The most thrilling dance of the year

Sometimes art doesn't require precision; sometimes primal energy is enough. At least that seemed to be the case last weekend, at Boston Ballet's "Three Masterpieces" program. There were wobbles throughout the evening - along with stretches of brilliance - but the concert ended with an unbelievable bang, via Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room (most of the finale above, danced by American Ballet Theatre). Even here, things were a little muddy in spots, and by the finish the dancers (understandably) looked close to exhaustion. But it was still thrilling; not just the most exciting dance of the year, but perhaps the most exciting artistic event of the year, period.

But let's back up a minute - after all, this program purported to be about three masterpieces. But truth be told, it was only about two, and one near-masterpiece: Anthony Tudor's Dark Elegies, while certainly a brilliant dance, didn't really hold up against Balanchine's Concerto Barocco or the Tharp. Or perhaps the apparent imbalance lay in the fact that the Tudor was entirely a different kind of dance: Tharp and Balanchine made quite the modern/postmodern pair, with intriguing parallels in their differing deployments of movement through an abstract space. But Tudor was working in a naturalistic, almost dramatic mode, and his subject matter was practically the antithesis of Balanchine's and Tharp's (who were both working through differing modes of joy). Dark Elegies, however, unfolds to Mahler's quietly harrowing Kindertotenlieder, or Songs on the Death of Children, and seeks to evoke a communal response to said tragedy. Tudor's villagers work through their grief via a ritual which breaks into tiny spikes of mourning - until at last, to Mahler's final song, they find some sort of peace. Tudor's corresponding choreography is superbly understated, and Boston Ballet made it even more understated, perhaps to the point of losing the sense of slow transition to resignation; only Yury Yanowsky broke through with a sense of the grief roiling beneath the choral movement. Still, the piece was worthwhile purely for the orchestra's playing, and Philip Lima's singing - a performance the BSO could hardly have hoped to beat.


A precise tableau from Concerto Barocco - photo by Rosalie O'Connor.

Under conductor Jonathan McPhee, the orchestra was in equally fine form for Bach's Concerto Barocco (with equally fine violin soloists Michael Rosenbloom and Lisa Crockett). Barocco is famously the dance in which Balanchine "became Balanchine," dispensing with the last remants of a romantic storyline to pursue an idealized neoclassicism. With Concerto Barocco, as Mr. B. put it himself, "you see the music and hear the dance," only the opening of the Boston Ballet was a little fuzzy and muffled: the corps, which proved so dazzling last week in Swan Lake, wobbled slightly but repeatedly in the opening unfolding of the piece (they gained a better footing as it progressed). Luckily soloists Lia Cirio and Melanie Atkins were appropriately precise; Atkins once again somehow exuded a theatrical presence perfectly matched to Balanchine, but this time she was outdanced by Cirio, who came through with an astoundingly clean and buoyant performance. As usual, Mr. B.'s danseur played a distant second to his women, but Pavel Gurevitch nevertheless partnered Cirio with sensitivity and panache.


Rie Ichikawa and Misa Kuranaga in In the Upper Room. Photo by Rosalie O'Connor.

The men were on better footing in Upper Room, where both genders mix in roughly equal numbers, some in ballet shoes, others in sneakers ("the stompers," Tharp called them, although this typically Tharpian dichotomy doesn't really come to much). The 1986 work is a poignant reminder that before Tharp stooped to choreographing Billy Joel musicals, she was something of a genius - and one whose influence is still clear in choreographers like Forsythe and the Ballet's own Jorma Elo. In the Upper Room takes its title from the New Testament verse in which the apostles retire to pray "in the upper room" after the ascension of Christ. And I don't think Tharp means to be ironic (indeed, she rather pointedly deploys thirteen dancers); instead, my guess is that the physical blow-out conjured here is meant as a kind of ecstatic prayer, a levitation to match the Ascension. Tharp's apostles, of course, are all Americans - they're carhops, station attendants, athletes, and cheerleaders, all dressed in red, white and blue - and Philip Glass's amplified (actually over-amplified) score gets at something nativist, too: the pumping optimism of his relentless, major-key arpeggios somehow evokes the happy, confident mindlessness of our collective mindset. And if at bottom there's nothing behind these joyous invocations but sheer physical prowess, then perhaps, at least for the length of the piece, that can feel like transcendence. By the finale, as the cheerleaders and gymnasts and ballerinas spun and jumped and raced forwards and backwards through Tharp's loose-limbed rhythms and ever-more-complex variations, the piece had become completely ravishing. True, the performance wasn't flawless, but it was enough to make the crowd leap to its feet, cheering. They knew, as I did, that In the Upper Room is the kind of dance you never forget.

From Russia, with love

Olga Kern at a recent New York recital.

Whenever the Russians come to town, it seems our own Russians come out to meet them in force. Last Thursday night at Sanders Theatre, for instance, before the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra took the stage, you'd have been hard pressed to catch a word of English between all the "da's" and the "nyet's" - and truth be told, you could hear more of the same even after the orchestra started playing. For this was apparently less of a musical occasion than a kind of homecoming for the crowd, which let its appreciation - and impatience -be known with rhythmic applause and general murmurs and expectorations.

The Virtuosi - who are currently on their 30th anniversary tour, under the baton of founder Vladimir Spivakov - entered the hall in Old World style, to a rousing response, but but at first seemed a bit rattled: their opening reading of Schoenberg's Transfigured Night sounded a bit ragged and thin - they played dramatically, but stridently; you'd never have guessed, from this performance, at the transcendent affirmation Schoenberg intended to convey.

But with the arrival of soloist Olga Kern (above), the concert suddenly righted itself. The willowy Ms. Kern looked smashing in a glittering black gown - and the crowd let her know it (they even more loudly approved of a costume change into sparkling scarlet, with matching red pumps). And as she essayed Haydn's Concerto in D Major, Kern quickly cast a musical as well as visual spell - with the orchestra suddenly cohering behind her. True, Kern plays Haydn rather in the mode of Rachmaninoff, which is not the current style in this bastion of early music, but her plushly romantic legato levelled all objections before it. And clearly this honorable mode is the true métier of the Moscow Virtuosi, which supported her with a warm, bright buoyancy.

Things got even better with the Shostakovich Concerto No. 1 in C. Minor for Piano and Trumpet - the crowd had clearly come home, and now the orchestra did, too. The dapper Mr. Spivakov (right) tended to keep things at a brisk clip, but he really tore through the Shostakovich - luckily Ms. Kern hardly broke a sweat at the highest velocities, and even glanced at the audience during one dissonant thunk! with a look that read "How do you like that?" The piece, despite its fiendish energy (so typical of Shostakovich), is nevertheless built on an ironic little dialogue between piano and trumpet, in which the keyboard's crazed dance is greeted by a melancholic sigh from the brass. Luckily Ms. Kern's frenzy was neatly balanced by trumpeter Kirill Soldatov, who sometimes looked a bit winded, but nevertheless held his sadly dying falls for what seemed like minutes on end.

Despite the clear desire of the crowd, Kern begged off any encores - and the evening then took an intriguing turn toward a "Russian Pops" mode. First the orchestra offered a charming rendering of a light piece, "Aria," by the Austrian Friedrich Gulda, known for his collaborations with Chick Corea (and even Emerson, Lake and Palmer). I think "Aria" has few depths, but the orchestra played it winningly, if a little too quickly. The concert then headed south, toward the tango, of all things, with accordion virtuoso Nikita Vlasov leading two pieces by Astor Piazzoll, whose "nuevo tango" cuts the genre's doomy schmaltz with technical challenges and unexpected dissonances. There must be some secret axis between the Russian and Argentinian soul, because Mr. Vlasov played with light-fingered melancholy, the strings responded with dark fire, and the crowd ate it all up. By the finish - after several short encores - Mr. Spivakov was beaming, and accepting flowers from the crowd. And it was somehow a surprise, upon leaving the theatre, to discover Memorial Hall instead of the Kremlin outside.

Movin' along the highway

A 100-year-old church moves to its new home. From the National Geographic series "Monster Moves." Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.

The ultimate poster boy

With Ennio Marchetto (above), the puns come easy. He's a total cut-up; a swami of origami. You won't believe how his show unfolds, etc. The jokes are all too appropriate because Marchetto has made a career of turning himself into a kind of visual pun: he's a drag artist who costumes himself solely in paper, with half the joke being how cleverly one change is enveloped in another. The results, which are rather like watching a gay caricaturist toss off sketches at life size, are consistently charming, if slight. And at just over an hour, his schtick is both short for a full evening of theatre, but also timed to end just as it threatens to turn into too much of a good thing. His best bits hint at sly satire of their targets (like the slutty Kylie Minogue who morphs into the Singing Nun), or conceal cute conceptual conceits in their design (an Indian goddess who evolves into a three-headed, six-armed vision of the Supremes). And even though the spotlight is on his two-dimensional disguises (created with long-time collaborator Sosthen Hennekam), it should be noted that Ennio himself is a well-rounded mime and performer, with buoyant physical energy and the ability to nail Barbra, Liza, Celine, and almost every other diva alive with a few broad but precisely pointed strokes. True, the piece feels slightly dated - Ennio is essentially an affectionate, pre-millennial show queen with an origami gimmick; he never goes for the deadly, in-bred brilliance of, say, Varla Jean Merman or Kiki & Herb. At the same time, though, he's always a kick, and never a drag. At the Wimberley Theatre through June 1.

Should there be a Hubbie? Or a Bloggie?

The recent Norton Awards only reminded me of the wayward nature of award committees. Not that the IRNEs are any less error-prone - I mean seriously, Man of La Mancha? (I didn't even see it, btw - I hate that fucking show.) What's strangest is when the two awards mysteriously align, as was the case this year with the mediocre No Man's Land at the ART. How did it garner so many awards, from both the IRNEs and the Nortons? "Philistines attempting to look sophisticated" was one analysis, and I'm inclined to agree. To be fair, the Nortons were mostly respectable - all the acting awards went to people who deserved them (aside from ALF's Max Wright), either for the work cited or other roles (award committees tend to play catch-up). The directing awards were a little odder - I'd never have given one to David Wheeler for No Man's, but Paul Daigneault came through with Some Men (less so with Parade and Zanna Don't, but then neither piece is interpretively interesting). The production awards were likewise a mixed bag - Kentucky Cycle was probably the only fringe show everybody saw, Clean House, Sarah Ruhl's recycled Susan Sarandon movie, got the Louise Kennedy vote, and No Child was a bone tossed to the ART (which gets verry pissy when it's not recognized enough!). Not generally as solid a group as last year's awards, I'd say, and the whole thing felt compromised by the fact that the Nortons are now dumping all design work - be it for costumes, sound, lighting, or set - into one category (just so everyone can go home early, I guess).

But could another award committee do any better? It's an interesting question. Is it time for a third local theatre award, a Blogger, or Bloggie, to be decided only by the electronic media critics, who by and large tend to be a smarter bunch than the printies - or at least, write for a smarter audience? Actually, it's probably past time - only somebody else do it, I'm too busy!

And btw, if the Pulitzer committee is looking for a Globe article to honor . . .

. . . it should go to this one.

Laughing Wilde

The stars seemed aligned this season for a fascinating reconsideration of The Importance of Being Earnest - largely because the Publick just closed a rambunctious version of Travesties, Tom Stoppard's clever repurposing of the play as modernist critique. A return trip to the source material could have been brilliant - a kind of cooperative doubling unknown between local theatre companies, with the two productions orbiting each other like opposed artistic twins (rather in the manner of the play's separated-at-birth siblings, Algernon and Jack).

Alas, that didn't happen - even though the productions actually share an actor (Dafydd Rees). This Earnest, however, makes no pretense to exploring the play's philosophical underpinnings; of what Stoppard was talking about, the Lyric has no clue. To director Spiro Veloudos, Oscar Wilde's masterpiece is simply an arch little farce, perfect in its architecture; it earnestly pursues its laughs, and no more. Not that there's anything wrong with that - and to be honest, Veloudos has never shied away from intellectual challenge (indeed, in between Man of La Mancha and This Wonderful Life he's programmed more genuinely avant theatre than the ART). Still, even if it nails its laughs, the production feels like an opportunity lost; it could have been so much more.

And, truth be told, even as a traditional retelling of Oscar Wilde's masterpiece, it's not all that memorable or subtle. Veloudos is smart, but tends to paint with a broad brush, while Earnest is etched with show-queen precision. And his young cast sends off exactly the "vibrations" (to quote the play) one might expect: they're to this manner neither born nor bred, and are doing their best to simulate it after two weeks' rehearsal. That they manage it at all is to be applauded; their accents are mostly in place, their poise carefully maintained; they're all talented and will go far. But no one who's seen a truly polished Importance of Being Earnest would ever be convinced by them.

On the other hand, if you've never seen Earnest, this will probably strike you as a revelation - in the same way that Vanya on 42nd Street stunned so many film reviewers with its depth. The atmosphere may not be there, but the jokes all are, and the production moves like clockwork (sometimes in a mode unconsciously like the mechanically-played scene between Gwendolyn and Cecily in Travesties). There's only one piece of problematic casting - as the Wilde factotum Algernon Moncrieff, Lewis Wheeler does his flat-out best, but he's still a little flat because he's simply not, at bottom, a bemused bon vivant, no matter how hard he tries. And as solid-citizen, straight-arrow Jack Worthing, Ed Hoopman deploys a sonorous speaking voice, but not much more until the last act, when he finally loosens up and has a little fun. The women fare slightly better - as Gwendolyn, Hannah Barth has the right romantic, daffily alienated sexual presence, but sometimes seems unsteady in her attack; meanwhile the more-assured Jessica Grant makes an appealingly straightfoward Cecily, but could use an ounce more inner mischief.

It's in the older generation that the production sparkles a bit. Beth Gotha makes an amusingly ditzy Miss Prism, and Bobbie Steinbach (above, with Wheeler and Grant) works her usual magic with Lady Bracknell. Steinbach isn't physically imposing enough, perhaps, to command the stage (Bracknell should be a real dragon, or maybe even a dragoon), but her command of the lines - many of which by now are dauntingly iconic - is witty and confidently low-key; she knows the way to land Wilde's insane circumlocutions is with impeccable dignity.

Alas, Steinbach's delivery sometimes reminds one of what might have been, if Veloudos had risked something a bit more surreal, rather than the Lyric's usual suburban naturalism. Earnest endures, of course, not just because of its witticisms but also because of its strange sense of size and weird hints at philosophical depth. Veloudos may understand that Wilde's homosexuality, and "double life," is reflected in the play (let's not parse "bunburying" too closely), but he doesn't seem to understand how it's reflected. To Wilde, as to any gay man, of course, the heterosexual norms of society seem utterly arbitrary - it was his brilliant intuition to take this insight and run with it (in earnest, as it were) in Earnest. Everyone's logic in the play is impeccable; but their premises are absurd. Indeed, Wilde pushes this far past any gay perspective - which is why turning Earnest into a drag show doesn't feel quite right, either. After all, Wilde skewers Eros, too, and utterly: Gwendolyn can only hit her G-spot with the name "Ernest," for instance, which seems ridiculous until you consider how the rest of us do it - with blonde hair, or big boobs, or extremities cut or uncut: all ridiculous conditions, and no more absurd than the desire for a certain Christian name. This utterly free perspective, of course, is why Earnest, which perhaps begins modernism in the drama, could also be turned inside out by Stoppard to critique modernism, and why, in a way, the play supersedes the mode it engendered. I suppose it's a bit much to ask a small company like the Lyric to capture all that onstage; still, I can dream, can't I?