By Brian Sands
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Old and New, East and West
Dralion
at Zephyr Field
For those who have never experienced Cirque du Soleil before, their production of Dralion, recently seen in New Orleans, would serve as a fine introduction. Using their patented blend of acrobats, jugglers, aerial acts, clowns, music and lighting design to create une nouvelle circus, Dralion delights an audience for over two hours.
For those who have been entranced by previous Cirque outings, Dralion offers another delectable evening of circus legerdemain filtered through a new age sensibility. And even perhaps for those who have yet to be captivated by the Cirque mystique, Dralion just might be the one to win you over.
Dralion takes as its theme the four elements-–air (blue costumes), fire (red), water (green) and earth (brown). If this theme was never fully integrated into the show, it never got in the way either. In fact, the color-coding mainly served to individualize performers who might otherwise have gotten lost amidst the visual panoply.
As for the circus acts themselves, I couldn’t help but sense that a certain tentativeness informed some of them. I don’t know if this was because of new performers or what but, given that a large contingent of the troupe comes from China, I recalled seeing as good if not better performers in circus acts in Beijing in much less gussied up surroundings. That said, I’m still in awe of all these performers who do things I can only dream of.
Highlights include the bamboo pole act, something I’ve never seen before, in which a bunch of guys bounce, balance and boogie with decorated bamboo poles that are three times as tall as they are; the ballet on lights, not only for the human pyramids the young ladies create while en pointe on small lighted globes, but for the four characters magically circling above them; and, best of all, the aerial pas de deux of Igor Arefiev and Colette Morrow who, using long blue ribbons, can best be compared to figure skaters in air. As for that bad boy juggler Viktor Kee, not only can he keep seven balls in the air but I hear he has quite a website as well.
What distinguishes Dralion, however, is its clowns. Philippe Aymard, Colin Gee, Gonzalo Munoz Ferrer and Guto Vasconcelos have come together from three continents to create an act that in both subtle and outrageous ways had me howling, none more so than towards the end when they do a parody of some of the other acts seen earlier, a bit of self-awareness rarely seen in circuses. Cirque has come a long way since 1988 when, in a review then, I deemed their clowns "unfunny."
Dralion’s production aspects are up to Cirque’s usual high standards with brilliantly inventive costumes by Francois Barbeau, mesmerizing lighting by Luc Lafortune and a haunting, pulsing score by Violaine Corradi, the CD of which has already become a permanent part of my collection.
If Dralion never reaches the transcendent heights of Cirque’s masterpiece O, it is far better than two other Cirque productions I have seen. While it somehow misses being as magical as it would like to be (or thinks it is), Dralion is still quite enchanting.
Peter Schickele Meets P.D.Q. Bach at the Saenger
|
|
Composer/humorist/musician Peter Schickele recently brought his other persona, P.D.Q. Bach, the 21st of Johann Sebastian’s twenty kids, to the Saenger for an evening of–what? Well, lots of fun and silly music-making.
Schickele, the first holder of the General Electric chair in musical pathology, is an assured performer who offers terrible puns ("Alamo–-in the style of a Three Stooge") and the kind of classic humor which leads you to believe you’re getting one thing then gives you something else.
The first part of the program featured a smorgasbord of Schickele’s creations–a Swing Sweet, Low Chariot which segued into Danny Boy; an ironic If Love is Real; musicalized Shakespeare including a country-and-westernized Hamlet soliloquy; and classical arrangements of some Beatles tunes. While I found this set amusing, the Shakespeare segment seemed a bit dated and, with the exception of a lovely I’m Only Sleeping, the Beatles songs were so obscure that it was hard to tell exactly what Schickele did to them.
The program’s much more cogent second part highlighted that musical midget P.D.Q. Bach. According to Schickele, Bach (1807-1742)? had a six day creative period followed by soused and contrition periods.
From that six day period, Schickele, along with soprano Michele Eaton, tenor David Dusing and Klauspeter Seibel conducting the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, presented The Art of the Ground Round, S. 1.19/lb. in which, as vocal lines intertwined with one another, phrases such as "look up her dress" and "queen for a day" emerged. Hmm...I wonder if ol’ P.D.Q. realized what he was concocting?
We also got the mini-Baroque opera Oedipus Tex featuring the title character and his mother, Billie Jo Casta. In it, soldiers are attacked with britney spears (bah-du-dum) and the audience is informed that a "milli-Helen" is the amount of power needed to launch one ship (think about it, I know you’ll get it).
This was the kind of sharp humor that I had been expecting from Schickele whose annual shows at Carnegie Hall are legendary. What can I say? I guess I just prefer a P.D.Q. Bach-analia.
Salome at the UNO Downtown Theatre/Scottish Rite Temple
Just to play Siskel to my colleague Patrick Shannon’s Ebert, dost thy call Salome, "one of the worst one act plays ever written"? "A shiny piece of fossilized dung"? Puh-lease! Surely we’ve all seen much worse than Oscar Wilde’s tale of dysfunctional royals. It may not be a perfect play but does offer an intriguing lesson in human folly and over-the-top passion.
|
|
Tristan Codrescu’s production bursts with ideas, perhaps a few too many for its own good. We get words above the stage, a very full score, and a somewhat confusing prologue. Though Codrescu uses the Scottish Rite Temple’s atmospheric space well, his slow pacing attenuates much of Wilde’s punch. Wilde needs to fly by; at an hour and forty-five minutes, this Salome was just too long.
Now Patrick, it’s not that Diana E.H. Shortes delivered Salome’s lines "without much emotion" but that she saved her emotion for the one being she cared about, John the Baptist. Salome is used to getting what she wants and Shortes captured that willful, "spoiled little rich girl"-edness.
Brendan McMahon as John the Baptist brought the appropriate fervor to his one big scene and, with Shortes, generated the proper erotic charge between the two. And yes Patrick, he is handsome but lacked a certain gravitas one would associate with an Old Testament zealot.
As for Lyla Hay Owen, where, Patrick, is your sense of suspension of disbelief in unreality? So what if she wore her golden locks instead of dark hair powdered in blue? We do agree that she did an excellent job as the evil no-nonsense queen Herodias. In fact, she best achieved Wilde’s balance of caustic humor and imperious strength.
So okay, Patrick. What next?
From Coast to Coast
Recent visits to San Francisco and New York allowed me to sample some of their cultural offerings.
|
|
If you feel you’ve seen everything the City by the Bay has to offer and/or are a Peanuts fan, then head north to Santa Rosa to visit the newly opened Charles Schulz Museum, a beautiful two-story structure. Rotating exhibits of the original comic strips will bring a smile to your face if not make you laugh out loud. There is biographical material about Schulz, Peanuts memorabilia, a recreation of Schulz’ studio, even sketches and notes that he threw away which his vigilant secretary rescued from the trash can and ironed out.
Tributes from other cartoonists after both his retirement announcement and his passing will produce a lump in the throat in all who have even a scintilla of humanity in them. There is an outdoor sculpture garden and an amazing large mural by Yoshiteru Otani of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick made up entirely of over 3,500 individual comic strips on ceramic tiles. Perhaps kickiest of all, in the nearby gift shop, is the original barber pole from Schulz’ father’s barber shop in Minnesota.
Meanwhile, on the other coast, at the Museum of Natural History through August 10, is a phenomenal exhibit on Einstein that includes both biographical material and explications of his most famous discoveries. What I found most interesting was his anti-war correspondence with Freud and discovering how he became friends with Marian Anderson-–he invited her to stay at his home when she performed a concert in Princeton and the one hotel there wouldn’t give her a room because she was black. Also at the Museum, through May 26, is the delightful Butterfly Conservatory where hundreds of these winged beauties flutter about you.
Nearby, at the Metropolitan Opera, fans of Berlioz shouldn’t miss the grand new production of Les Troyens which will be in repertoire until March 27. Also from the world of the Ancients was the recent Medea on Broadway. In a brisk ninety minutes, director Deborah Warner and actress Fiona Shaw distilled the essence of Medea in a red hot production that made it seem new again, ripped from still remembered headlines of child-killer Susan Smith. Shaw took the excellent translation of Kenneth McLeish & Frederic Raphael and found the humor amidst the anger. Whether making Euripides’ vaulted words seem conversational or navigating hairpin emotional turns, Shaw is one of those actresses who could probably make a reading of the phone book a dramatic event. Don’t miss any opportunity to see her.
And for a fine dining experience, don’t miss an opportunity to visit Thalia in New York (828 Eighth Ave. at 50th St.) or Tangerine in San Francisco (3499 16th St.). Yummy. Or, if looking for chocolate desserts extraordinaire, SF’s Mecca (2029 Market St.). Yummy, yummy, yummy!
