret, N.J. "A lot of oil tanks," he remarks.

Does anybody in the audience at "Human Resources" ever talk back?

"Oh yeah, a lot of people talk back. 'Hey, bum!' I have no problem with that," Hoehler says. He sometimes, in fact, turning the tables on himself, invites men from a homeless shelter to see the show "to tell me if I'm on target."

Another of the segments is called "Handout." The protagonist, distributing (to invisible passers-by) flyers for a clothing firm, rambles on about his girlfriend Betty -- "Betty in Returns, at Handel's Housewares."

There are two pegs to (Hoehner's) personal reality here.

"For eight years," he specifies, "1981 to '89, I did returns at a tool company in what's called the South Village, Sixth Avenue and Spring Street. One day when I was working at that store somebody on the sidewalk stuck a flyer in my hand. It was for Gilcrest Clothes. I still have the thing. I use reproductions of it on stage."

Hoehler, son of the late Richard Hoehler, Sr., and Patricia Kenely Hoehler -- who got cheated out of a couple of letters in her Irish maiden name -- was born Oct. 16, 1953, not in Carteret, where he grew up and went to school, but in Elizabeth, N.J.

"The only place in Cartaret you could find theater was the Carteret Jewish Community Center, which," Hoehler says, "is where I got all involved in theater and learned a lot of Yiddish.

"At Hope College -- went there because of the name -- they turned out to have a great theater department. I was lucky." Hope College is in Holland, Michigan. "Couldn't have been any more different from Carteret, N.J. Tulips along the street -- from oil tanks to windmills."

With his '76 BA from Hope in hand, he came to New York to be -- as he Hoped (excuse it) -- an actor and a director. His first onstage assignment was as a young cab driver in an Off-Off-Broadway production of Clifford Odets's "Waiting for Lefty."

Hoehler remembers his truckdriver father coming to see the show. "A strong union man, my dad. He said: 'That shit's not the way it is at all.' "

But to the truckdriver's son, who would a decade later direct a "Waiting for Lefty" of his own, Clifford Odets was and still is today the playwright of all American playwrights.

"I hope to live long enough to play Jacob someday" -- the burnt-out, Caruso-loving old grandfather in "Awake and Sing."

From 1982 to 1990, Hoehler ran a group called the American Line Theater, a gypsy company that played wherever it could find shelter, the East Village, Midtown, Upper West Side, Chelsea.

It was Patricia Kenely Hoehler who, some years earlier -- "when I was living in New Jersey, out of work, with no prospects" -- had got her son to try his hand at writing.

"She's a writer herself, my Mom. She writes letters to newspapers about things she sees as injustices. The letters are so passionate, the papers usually print them. She steered me into entering this statewide New Jersey writing contest." Much to his own shock, he won first prize. "That was my 'experience' -- what I took to the Village Bridge Writers."

The Village Bridge Writers, then on Washington Square, was a workshop run by novelist Florence Bonine. Another novelist, Mary Bringle, ran another writers' workshop, called Aux, on Perry Street.

Hoehler spent 12 years between the two groups, and they're where he developed his material both for "Working Class," the 1996 one-man, seven-character work that won an OOBR Award as Off-Off-Broadway's best of the season, and the current "Human Resources." It was also through one of the workshops that he met Joyce and Seward Johnson, backers of both those shows.

"Even now, if I get stuck, I go back to Aux to read my stuff. I just did it recently with the first two pieces of this new bill. I'm always a little nervous when I go there -- so that's a good sign."

He hasn't changed a word, however, in the last -- and to this auditor's mind, best -- of the five takes in "Human Resources." Called "Gas Man," it's about an old balloon-seller who, when he'd retired as a meter reader, had sent a goodbye note to all his "customers." The piece is based on a letter Hoehler found one day in the lobby of his building when the mailman retired. "So beautiful."

There's a novel by Hoehler that's being shopped around. "It's a first novel, so," the author says with a laugh, "it's set in a small industrial town in New Jersey, okay?"

Okay. [Tallmer]