Paint by Number

last Sunday (Sunday? Was it really that long ago already?) Ross and I hunkered down on low plank benches in the second row of a tiny black box theatre converted to white by miles of blank packing paper to view ten slender dancers fling paint at each other. Such a simple concept. Ten dancers. Ten gallons of paint. Lots of canvas space. Live music. I have rarely had so much fun at a performance!

Iona Contemporary Dance Company is a jewel of a dance troupe out here in Honolulu. Unfortunately, like many small independent companies, they lack the funding to put on many full productions and end up limiting themselves to being hired out to corporate events, fund raisers, parties and the like. But when they do manage a public performance...

Paint By Number
The show started with five of the company (all scantily clad in white cotton briefs or bikini/panty combos) sprawled out on the paper covered floor. The amount of white was almost blinding from the floor to the five white banner backdrops to the white underwear and powdered skin of the dancers. Five more dancers emerged painfully slowly from behind the banner, carrying silver buckets of tempura pant and hair coiffed into tight crazy braids punctuated with paint brushes.

Creeping, crawling, prowling and sneaking the five examined the five: poked, prodded, looked, smiling mischievously all the while. Slowly slipping from one prone victim to the next, gawking inquisitively to the throbbing electric jazz beat.

The paint itself started innocently enough. A dot on the palm...another on the wrist...gradually covering the entire right hand and forearm of their victims as the victims themselves slowly came to life. At the end of an hour and a half the floor, banners, dancers, and much of the front two rows of the audience were COMPLETELY coated in paint. The energy was astounding...and the spontaneous art that developed as paint was flung, brushed, splattered, caressed and dumped on...it was joyous. Youthful. We had sprung for the cheap seats, affectionately referred to as the splatter zone for a very specific reason. And fortunately so! During the show, not only were we occasionally hit with friendly fire, but the dancers handed off brushes for us to touch up areas they could not reach. And as the paint began to flow more freely and the dancers' bodies became the palettes...they crept over to the front rows and lifted paint off of themselves to paint the audience. The youthful and bald were prime targets...the unfortunate (or very fortunate) father seated next to us left the show donning a very colorful hand print atop his head.

I really wished we had caught the show early in the run as we discovered upon our arrival that photography was allowed. I would have loved to have seen it a second time around. And given the nature of paint and of improvisation, you can guarantee each performance was a unique work of art all its own.

Why Hawaii isn't known for its theatre

I've gotten some stigma for being a designer from the mainland. That the theatre here didn't look to its own local talent to fill the job. But you know what. There's a reason for that. The local talent is...lacking...

Last night I went to see Master of Many Servants at the University of Hawaii--Manoa. Immediately upon sitting in the theatre I had to stifle a groan. All the legs were up. Orange cones and mylar littered the stage. Students clad in black were miming pulling nails out of the floor, sweeping, focusing lights, moving props. Crap. It felt so...academic. So cliche and overdone. The pretension of a university attempting to say "I'm doing something unique...something meta theatrical...something...Brechtian even....we'll make you aware you're watching a play."

It wasn't as well done as the pre-show for UWSP's Country Wife where the cast was actually going through their pre-show activities...warming up, putting up makeup, sweeping, etc. Nope...all mimed and rehearsed, blocked and carefully staged.

I perused the director's notes and groaned more audibly. He was making this piece into a commentary on the lack of funding for the university. Now I love topical theatre. I'm all for using an older work to shine a new light on a modern problem. Only...this play really had no relationship to that message. Aside from dragging this play out so long because it needs to please so many people...serve to many masters...

And this message of lack of funding...of rehearsals held in bathrooms, overbooked spaces, costumes stored in less than desirable locales...its not new. It's not unique to this university or this theatre. It sounded like a whining teenager. And the play hadn't even started yet.

Then it did...dancers came out to warm up. Followed closely by the cast of the show in rehearsal costumes. An argument ensued about who booked the space. And a duo from the Asian studies came in to rehearse as well. Followed by a rack of costumes because storage was full. And a theatre practice student in desperate need to fulfill his 100 hour requirement to complete the course. All inside jokes pertaining to an academic setting. My date was slightly lost...he got the gist of it...but it was elitist and alienating...

2o minutes in and the scripted play still hadn't started. Finally the "director" came in with someone from accounting to straighten thing out. A performance was to be put on, unannounced, 5 minutes from now, for a group of donors (meaning the audience apparently). And as it was a performance for donors and sponsors the show was to be littered with product placement and fulfill several requirements (more language, less profanity, more sexual content, promote family values, etc).

Finally, after a cell phone user gets thrown into the pit (Ryan, a friend of mine at that...had I not known he was an actor returned to UH as a favor this bit it would have been priceless), the show began. The cell phone bit was probably the highlight of the evening. Well, that and when during the sword fight when the door to the pit is finally opened Ryan, long forgotten, runs out and up the aisle screaming towards the exit.

Three hours later the show ended. In between were poorly executed lights, costumes and sets (the set was a graduate student's thesis, the costumes done by faculty). About an hour too long. With only two notable performances...and not by the guest local actor who engaged in a very rehearsed bit of improve. One, thankfully was the lead. The other...the bit part of the Porter.

Yeah, it was funny at points. It is a commedia piece, so inserting local references added a nice twist without taking you out of the show. But they did an excellent job of pulling you out nonetheless by stopping to promote Coke, or Newmann's dressing or Tylenol. The "epic" sword fight was underscored by themes from Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean. The lazzi of close misses was accompanied by the Benny Hill theme. All in all, a lot of cliches. Which could have been the point. Cliches to please the larger audience. But it wasn't fluid. It seemed cheap and lazy.

And a random fusion theatre incorporating Kunqu, modern dance and the servant character from the play. That 7 minutes made me feel like I must have downed a bottle of water laced with acid. But it was the most visually interesting part of the whole show...

All in all...it made me glad I had comp tickets and hadn't paid to see the show. Which is really said since the whole point was that they didn't have funding in the first place...

Lonesome West

Last night was preview of Lonesome West. Certainly in the running for best show of the season against Mud. Funny how both of Rutgers better shows were directed by the students...

The show was visually pleasing, though at times hard to understand. The men playing Valene and Coleman did a fabulous job maintain their accents, unfortunately the accents were not that easily understood. And when you have as large of an English as a second language community as we do, this tends to be a bit of a problem. I ended up explaining a good portion of the plot to two of our designers at intermission.

The costumes worked very well, despite the shift away from the designer's more stylized punk feeling to a more traditional Irish look. Girleen remained very punked out, but her character can play this very easily. The set on the other hand, while very beautiful, it looked like it belonged to a different show. Yes, the house was appropriately worn down and dilapidated, but during every blackout your focus was pulled to a beautiful hillscape/mountainscape painted above the acting area. It didn't seem to fit. And the landscape does not hold enough importance in the script for it to be the focus of every scene change. That and the neon orange stove. The color made it seem as though the designer were attempting to make some deeper statement or metaphor by have such a vibrantly colored stove on the set. No. She really chose that color because it was odd, something Valene might be able to afford. Why not have it be an existing stove color, like mustard yellow or avocado green? Instead you couldn't take your eyes off of it, the brightest piece of anything on the stage. It distracted from the actors, who were already struggling to hold your attention with their garbled dialects. A shame really, this was a professional scenic designer hired for the production.

The pace felt a bit slow and the acting a bit flat. It was a fabulous show, but between the dialects, the stove, and the pace I had a hard time becoming engaged. I'm sure the pace will pick up. I'll try to see it next weekend before it closes to see the improvements. I'm thrilled to see our student direcotrs and actors bring such solid work to Rutger's, all nitpicking aside.

Light in the Piazza

I must admit, this musical was a bit of a let down after all of the press I had been hearing from my professors. Though they did admit they had low expectations heading into the show and were pleasantly surprised. Me, on the other hand, was expecting to see a stunning show, only to be let down. I went in with expectations too high (and freshly off the emotional rollercoaster of Brokeback Mountian). I also attribute part of the problem to the seating. Lincoln Center Theater is much more thrust that it is proscenium, and while the scenic designer did a fabulous job making a beautiful set from every angle, I don't think the choreographer or director where prepared to deal with more than one side of the audience. The singing was pretty, but that's about all. I had trouble listening to them when they sang. They were perfectly audible; and the mix with the orchestra, well not the best, didn't hinder my ability to hear. I simply didn't care enough to listen to what they had to say and instead focused on the sound. The scenes in Italian were by far much more interesting, in staging, in music, in intensity. Had it been all foreign, perhaps I would have been more engaged.

The lighting was atrocious, yet it won a Tony. The lights seemed unmotivated, or at the very least, motivated by the need to hide a scene change which I noticed anyway. Again, this may have been a seating and staging issue. I bet it looks fabulous from the center front.

The scenic design and costume designs were superb. They created a beautiful world around the characters (and occasionally the lights did contribute something). I was thoroughly impressed with each character's wardrobe. It looked as though the designer truly managed to get into each of the characters heads and came up with a believable set of clothing for each of them. You buy that every single garment would have been in their respective closets and that they would have chosen to wear that garment on that given day. This is the first time I've been able to sense that. They were much more than just pretty 50's clothes. And I never noticed a quick change (there were a lot of them). Wonderful planning.

Victoria Clark deserved her Tony. She played her character with a dignity and grace similar to that of Judy Kaye in Souvenir. Unfortunately she is the only character with much depth or conflict.

It is a sweet little love story. Not much more. The score wasn't anything special. While it was pretty, I wouldn't be able to recall a single note of it if my life depended on it (and I have a good memory for music)It is a shame student tickets are $30 (don't worry about them being sold out, but I would be concerned about where you sit), otherwise I would recommend seeing it.

Opening Night

It has arrived. Tonight the show officially opens, and as I skipped out on preview, I feel slightly obligated to attend tonight. Please there is snaking a schmoozing do to afterwards. And always thanks to pass around (especially to my fabulous wardrobe crew).

Last night I did skip out, due to the fear of an inappropriate crowd. Many of the actors were nervous as well, some to the point of wanting to cancel a preview performance. But you need a first audience, regardless of how immature the previewers may be (all of the Mason Gross Theatre Students, both graduate and undergrad--shocking to think of a college crowd as immature). By all accounts, the show went off wonderfully. They laughed when they needed to and reacted less to the actors and more to the characters--a first, especially given that these are their peers on stage, not to mention one gentleman is in a dress and another does a strip dance. I was told Rico carried himself with such dignity that it would have been challenging to laugh at him.

Instead, I viewed Parson's dance company again, although only 3 of the 6 pieces were ones we had already viewed. It was an interesting experiment: seeing how well some dance worked from the front row verses the balcony. David's Wolfgang piece was much more successful from afar. Granted, his costumes were beautiful, but at a distance they were not as distracting (never, ever put shiny burgandy velvet panties on your dancers unless you want to call attention to their butts and midriffs when they twirl--they should have been in matte leotards underneath the bodices and skirts). Caught was just as effective from the balcony, though it took a second longer for my eyes to adjust to the strobe light this time. Hands was better up close, but the dancers also felt slightly off during that piece. William Ivey Long's costumes for Scrutiny were the most boring out of the bunch. Effective, yes, but with that name you expect a little more glitzy and showy than black tank tops and black pants. David's piece to the Dave Matthew's Band was run of the mill for dance and costumes. Ellen's right--the clothes (modern) were a 50 year old gay man's interpretation of what is young and hip. They all looked fabulous in their jeans though. I was glad I went though.

Scapin and Misanthrope

As I am currently taking a break from more homework (it really never ends) I thought this would be a good time to catch up on the plays I saw last weekend. Scapin and Misanthrope were part of Columbia University's season--a showcase of sorts for their MFA III actors. I did sit through two Moliere plays in one day, but at $5 a piece, I am not going to complain. The plays were staged at Riverside Church, near Columbia. The theatre was fairly intimate...maybe 200 seats at the most with decent sight lines all around. I made it a point to sit at different locations for both shows.

Scapin was what Rutgers attempted to do with As You Like it, except it was done successfully. The production looked like a modern Commedia troupe right off the cart. I was expecting something a little more substantial and connected, but the show was fun, nonetheless. My biggest complaint was the costumes, they looked cheap, thrown together and unfinished, but not in an intentional way. I personally to not find any appeal to purposefully making a production look half-assed, but there seems to be a rash of that recently. The costumes were suggestions of traditional commedia costumes with suggestions of period clothing using what looked to be cheap fabric and a limited build time. It was a little distracting at times. As a series of quick skits, the show was fabulous, but as a two hour play it began to get a bit tedious. That isn't to say the acting wasn't great (some of the staging and choreography was very impressive), but it is Moliere, and commedia or not, he deserves a little more attention than the slapstick routine.

Misanthrope faired much better. The gentleman playing Alceste played him sincerely and unforgivingly. Despite the character's cinisim, you could buy that he was taken with the female lead. The director set the production in Victorian times--bustle dresses. And they used bustles, not those pissy little bum rolls you often see on stage for a Victorian piece. The set, which was the same set for Scapin, worked much better in this production. The greenish wash that drove me nuts during Scapin worked wonderfully against the costumes in Misanthrope. A few wonderful character parts were played well, without pushing the comedy. That may have worked for Scapin, but I appreciated the restraint in Misanthrope, especially against the background of Victorian decorum. Here again, my biggest complaint is about costumes. But only the leading lady's. Why would you decide to change one character's costumes for every scene, yet leave everyone else untouched? And if you are going to take the time to put her in a different costume for every scene, please make your hems immaculate and make sure someone back stage adjusts her petticoats during the quick change. Few things are as distracting an old petticoat peaking out from under an otherwise beautiful dress.

It was very refreshing to see such a range from the actors between Scapin and Misanthrope. It makes me nervous to see what atrocisty will end up on our stage nest semester when we tackle Scapin.

Souvenir

If four years of French has taught me nothing else...at least I can spell with an abundance of vowels.

This afternoon, after fighting the crowds and my rolling suitcase through NY's garment district, I attended Souvenir at the Lyceum. This was courtesy of Michael Miller, the head of Rutgers' MFA theatre design program and scenic designer on this production. The show is still in preview, but from what I saw, they could be ready to open tomorrow. The play/musical follows the musical career of Florence Foster Jenkins, a socialite who gave hilariously off-key recitals that became the talk of New York in the 1940's. She did perform at Carnegie Hall, that performance being the meat of Act II. What a fabulous reversal that occurs during that concert! (For more on reversals Aristotle's Poetics...he rambles on that topic for a while)

I'm not generally a musical fan, though I wouldn't pin this as a musical. It is a bout the musical career of Mrs. Jenkins and her relationship with her pianist, so there is singing...mostly off-key given the subject matter. The show was mostly one person vamping at the piano, awaiting Mrs. Jenkins entrances at various points. But the story is so engaging, the set beautifully clean and symmetrical and the costumes so wonderfully tasteful, that all 30 of us students who attended (plus the remainder of the sold out house) were entranced. Funny, moving, meaningful. It truly was a marvelous jewel. I only hope it can stay afloat in the sea of flashy Broadway. A change may be in the wind, though...several currently running shows are not typical money makers...a non-traditional Sweeney Todd, a bit of obscure Albee, earlier this year the Pillowman. It is an exciting time.

As You Like It

As You Like It---the "extra silly" version. The recent publicity from the university about our production started with the headline: Mason Gross to Stage Extra Silly As You Like It. Extra Silly. This production made me embarrassed to say I attend Mason Gross at Rutgers.

Preview was last night and the show still looks rough. The premise, as described to me, is that it should appear like a low budget, undesigned high school black box production. I've seen fabulous black box, minimalist productions of Shakespeare done successfully before. Often, stripping down to the essentials makes you focus more on the characters. It worked with the BFA IV's Trolieus and Cressida earlier in the semester, in the exact same theater nonetheless. Of course, the BFA's had also studied Trolieus and Cressida at the Globe in London. Apparently black box does not work with this director. "Extra Silly" seems to mean anything goes, or maybe he used the phrase to justify the lack of direction. Black Box translated into a bunch of childish trash and chalk drawings for the set and props. Costumes should have looked like clothes the actors probably would have worn anyway with maybe a hat here or a petticoat there, not the unflattering mismatched outfits they were actually costumed in. What I saw on stage was several actors speeding through the verse without knowing what they saying. Running around on the set without a purpose or direction. It really was pure crap. No other way to put it nicely. I've never left a show at intermission until last night.

Parson's Dance Company

Today courtesy of David, five of the Rutgers costume design students viewed Parson's Dance Company's performance at the Joyce Theatre. Oh, it was so nice to see a good dance show again! The seats were front and center. For the most part, this is a reasonable location for this sort of show, but at times I wished I were further back--like when one of the dancers miscalculated and leapt into the lap of a girl five seats down. A gasp, a leap and a step...he was back into the piece, no injuries or pause to see.

Overall it was a fabulous concert. We saw the "B" program, as David's more interesting design was included. Wolfgang, six dancers, ballet, 18th century suggested costumes. A nice simple piece. The perfect one to start with. While it was a phenomenal piece, to have it follow anything else in the show would have been disastrous. It really was a well arrange program.

Hands was fascinating. Five company members performed, using only their hands. In fact the only part you could see was their hands. After a while the objects moving before us ceased to look like hands at all and took on the form of moving, undulating, flowing lights. The piece had a wonderful sense of humor about it too, using only their hands. Sometimes I wonder how much actors are really missing out on when they restrict their expressions to the face and voice.

Union was an odd piece though, after a point, I ceased to watch the movement (something akin to human knots slowly being formed) and focused on the bodies of the dancers. The costumes couldn't really let you focus on much else. A design by Donna Karen (yes of DKNY). Simple, tight fitting black unitards edges with what I thought to be blue. However, the unitards only covered one leg and one arm on each dancer. Some covered the chest, some left it half exposed, some (guys) were completely bare chested. The muscle on these dancers was incredible. I couldn't help but gap in awe as they braced themselves against each other.

Act Two opened with Caught. If the lighting hadn't been impressive enough to begin with... This number, a solo, started with what I would consider fairly run of the mill modern (similar to the solo Susan Gingrasso performed at Point three years ago). Running, sustaining, pausing, running again, coming into and out of the light....that was the first hint that this piece would be a good one. The dancer literally disappeared as he retreated from the light and emerged from nothing as he stepped into it. He ended upstage center when the meat of the piece was exposed. Strobe lighting took over the rest of the piece...not the continuous flashing strobes, but isolated moments, timed to catch the dance mid-air, mid-step, mid turn...he did a series of movements that, with the strobes, made it appear as if he was materializing at different points on the stage without effort...first in a circle around the stage, then from one side to the other, then fading towards the back. Another series made him appear to walk in the air. It was incredible what these snapshots of light fooled us into believing. I did notice to wonderful tricks the company used...the dancer had the remote that triggered the lights. Instead of relying on timer or a board op, he would cue the light himself at the appropriate moment. I also noticed a person in white in the downstage wing. A focal point and marking tool for the dancer. I can not imagine how difficult it would be to keep your place on the stage with a violent burst of light like that. It was surprisingly easy on the eyes as well. There was enough pause between each burst to let the eye refocus (I think the lights only truly strobed at one point). After each sequence, the dancer would end up upstage center in a pool of white light, as if he had never moved, again letting our eyes rest before the next sequence. I haven't been this impressed with lighting in a long time.

The final number was choreographed to Earth Wind and Fire. Wonderfully upbeat, sexy, fun and seventies! Again, phenomenal lighting. And all of the dancers looked like they loved what they were doing.

The entire concert was so uplifting. Everyone left in better spirits than they came in with. Not all theater may have a message, but this certainly had an impact.

The Shape of Things

Every once in a while we are let out of our offices and assorted places of work in order to better ourselves through the viewing of good theatre. Granted this was Jameson Theatre, Mason Gross' black box literally a block away from Walters Hall, but good theatre is definitely in order. Truth be told, some of our better productions take place in this space. A show such as Shape of Things tends to thrive better in a black box setting as it is.

Oh our fabulous second year director did it again. His use of transitions never ceases to amaze me. Transitions were a major flaw in Point's production a few years back...well the transitions resulting from a proscenium stage in a black box using levels anyway. Will manages to have the action continue through without causing a raised eye in the audience. A difficult task with several locations to accommodate in the show. Even more fascinating was the audience's reaction during Evelyn's presentation at the end (for those unfamiliar with the show, you will not find any spoilers here). One patron was so uncomfortable she outright laughed at the character the entire time. This is a small space...about 60 uncomfortable seats total. Everyone noticed her reaction. The actress played off her very well. You can sort of judge which camp this audience member fell into by her reaction, but I hope that discomfort lead to some serious thought. First time around I would have aligned myself with this patron. Now I sympathize with Evelyn all the more. Fascinating show.

A lot of the younger audience reacted very strongly scenes suggesting infidelity. Apparently the concept of someone cheating is touchier than I suspect. Some reaction is hopeful but there were audible gasps from several undergrads in the audience (I suspect a large number of tonight's audience were non-theatre students required to come for a theatre appreciation class...very few got the Othello reference). I tried to think of my initial reaction to these scenes, and I recall some disgust, but nothing that would have warranted a verbal response. Here I am sounding all technical and objective as if to evade a thought...which I do quite often. With "what if" running through my mind recently it really isn't surprising that I wouldn't react.