Dancing feat

The Youtube promo for Urbanity Dance.

I'm late with a few words - which happily can be kind ones - about Urbanity Dance, a new dance group founded and directed by Betsi Graves Akerstein, which gave its first performance ever, "Cage Free," at the BU Dance Studio last weekend. (Full disclosure: I was invited by a friend, Kate Patten Cook, who dances with them.) The troupe is loosely centered in alumni of Boston College, all of whom have a surprisingly high level of talent and training, and who under Ms. Akerstein's direction managed to sustain that high level minute-to-minute in a two-hour-plus program of their own choreography (which is no small feat).

What was even more surprising, however, was the professional sheen of the whole production. There was a panoply of smart and sexy costumes, and two very-cool set-pieces (such as the giant bird-cage below) to ooh and ah over, while the lighting (by Matt Breton) morphed constantly in close coordination with the dance, much in the mode of Nederlands Dans Theater. One left the performance in a certain awe of both Ms. Akerstein's logistical skills and the determination and dedication of her young troupe.

And the dances themselves were always energetic, resourceful and charming, even if they tended to bump repeatedly against a certain artistic ceiling. The program had a "theme" - freedom - which everyone can believe in without getting into pesky specifics, and Ms. Akerstein had decided to let many of the dancers have their own choreographic say on the subject: she developed a long initial piece, which was then followed by a series of shorter dances, each generally the length of an accompanying pop song. Given those parameters, you can probably guess at the pop-literalism that slightly limited the work; we knew we would eventually see an actual bird-cage (with an actual dancer trapped in it) and an actual bare-chested guy with a literal pair of wings, etc. (although the wings, which blinked, did look awesome). The musical selections were also what you might expect from a lot of choreographers fresh out of a liberal arts college: Sigur Rós and Sufjan Stevens figured prominently, as did Dario Marianelli (composer of such high-end chick-lit-flicks as Atonement and Pride and Prejudice).


Urbanity Dance in action. Photos by Eli Akerstein.

Still, I can't say I didn't enjoy the program (despite its over-amplification); I mean, what's not to like about large groups of pretty girls (and the occasional boy) struggling to be free of something or other? And I have to give a shout-out to my pal Katie, whose choreography for "La Belle et Le Bad Boy" and "Such Great Heights" struck me as particularly strong. Not that anyone in this line-up is a slouch. There were plenty of fine moments from Ms. Akerstein and others, as well as a striking solo from dancer Kara McCann; it's clear Urbanity Dance has in its first program already staked out a prominent piece of territory on the local dance map. Moving forward, however, I hope they can break out of a certain jazz-dance cage that "Cage Free" sometimes seemed stuck in (this is probably the artistic flip side of its laudable commitment to artistic inclusion). And more solos and duets would be nice - the choral sequences got a little repetitive, and floated along at about the same level of intensity; the sudden pairing of Jon Arpino and Michelle Costello, for instance, brought a welcome dose of conflict and something like real narrative to the goings-on. But I'm sure, given their obvious organization and vision (they even gave out a scholarship!), that artistic expansion is definitely among this troupe's plans.

A bright Moon at Merrimack

Kate Udall and Michael Canavan light up A Moon for the Misbegotten.

It's becoming something like a drumbeat here at the Hub Review, I know, but I'll say it again: to see truly great theatre, you have to go to Lowell, and buy a ticket to the Merrimack Rep. Because no one else in New England is doing what this theatre is doing. Certainly not the Huntington or the ART! And, I have to admit, not our slick mid-sized success stories like SpeakEasy Stage, the Lyric and the New Rep, either (clever and worthy as many of their productions may be). Or the over-rated, under-achieving Trinity Rep down in Providence. There's really no one in their league in the region.

Not that I'm always in love with what I see at Merrimack; they've made their missteps and compromises, true, and next year's season looks like something of a retreat. But any theatre that can produce both Skylight and now A Moon for the Misbegotten in a single season (after last year's A Delicate Balance) deserves the undying allegiance of true theatre-goers everywhere. Would the ART or the Huntington even know how to aim this high anymore? I don't think so.

And what's the Merrimack's magic formula? Well, it goes something like this: select a challenging, classic text, and have some faith in it. Cast the best actors you can find. Direct them with respect, insight and care. Design an appropriate setting. And then sit back and watch as the audience is riveted by a confrontation with the terrible contradictions of the human condition.

That's basically it. I guess it's harder than it sounds, though. Or maybe director Edward Morgan - not to mention artistic director Charles Towers, who helmed the previous triumphs listed above - is simply a kind of dinosaur wandering through the theatrical landscape; no one ever seems to have explained to him that classic texts are dead, and must be goosed into life by the rules laid down by a few academics, schizophrenics and Marxists. Or maybe he just didn't listen - and thank God for that! For this Moon not only easily eclipses the ART's version of some twenty years ago (which featured Kate Nelligan); it also ranks among the best two or three productions of O'Neill I've ever seen.

And this despite a flaw at its very center: its James Tyrone, I'm afraid, is miscast. Michael Canavan (who's making his Merrimack debut) is a skilled and confident actor, it's true, but his salesman's good looks hint merely at unreliability rather than the weakness and shame that haunt almost all of O'Neill's heroes (a younger James Tyrone also figures in the O'Neill family portrait Long Day's Journey into Night). Canavan is surrounded and supported by two great performances, however - Kate Udall's, as Josie, the giant of a woman he turns to for solace, and Gordon Joseph Weiss's as her drunken, abusive da - and somehow in this company he finds his way. Indeed, through his own commitment to the core of the role Canavan waxes, rather than wanes, in emotional power as the play progresses. I still couldn't say that he outshines Udall, however, who, with her rough-hewn physical beauty - and precisely-rendered ambivalent moods - pretty much limns every corner of Josie's contradictory mix of vulnerability, longing, and crude bravado.


Udall and Gordon Joseph Weiss hatch a plot in A Moon for the Misbegotten.

This great actress knows, however, to let Josie's tragic stature creep up on us, and so she plays at first only the character's comedy - then again how could she not, given the performance of Weiss, which is perhaps the most perfect piece of acting craft I've seen all year? Weiss's "bad tempered old hornet" is a small comic masterpiece, so richly detailed physically and so exquisitely pitched emotionally that it literally had some people in the audience in tears of laughter. He's been Tony-nominated in the past, and if this performance were on a New York stage, he probably would be again. There's also some amusingly underplayed work from John Kooi (who likewise impressed in the Foothills Take Me Out) as the wealthy neighbor Josie and her da play some nasty tricks on, and a quick but effective cameo from IRNE winner Karl Baker Olson as the brother whom Josie helps escape from their hellish homestead. Altogether it's as fine an ensemble as you're likely to see in these parts for many a moon. Now how can we get some millionaire to sponsor a Merrimack tour to Cambridge or Boston? Because we could use some real culture out here in the sticks.

A new dawn for Upshaw

Pity me: until Sunday I'd never heard Dawn Upshaw (at left) sing anything live but the work of Osvaldo Golijov, whom I'm hardly crazy about. So the beauty of her luminous voice has always been slightly occluded for me by my complicated response to what that voice was singing. But in Sunday's Celebrity Series concert, the familiar strains of Golijov were heard only once (and in one of his best songs), while we were far more often regaled with melodies from the likes of Ives, Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen, and Bolcomb. And the results were pure bliss - a series of musical settings which set off seemingly every facet of Upshaw's radiant instrument. Indeed, despite her recent medical travails (from which she's emerged with a clean bill of health), she seems in better voice than ever.

Well, actually, the concert was almost pure bliss; the audience kind of spoiled its perfection. At one point Upshaw had to pause while an elderly patron adjusted her hearing aid, which had begun to beep. Then later, in the final encore, another patron was actively rude, and actually made a phone call during Upshaw's performance (see sidebar). Oh, well. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. Upshaw proved unflappable, however, and indeed was charming as she ad-libbed, sans attitude, while the rogue hearing aid was attended to.

Then it was back to Upshaw's achingly pure soprano, and, of course, her superb taste and questing musical open-mindedness. The concert began brilliantly, with haunting interpretations of several songs from Charles Ives - "Songs My Mother Taught Me," "Two little flowers (and dedicated to them)," "Down East" - that caught perfectly a wistfulness we rarely associate with this composer. (Upshaw threw in the hilarious "Very Pleasant" to remind us of his wit as well.)

She took a time-out to listen raptly to accompanist Gilbert Kalish's accomplished performance of the "Alcotts" movement from Ives's Second Piano Sonata, then returned with a set of French art-song, including a wonderful performance of Fauré's "Pale dawn" and an intense reading of Debussy's "The Hair." Her bid for exoticism in the same composer's "Pan's flute" was perhaps less successful - she's just too sweetly straightforward; but her interpretation of Ravel's "The swan" was just right - serenely ravishing, with a last fillip of bemused insight. The first half of the concert ended with another intense crescendo, as she limned all the ecstatic power of Messiaen's erotically-charged "Fulfilled prayer."

After intermission, the soprano touched base with Golijov (who was in the audience to cheer her on), but at least it was with one of his best songs, the devastating "Moon, colorless." Then a rather complex set-up began for the concert's premiere - from Michael Ward-Bergeman, who's in Golijov's circle - called "Treny (Laments)". The piece featured a small ensemble of piano, flute, cello, and "hyper-accordion" (played by the composer), which proved to be an accordion amplified and enhanced with deeper bass and various echoes and electronic effects. The intersection of electronica and live, unmediated performance seems to be one of Upshaw's interests, and this sample proved beguiling. Based on a 16th-century poem by Jan Kochanowski on the death of his daughter, its piercing lamentation suited the soprano well (her vibrato-free upper register can project a pure mournfulness sans any affectation); the only real problem with the piece is that it seems overlong, or perhaps more accurately, not satisfyingly structured for its given length.

The concert ended grandly, however, with a delightful set of songs from William Bolcomb (one of my favorite composers) that truly crossed art with pop, and floated lightly between witty, parodistic edge and floods of genuine feeling. "Waitin'" was spiritual yearning made simple, and pure; "The Song of Mad Max" both tickled and chilled; and as for the sweetly funny "Amor" - well, just make sure that before you die you hear this song at least once, and preferably performed by Upshaw. The crowd cried out for an encore, and she returned with another lively turn from Bolcom ("George") and the ever-welcome "Im Frühling" by Schubert, before sending everyone out into the fading day refreshed and renewed as after a long drink from a bright, pure spring.

Play the Hub Review off, keyboard cat!

Just because: my favorite (by far) of the "Play him/her off, keyboard cat" videos.

This Bride is a mixed, but enjoyable, bag

Let me first say that it's wonderful that Boston has two genuinely thriving opera companies - Boston Lyric Opera, which leans toward standards, and Opera Boston, which generally programs rarities, and I wish both well. If I often sound skeptical about the praise lavished on Opera Boston, it's because they seem to have a patron saint in former Globe critic Richard Dyer, who writes their program notes (and who long belittled Boston Lyric Opera while carrying the torch for Sarah Caldwell, who was basically a lost cause). And current Globe critic Jeremy Eichler, of course, has taste that not-so-mysteriously matches Dyer's, while Keith Powers over at the Herald gushes so much over Opera Boston that he makes Eichler's promotional pieces seem staid. And it's worth mentioning that Opera Boston's conductor, Gil Rose, is firmly embedded in the local musical hierarchy in an interesting way, as his Boston Modern Orchestra Project serves as a kind of vanity performance venue for local music professors (who sponsor concerts of their own works). It's true there's good reason to applaud Opera Boston for programming all that rarely-heard repertoire; still, if all these connections sound rather cozy - well, they are; but certainly no cozier than Harvard's pull with the Globe, say. Local critical writing has always been, and will always be, a patchwork of hidden alliances, agendas and allegiances; there's a Harvard mafia, there's a gay mafia - and of course there's always the Mafia mafia, too. That's life.

But back to The Bartered Bride (at left), another rarity which Opera Boston presents this weekend through Tuesday, and which is one of the strongest productions I've seen them give. It's certainly more enjoyable than their production of The Nose, which I suppose was nothing to sneeze at, but with which, to mix my metaphors, they had clearly bitten off more than they could chew (its local reputation strikes me as nearly delusional). There are, however, still the vocal gaps in The Bartered Bride that one expects from Opera Boston; the tenor, who has a beautiful timbre in his middle range, thins out abruptly further up (and just barely hits his top notes), and the soprano, who likewise has a bold, golden tone in general, can get a little shrill when she's not careful (both above left). Sometimes this troupe lands a major talent like Dawn Upshaw - next season they're promising Ewa Podleś - but in general they haven't broken into the vocal tier from which Boston Lyric Opera casts.

And beyond the vocals, there were other problems. The "woodcut" set seemed at first outright ugly (again, par for the Opera Boston course) - although to be fair, it came together for the surreal circus scenes, with the help of some abstract set-pieces. And the production was studded with odd choices - its relocation to the American Midwest seemed to half-connect to American musical comedy, but didn't really yield any new insights into the material (in a nod to the local academy, it was set in Stillville, Iowa, where the professors know Dvořák spent a summer). Meanwhile the costumes seemed to float somewhere between the early 70's and the 30's. The "folk dancing" looked like Martha Graham's idea of a polka (a chunk of it, however, was replaced with a cute little baseball game), and sometimes the chorus, in a burst of ancestral heartiness, switched from English to Czech (when, in what I assume was a kind of in-joke, the super-titles switched to Czech, too!).

On the plus side, there was the energetic score, which is always clever and appealing, rather like the show's protagonist (although unfortunately it contains no truly great arias), and conductor Rose did well by it. The opera didn't quite sound lusty, as it probably should, but it was always spirited and crisp, and from the opening notes of the famous overture, the orchestra played with speed and cohesive attack. Plus the English translation, by Tony Harrison, was truly witty, and the chorus sang with brio, and generally sounded terrific.

And there's certainly at least one reason to seek out this production: Keith Jameson's performance as the hapless Vašek, the milquetoast whose father nearly manages to purchase for him the bride in question. The role is a comic jewel, but some of its material - Vašek's stutter, for instance - can turn ugly in the wrong hands. Luckily, Jameson (at left) was not just self-deprecating but utterly endearing, and his scenes were a delight, easily the high points of the production. Even more striking was that soprano Jennifer Aylmer, who hadn't been all that convincing in bride Mařenka's romantic scenes, found her feet in her duets with Jameson, and suddenly morphed into a crack comedienne. Their long scene together was comic opera heaven.

There was another nice, seedily comic turn from Frank Kelley as the ringmaster of the circus that comes to town (ably impersonated here by Boston Conservatory dancers), and a lovely vocal performance from Sara Heaton as the gypsy Esmeralda (although Ms. Heaton needs to sing out a bit). As the wedding broker Kecal, Boston favorite James Maddalena proved he had not lost his sense of comic timing, but alas, his voice isn't what it used to be, and was a bit threadbare here and there. And the opera lost its way again when it re-focused on its central couple; tenor Patrick Miller's happy handsomeness was just too bland to hold our interest, and he and Aylmer never generated the romantic feeling that would make the "betrayal" at the plot's center dramatically compelling. The witty flourishes provided by director Daniel Pelzig couldn't really compensate for this. On the other hand, Keith Jameson alone may be worth the price of admission. There's still one more performance, on Tuesday night, for you to decide for yourself.

Alvin Ailey at 50

The men of Alvin Ailey.

Tuesday brought the great Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater troupe to town for a week-long celebration of its 50th anniversary, hosted by Celebrity Series. The annual Ailey visit is always a cause for celebration, for it brings us back into contact with a dazzling set of dancers. And this time the troupe brought with it a short film about its founder, its current artistic director, Judith Jamison, and of course itself. It also premiered a new piece of choreography - "Go in Grace," developed in concert with the popular a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Still, the visit gave me almost as much cause for pause as it did for celebration. The Ailey dancers, of course, remain fabulous creatures, almost superhuman in their unbelievable energy and presence. But the dance statement they are now making is showing signs of - well, at best over-familiarity, and at worst a kind of folksy tunnel vision, in both artistic and political terms.

"Go in Grace," for instance, sounds so interesting on paper, but felt like little more than a well-intentioned experiment in brand synergy on stage. Ailey dancer (and new choreographer) Hope Boykin has devised a cliched story line that's all about a young girl's coming of age. Her brother gets mixed up with a gang, and her daddy passes away - and it turns out, as I learned from the program notes, that she's also deaf! (To be fair, conveying that in dance would be a challenge.) The sweet thing of course perseveres through her travails, always surrounded by warm, powerful women who are somehow completely powerless to do anything but sing out loud and proud, etc. The music, written as well as sung by Sweet Honey in the Rock, went down easy but was hardly memorable, while the dancing only got lively when that obstreperous, seductive gang was around, and the attempted integration of the singers and the dancers somehow didn't really come off.

Next up was the more engaging, if still superficial, "Suite Otis," a tribute (in hot pink, no less) to the late, great Otis Redding choreographed and costumed by George Falson. Again, the choreography was limited in its vocabulary, and leaned toward clowning, but was so energetic and fun that this hardly mattered. The troupe ended the evening with yet another rendition of their central choreographic text, Ailey's by-now-iconic "Revelations." And truth be told, this dance never really ages, and incredibly, the dancers - some of whom have been doing it over and over again for years - continue to perform it with a moving emotional commitment.

Still, "Revelations" isn't exactly a revelation anymore. And its political content is today undercut with painful irony. Alvin Ailey (as a young man, at left), was not only a great African-American artist, of course, but also a great gay artist, who died of complications from AIDS in 1989 (to the very end, he hid his diagnosis from his homophobic mother). Yet even in its commemorative film about him, the company seems unable to make any mention of his sexuality. Even after 50 years, Alvin Ailey is still in the closet as far as they're concerned. And how is it possible to fully commit ourselves to the human vision of "Revelations" if gay black men are somehow left out of its message? And what exactly is motivating this silence - which is all the stranger given that much Ailey choreography sexualizes the company's male dancers quite openly? (Indeed, "Suite Otis" opens with a young stud wagging his hot-pink-clad bottom at us.) Is the company afraid of losing fans, or losing face, or losing face because of its fans, who may harbor their own form of bigotry?

I don't know the answers to those questions, of course, but I do know that the central question of civil rights in this country today revolves around sexuality. It's time for the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater to accept that, and truly embrace the meaning of its founder's life and work.

The Foothills Theatre closes

The Great Recession, as it's becoming known, claims another victim. From a statement on the Foothills website:

"It is with sadness and disappointment that the Board of Directors and I must announce that Foothills Theatre Company will suspend operations following our current production of Doubt and will not be able to complete its 2008-2009 Season with You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

The rest of the statement, which holds out the possibility of the theatre's return in a different form or location, is available here.