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Audiences Riled Up Over Simon Gray’s “The Common Pursuit”

Doug Strassler — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:55:35 +0000

Forget Upright Citizens Brigade or People’s Improv Theater—the current hot spot for audience interaction seems to be the Roundabout Theater Company’s Laura Pels Theater. First, I had the great fortune to hear audience members around me constantly chatter throughout Stephen Karam’s great Sons of the Prophet. And just recently, audience members incongruously, embarrassingly began talking back to the characters onstage in the current revival of Simon Gray’s The Common Pursuit. It seems subscribers are taking the “pay for play” philosophy to an all-new low.
Furthermore, I’m not sure exactly what has these rowdy audience members so riled up. The reversals and occasional reveals of Pursuit must have felt dusty when Gray’s play first hit the boards in 1984. Directed now by Moisés Kaufman in a straightforward style that straddles pointed humor and melodramatic observation, Pursuit’s schematic structure finds six college friends whose, well, roundabout paths lead them to points not far from where they started and to destinations we can seeing coming from far away.
These friends—mostly peers whose life passions and career pursuits entwine their lives together in ways that are more invasively unhealthy than friendships ought to be—first meet in the Cambridge dorm room of Stuart Thorne (Josh Cooke, a television actor making a solid New York stage debut) to create a literary magazine, from which the play gets its title.
Aside from Stuart’s girlfriend, Marigold Watson (Kristen Bush), the all-male cast of characters includes the serious Martin Musgrove (Jacob Fishel), the womanizing Peter Whetworth (Kieran Campion), the sardonic Nick Finchling (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe), and the sensitive, self-lacerating poet Humphry Taylor (Tim McGeever).
Gray doesn’t allow much in the way of subtlety for his fine actors, though all do a good job. Bush’s physical work—worried and stressed facial gestures, posture that tells us when she’s ready to give up a battle—adds much character backstory that Pursuit otherwise ignores for her.
Campion easily locates Peter’s pompous soul, while McGeever does an equally adroit job of communicating Humphry’s desiccating heart and Near-Verbrugghe finds a whole meal to chew in on the form of Nick’s flamboyance. Fishel, however, offers a quiet instructional listen on just how to dig beneath a flawed play and create a complete, complex character.
Pursuit charts their paths from this first meeting in 1968 through the early 1980s and the developments their lives take, often as a direct result of the action of another man in the group (what caused the inappropriate audience reactions throughout the show, particularly its second act). But in navigating this maze, Gray—who has created sharper works in Butley and Otherwise Engaged—only looks inside. Pursuit offers no commentary on the changing times the way the similarly structured The Heidi Chronicles or Same Time Next Year did.
As boys become men, they hurt—and hurt each other. This is not a novel dramatic concept, and Kaufman does little to work around the play’s talky, expository style. Most of the dramatic events that occur happen offstage and between scenes; they are spoken of but never seen, which not only cuts down on tension but makes it more difficult to telegraph plot points that are to occur later on. This is a shame, because one gets the sense that Gray’s idea for Pursuit comes from a personal place. Has he experienced the kind of hurt or even triumph at the expense of others that befall any of his characters? His premise tells me yes, while Pursuit itself—despite those cries from the crowd around me—elicits little more than a shrug.

The Common Pursuit
Through July 29. Laura Pels Theatre, 111 W. 46th St., www.roundabouttheatre.org.

Australian Ballet Makes Big Impression in New York City

Susan Reiter — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:27:08 +0000

Fifty years is a milestone definitely worth celebrating, and the Australian Ballet’s anniversary programming includes its first New York performances since 1999. Now led by former principal dancer David McAllister, the company is bringing two new programs of works to its repertory.
The mixed bill, entitled Infinity, includes the latest collaboration with Bangarra Dance Theatre, the prominent indigenous dance company, as well as a sleek 2009 work created for the troupe by the in-demand Wayne McGregor and a retrospective compilation of pas de deux interspersed with video montages.
The weekend program, Graeme Murphy’s 2002 version of Swan Lake, may feature the familiar Tchaikovsky score, but little else about it will resemble any other Swan Lake you’ve seen.
“It seemed like the right time to come back—and with this repertoire that we hadn’t brought to North America but that we’ve taken to a lot of other places,” McAllister said last fall during an interview in an Upper West Side diner.
The upbeat, youthful-looking artistic director, 48, was in town with four leading Australian Ballet dancers who performed Glen Tetley’s Gemini at City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival. That work, often performed by American Ballet Theatre during the 1970s, had been revived for the anniversary season as an example of works created for the Australian company.
The Australian Ballet is truly Australia’s national company, performing regularly in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and other cities. As with many classical troupes, full-length works occupy at least half of the programs, but its mixed bills have been adventurous, and the company has cultivated two resident choreographers: Stanton Welch, now the artistic director of Houston Ballet, and Stephen Baynes.
Both will be represented in Luminous, the anniversary retrospective McAllister has staged for the New York season. Along with excerpts from their ballets, it will incorporate celebrated classical pas de deux from Giselle, Don Quixote and others. “We’re doing a short history of the company in one piece,” McAllister said. “We have a lot of archival material, and I’m working with filmmakers with whom we have a long relationship.”
McGregor is the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer, whose works have been turning up in many repertories, including that of New York City Ballet. He created Dyad 1929, set to Steve Reich’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet, in 2009 when the ballet world was celebrating the centennial of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes as a tribute to the innovative spirit of that legendary enterprise.
The Australian Ballet and Bangarra Dance Theatre have collaborated on four works over the past 15 years, all choreographed by Stephen Page, Bangarra’s artistic director. The combined forces of the two troupes—including all 14 of Bangarra’s dancers—will perform Warumuk—in the dark night, which had its premiere in February.
“It’s the first piece Stephen has done for us where he’s actually drawing from indigenous stories.,” McAllister said. “There’s a whole beautiful series of stories about the night sky—dreaming about what happens during the night.”
David Page, the choreographer’s brother, composed the original orchestral score. (All Australian Ballet performances will feature music performed by the New York City Ballet Orchestra, conducted by music director Nicolette Fraillon.)
Murphy, who created the striking and unusual Swan Lake, is best known here for his decades as director/choreographer for Sydney Dance Company, a contemporary ensemble. But Murphy started out as a classical dancer, spending five years as a member of the Australian Ballet, before veering off in a new direction. Eventually he came full circle and created a Nutcracker for the company in 1992 that has remained in its repertory. His Swan Lake was the first work McAllister commissioned when he became artistic director in 2001.
“I said to the board, ‘Either this will be a big success or I’m going to have the shortest tenure of any artistic director,’” said McAllister. “I knew it was going to be unusual. But I thought the idea was so strong that it would work. It was a big gamble, but it worked.”
This Swan Lake, he asserts “is definitely not Petipa. All of the choreography is new. But it’s all on pointe, and there are still four acts. Graeme worked with the 1877 musical score, so music associated with the “Black Swan’ in Act 3 is now in Act 1. He wanted to make sense of the whole idea of the swans, rather than having this magician who turns a lot of maidens into swans. He wanted the swans to actually be believable.”
According to the synopsis, Odette is a young maiden whom Prince Siegfried marries only to lose him to the Baroness, a rival who combines elements of both Von Rothbart and Odile. The fragile Odette, confined to a sanatorium where she “could only find escape in a frozen dream where swan-like maidens, much like herself, would calm her fevered mind and where, for a brief time, it seemed as if Siegfried loved her alone.” McAllister suggests that “the swans are basically facets of her personality.”
He’s clearly putting this production front and center as his company’s calling card—a distinctly Australian spin on a classic, and a chance for the Australian Ballet to present New York audiences something that is uniquely its own.

Australian Ballet
June 12-13: Infinity, mixed bill; June 15-17, Swan Lake; David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, davidhkochtheater.com/events.html; times vary, $29+.

Fun For More than Just Children

Doug Strassler — Thu, 31 May 2012 18:16:07 +0000

Peter and the Starcatcher is far more fun than this knowingly clever mash-up of children’s theater and English pratfall should have been. Carefully adapted from the Dave Barry- and Ridley Pearson-penned children’s novel, Peter and the Starcatchers, by Rick Elice and directed with aplomb by the team of Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, Peter may have lost a consonant on its way to the Broadway stage via stints in La Jolla and New York Theater Workshop, but it has gained a major asset in the form of one of its cast members: a very winning Christian Borle.
Borle is Black Stache, the prototype for the pirate who will become Captain Hook (Peter is largely an origin story for Peter Pan, one that stands on its own). Though the show presents a tight ensemble of talented actors working together, the actor gives a standout turn.
His whirling dervish of a performance, which is Tony-nominated and won a Lortel Award last year, fuses nutty, alliterative dialogue (“Abandon spleen!” he shouts as his ship, the Neverland, begins to sink) with slapstick comedy in a marvelously disciplined way that would not be unfairly labeled as balletic. In the same way it takes an outstanding actor to play someone performing poorly (see: Tracie Bennett), so too does it take a virtuoso in complete control of movement and delivery too look so loose and loopy.
It also helps cut down on what could have been an overwhelmingly nuttiness in Peter. The show traffics in a whimsy that could have been suffocating were it not so measured. Adam Chanler-Berat plays a nameless orphan with a small gang of followers on a ship beset by savages, a naval battle and a couple of trunks that may or may not contain a treasure-like substance called starstuff. Of course, no explosions or actual treasure is actually witnessed.
That we see far less than we actually envision is a testament to the stagecraft of Rees’ and Timbers’ imaginative team, which includes Jeff Croiter’s evocative lighting design and Donyale Werle’s resourceful set design.
Peter’s merry cast, including Teddy Bergman, Kevin Del Aguila, Carson Elrod and David Rossmer, play their characters to the hilt with an unwavering energy and dedication, as does Chanler-Berat. But Peter really remains a showpiece for Borle; if there is any other performer who comes close to bathing in starstuff, it’s Celia Keenan-Bolger in the role of Molly, a Wendy Darling forebear.
Keenan-Bolger, best known for work in musicals like The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and the recent City Center Encores! production of Merrily We Roll Along, is an actress who knows no limits. She’s equally at home in a dramatic work (Bachelorette, A Small Fire), and Peter provides this sterling talent with another opportunity to bring a fun but feisty female role to life.
Cunningly crafted and passionately staged, Peter reaches out to the child in all of us.

Peter and the Starcatcher
Open run. Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 W. 47th St., peterandthestarcatcher.com. $59-$161.

Two Choreographers Come Together at Joyce

Susan Reiter — Thu, 31 May 2012 18:02:21 +0000

If you’re a freelance choreographer, you go where the work is. For Peter Quanz, that has meant trips to Cuba, Siberia and Hong Kong. Jodie Gates’ choreographic assignments have taken her to Berlin and many U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C., Denver and Philadelphia. Both have found a home base from which to coordinate and balance their travels, and this weekend, both are getting a brief but significant New York showcase for their recent works.
The enterprising Gotham Dance Festival has paired these two choreographers for a Joyce Theater program that gives three different companies a chance to be seen by local audiences. Quanz’s Q Dance is affiliated with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (RWB), performing programs of his choreography in between seasons by the main company. Q Dance will offer two of his recent works: Luminous, to music by Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich, and In Tandem, to Steve Reich’s Double Sextet. Gates’ half of the program will feature her two most recent works: Embellish, performed by Colorado Ballet, and Delicate Balance, performed by the Philadelphia-based BalletX.
In separate phone interviews, the two choreographers spoke admiringly of each other and the process of planning the program; they look forward to finally meeting at the Joyce this week. Quanz spoke from Winnipeg, his home base since he formed Q Dance in 2010, while Gates was in her office at University of California at Irvine, where she is a professor in the dance department. She also founded and directs the annual Laguna Dance Festival.
Both have been increasingly busy choreographing over the past decade, but most of their work is seen outside of New York. Quanz did create Kaleidoscope for American Ballet Theatre’s 2005 City Center season, and In Tandem was made for the Guggenheim’s Works & Process series in 2009. Gates’ work has been seen here in the repertory of ABT II and Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet.
Quanz, a Canadian in his early thirties, trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, where he began choreographing very early, and danced with Stuttgart Ballet. But he always knew choreography was his passion, and it has been his focus since 2002.
He has made works for such eminent companies as the Kirov Ballet and National Ballet of Cuba, and last year made a full-evening work for Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. But with Q Dance, which makes its New York debut with these performances, he has established something special.
“Q dance is basically a lab for me to develop repertory that may or may not enter the RWB repertory,” he explained.
When he graduated from the Winnipeg school in 1999, he didn’t expect the city to become so central to his creative life. But after earlier choreography for the company, he developed an association that led to this unique arrangement, an opportunity to work with up to 25 Winnipeg Ballet dancers and cultivate an ongoing connection, rather than the fly-by-night experiences he has as a guest choreographer.
“Having this really intimate knowledge of this group of people allows me to go into material in a far deeper way than I ever could as a guest,” he said. “I have grown tremendously from this company, from this group of dancers—and I really believe in them.”
In Tandem was made with RWB dancers, and four of the original six will perform it here. Having created it for the intimate, uniquely shaped theater at the Guggenheim, Quanz has since developed and adapted it further. He also staged it for a program of his work by a Siberian company that performed it on the Bolshoi stage.
Quanz’s Luminous, a work for eight dancers made for the Hong Kong Ballet, takes its inspiration from Mozetich’s “very emotional” music and a quote from Michael Onddatje’s The English Patient. “Each dancer has two duets with different partners. I’m trying to show how each partner brings out different qualities of those dancers,” he said.
Gates’ two works showcase contrasting sides of her choreography. A leading dancer with the Joffrey Ballet from 1983 to 1995, she went on to perform with Pennsylvania Ballet and Frankfurt Ballet before leaving the stage in 2004, so her work incorporates many varied influences.
“For BalletX—a wonderful company with well-rounded dancers—I made a very contemporary work for all 10 company members to scores by various contemporary composers,” she said. “The Colorado Ballet piece, for 12 dancers, is more neoclassical: on point and utilizing the ballet idiom. I had never choreographed to Mozart, and I chose selections from a variety of his scores. The ballet is whimsical; I had a wonderful time playing with classicism.”
In these two complimentary recent works, Gates feels she’s found her own choreographic voice. “Yes, I’ve been influenced by many great master dance makers whose works I performed. But I think these works really represent more distinctively who I am.”

Peter Quanz & Jodie Gates
June 2, 8 p.m. & June 3, 2 p.m., Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave. (at 19th St.), www.joyce.org; $10–$39.

‘Raisin in the Sun’ 50 Years Later, a Worthy Homage

Doug Strassler — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:32:28 +0000

Clybourne Park arrives bearing serious dramatic lineage. Bruce Norris’s 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winner for drama, which, under Pam McKinnon’s adroit direction has already enjoyed a successful run at the Off-Broadway Playwrights Horizons in addition to London and Los Angeles tours, is a direct descendant of Lorraine Hansberry’s milestone work A Raisin in the Sun, set in the house that will be filled, and then, a half-century later, vacated by the windfall-inheriting Younger family.
Knowledge of Raisin is not required to understand Clybourne; all that’s required is a keen grasp of what makes people tick. Norris has a supreme grip on the inherent selfishness and groupthink that befalls adults who think that what’s best for their interests overlaps with what’s right for all. So when Karl Lindner (an outstanding Jeremy Shamos) tries to convince Bev (Christina Kirk) and Russ (Frank Wood) in 1959 that a black family should not move to their suburban Chicago block, he thinks his argument maintains a sense of moral urgency.
Fifty years later, when the white house hosts a black family and this same Chicago neighborhood has seen property values decline (set designer Daniel Ostling’s quickie deterioration of the set between acts is miraculous), yuppie couple Steve (Shamos again) and wife Lindsey (Annie Parisse) look to move in.
Part of the fun of Clybourne comes from who the actors from the first act go on to play in the second. For instance, Crystal A. Dickinson, letter-perfect here, goes from playing a domestic employee to an uber-articulate professional (Damon Gupton sharply underplays her husband in both 1959 and 2009). Wood ends up playing a construction worker in the second act, which sadly deprives the brilliant actor of the same dramatic opportunities afforded him in the play’s first act. And a terrific Brendan Griffin ultimately plays three distinct roles, each with nuanced shades of quiet understanding.
But Clybourne comes alive when its characters shout, and it is here that it also shares play DNA with recent Broadway hits like August: Osage County, God of Carnage and Other Desert Cities, in which a bunch of seemingly well-adjusted adults sit in a room together and tear into each other. Of the three, Clybourne most closely mirrors August’s keen observations of how grown-ups view entitlement as applied to their own manifest destiny.
Norris is able to show, in ways both horrifying and hilarious, how racism and sexism seem to come embedded within us all. Individual achievement, the play asserts, isn’t enough; one must also prove superior to all of those around them.
McKinnon’s ensemble offers a master class in not just individual performance achievement but great teamwork. Looking at any cast member at any moment tells you everything about who they are and where they want to be (for most of them, it’s rarely in the living room set). There isn’t a square peg to be found in this group, whose nimble handling of Norris’ dialogue suggests just how nuanced the playwright’s ear is for the different rhythms of how people talk. But it’s when his characters aren’t talking that Clybourne says the most.

Clybourne Park
Through July 8. Walter Kerr Theatre, 219 W. 48th St., clybournepark.com; $50+.

Boylston Lands her ‘Dream Role’ Dancing in ‘Swan Lake’

Susan Reiter — Tue, 22 May 2012 22:14:59 +0000

This is Isabella Boylston’s big bird season. The engaging American Ballet Theatre soloist, who has been injecting a vibrant personality and crisp virtuosity into her roles since joining the company in 2007, is taking on two big new assignments: those iconic ballet birds, the Swan Queen and the Firebird. She makes her debut as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake on June 27 and will dance the title character in Alexei Ratmansky’s eagerly anticipated new version of The Firebird June 13 and 22.
The Idaho native has plenty more to keep her busy: this week, she performs the demanding role of Gamzatti in La Bayadère (a New York debut), and next week reprises her impressively personable and confident performance as the Ballerina in Ratmansky’s Bright Stream, a work brimming with humor and warmth.
Choreographers creating works for ABT have tended to cast Boylston in their premieres; last year she was in the cast of both Christopher Wheeldon’s 13 Diversions (which returns this season) and Ratmansky’s Dumbarton. But having proven herself as a very contemporary ballerina, responsive to a choreographer’s vision, she is gradually taking on the more tried and true roles that are the barometers by which ballerinas are evaluated and compared.
Recently, she was rehearsing the opening scene of Swan Lake’s famous second act, in which Prince Siegfried, weary of the social pressures of castle life, escapes into nature to hunt and encounters Odette, a maiden trapped by an evil sorcerer’s spell. Both Boylston and fellow soloist Daniil Simkin will be making debuts in the ballet, and as they worked under the watchful eye of ballet master Clinton Luckett, all illusion of ease vanished.
There was frequent pausing to gasp for breath between attempts, and intricate parsing of minute details. “I can’t find those arabesques,” Boylston said plaintively at one point. “They’re better than yesterday,” Luckett offered by way of encouragement, adding, “Those are two of the hardest steps in the repertory.”
Shortly after rehearsal, Boylston sat down for an interview in ABT’s conference room, plopping her powder-blue practice tutu on the table. She recalled that when she learned last fall that she’d be dancing Swan Lake, “I was overwhelmed. It’s my dream role. I feel like out of the classical ballets, it’s what I would be most suited to. I think at my core I’m more of a lyrical dancer, but lately I seem to have found more strength in my technique, so I’ve been given a lot of technically challenging roles.”
She has performed the famous third-act bravura pas de deux on its own before, but learning the entire ballet has been a consuming process. She has watched many videos of different versions and interpretations of the ballet.
“Now I’m trying to leave that and just go be Odette. There are still so many sections that I’m really unhappy with, so I have a lot of work. With Swan Lake, there’s a lot of freedom, because there are so many different interpretations.
“It’s amazing when you see a dancer and they’re able to really do the choreography and make it look spontaneous—like it was just created for them. To me, that’s the goal. So many people have done so many ballets so well, but I want to try to make every role that I do my own,” she said.
She has that chance as one of the three ballerinas Ratmansky chose to interpret the title role of his new version of The Firebird. The ballet had, in essence, a February out-of-town tryout in Orange County, Calif., and Ratmansky has continued to develop the production in the intervening months. From the start, Boylston said, he worked equally with all three Firebirds (Natalia Osipova and Misty Copeland also perform the role), allowing each to find her own interpretations.
“He didn’t want to pigeonhole anyone; he seemed to like how different each of us was from the other and wanted to draw out our unique qualities, rather than make us all conform to one idea. The Firebird is a wild exotic creature, really powerful, like a force of nature, as well as mysterious. I really want her variations to be physically and dynamically, and musically, quite brilliant—to have a lot of clarity as well as freedom. In my first performance, it came together in a way it never had in rehearsal. So I was very relieved. But I’m still finding the role—and he’s still developing it.”
Working with Ratmansky, ABT’s artist in residence since 2009, has been particularly challenging and stimulating for Boylston. They developed a positive rapport while he was creating his 2010 Nutcracker for the company. “He seemed to really push me. I feel like Alexei really brought a lot out of me that I hadn’t tapped into before.
“I always feel that when I’m in the studio with him, I really bring my A game. I feel comfortable, but never relaxed. With him, more than anywhere else, I feel I’m really pushing myself and trying my best to produce his vision, because I really believe in it.”
The season promises to showcase many aspects of Boylston’s talent, as she takes the stage in both iconic 19th-century roles and bracingly contemporary ones. “I’m loving all the opportunities that I’m getting and the variety of it,” she said happily. “I feel very lucky not to be pigeonholed into classical or contemporary; they seem to find me suitable for both, so I’m really happy about that. I would feel incomplete doing only one or the other.”

American Ballet Theatre
Through July 7, Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, www.abt.org; times

‘Proof’ Playwright Turns to Lithgow to Tackle David Alsop

Doug Strassler — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:46:18 +0000

Is it fair to ascribe the sophomore slump to a Broadway writer whose second play hit the stage nearly 12 years after the first? Because that seems awfully close to what happened with The Columnist, David Auburn’s follow-up to the Tony and Pulitzer grabber Proof. Columnist, a peek into the life of powerful mid-20th-century journalist David Alsop, isn’t a bad work, but it’s one without teeth, a bio-play that does justice neither to its subject nor to the time period it depicts.
Alsop had an incisive view of life and, particularly, the country he not only chronicled but also tried to push in very specific directions. Columnist, directed by Daniel Sullivan, stays strictly on the outside. This comes despite an intriguing first scene in which we meet a post-coital Alsop (John Lithgow) in a Russian hotel room with Soviet agent Andrei (Brian J. Smith). Yep, he’s gay, and his assignation threatens to rip every fiber off of Alsop’s pristinely preserved veneer. Except while this tantalizing first scene should set us on a journey into Alsop’s heart and mind, it ends up being too roundabout for dramatic sparks to ever fly.
What follows is a fairly safe series of scenes that depict the man in Wikipedia entry form instead of any more galvanizing style. Columnist trudges from this mid-1950s encounter through the 1960s and hits on events both historic (the assassination of his friend JFK, the mushrooming of the Vietnam War, of which Alsop is a proponent) and personal (his marriage of convenience to Washington widow Susan Mary Jay Patten, his combustibly competitive relationship with younger brother Stewart) with a respect for all elite parties involved (the play comes adorned with the kind of beautiful costumes, from Jess Goldstein, and set, courtesy of the busy John Lee Beatty, that one expects from the Manhattan Theater Club).
But all of this is told in a linear, matter-of-fact style; there’s no real angle or thesis to the show. Even when the Andrei thread comes back, Auburn’s tapestry still looks incomplete.
Not that the cast isn’t excellent—a technically excellent Lithgow reprises the snobbish prig touches he’s played before in Sweet Smell of Success and Mr. and Mrs. Fitch, burrowing far beneath Auburn’s material to show Alsop’s compromised but uncompromising heart; he sees change on the horizon but will not bend to it. But it’s when he’s offstage that we learn more about his character and the play offers faint glimmers of hope, notably in the heated exchanges between Stewart (a typically excellent Boyd Gaines) and anti-Vietnam New York Times journalist David Halberstam (Stephen Kunken).
Though these scenes could be woven better into the fabric of the play, we learn more about the toll those turbulent times took on the people living it, as both David and Stewart are privy to far more information than the rest of America, and Kunken sinks his teeth into the gritty role of his shameless investigative reporter.
Margaret Colin, as Susan, also makes the most of her stage time, but it would be nice to see her character’s gradual disappointment with Alsop’s inability to change than simply hear a stirringly delivered monologue about it. As Susan’s daughter, Abigail, Grace Gummer reads a little too stagey, especially when playing Abigail as an early teen. And Sullivan cuts off her final, haunting line before it ever has a chance to resonate.
Questions about Alsop linger long after the end of Columnist. What would have made him happy? Did power corrupt him or did his ego always know few bounds? When all is said and done, the man is more of a mystery than he was when the show began. Chalk it up to miseducation; let’s hope Auburn can ace his next assignment.

The Columnist
Through June 1, Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St., 212-239-6200, www.manhattantheatreclub.com; $67+.

Company Highlights Choreographers Who Are Less Well Known

Susan Reiter — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:39:03 +0000

Visiting companies coming to town often offer programs featuring what might be termed the usual suspects—works by the same few choreographers tend to appear in many repertories. But one of the youngest local troupes, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, is also one of the most individual in its point of view and repertory choices.
In particular, its artistic director, Benoit-Swan Pouffer, has his finger on the pulse of contemporary European choreography, and regularly invites up-and-comers from the continent to work with the 16 versatile Cedar Lake dancers, who seem to be ready for any stylistic and technical challenge.
The two programs that Cedar Lake is bringing to the Joyce Theater through May 27 feature works by choreographers from Sweden, Canada, France, Israel, Norway and The Netherlands. Except for Angelin Preljocaj’s 1995 Annonciation, which Cedar Lake first performed in 2008, the repertory consists entirely of new works created specifically for the company. Four are New York premieres and one is a world premiere.
Asked whether he intentionally avoids American choreographers, Pouffer (who was born and trained in France before dancing with the Alvin Ailey company for seven years) said, “I try to bring an awareness to a body of work by choreographers who don’t have a chance to come, to create work for another company or to bring their own company to America. Cedar Lake is the vehicle for those choreographers to show their work.”
Speaking at the company’s spacious studios and offices in Chelsea, which also includes a 199-seat theater, Pouffer continued, “Cedar Lake is not just a ‘European’ company. But because I’m European and I have a lot of ties to Europe, it made sense for me to start there.
“For these past seven years I’ve been trying to find choreographers I really feel are relevant—and I wanted to find something that we don’t see so much in the States. I felt it was important to bring these choreographers to work with the Cedar Lake dancers. Now if I can find an American choreographer—a New York choreographer—I’m very open.”
His focus is on making a serious commitment to choreographers, giving each an unusually generous eight or nine weeks to create a work. In most cases, he will first invite a choreographer to restage—or adapt—an earlier piece, then, once the dancers have a certain familiarity with their style and approach, have them create a premiere.
That has been the case with most of the choreographers whose new works will be seen at the Joyce. Alexander Ekman, Crystal Pite, Hofesh Schechter and Jo Strømgren have all worked with Cedar Lake at least once already.
In making his choices, Pouffer explained, he considers the existing repertory, then looks for “what will complement or contrast the work. It’s very important to see what I already have, so I can build a program. I contact a choreographer maybe two years in advance, and we start talking about the needs of the company. I also send them tapes of the current repertoire, so they have an idea of what they’re going to be with.
“I don’t give them an assignment; it’s more a conversation between them and me to see where they are artistically and what they want to create. I try to be really aware of their work—point out what I like and why, why it will help our company to have a piece that brings this type of energy.”
The Oslo-based Strømgren, whose Necessity, Again will have its world premiere on next week’s program, first worked with Cedar Lake in 2007. “What I like about Jo is his sense of theatricality. He has a sense of dry humor that I love,” Pouffer said.
“He’s a theater director as well as a choreographer; he has his own theater company, which is very influenced by movement. Because we, as a group, had such a good experience with his first piece, I felt it made sense to invite him again,” he continued.
Cedar Lake’s dancers are employed 48 weeks a year, and the company tours 15 weeks a year. Pouffer looks for dancers who are “eclectic and open”; for the women “it is a requirement that they have a true understanding of pointe technique.” This season’s rep includes one work, by Dutch choreographer (and Cedar Lake first-timer) Regina van Berkel, in which the women dance in pointe shoes. (In others, they may be barefoot or in socks.)
This is Cedar Lake’s third Joyce season in under three years, so they’re clearly establishing a regular local presence, even while keeping busy all over; they have an ongoing residency in Los Angeles and upcoming performances at the Spoleto and Montpelier Festivals. Still, there was intense expectancy as the company runs prepared for the Joyce. “A New York season means a lot—it’s home. The dancers are so excited. They always say they want to perform more in New York.”

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
May 15–27, Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave. (at 19th St.), www.joyce.org; $10+.

Company Highlights Choreographers Who Are Less Well Known

Susan Reiter — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:21:19 +0000

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet
May 15–27, Joyce Theater, 175 8th Ave. (at 19th St.), www.joyce.org; $10+.

‘Dinner’ Theater that Leaves You Hungry

Doug Strassler — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:49:55 +0000

Matthew Warchus’ 2008 revival of Marc Camoletti’s Boeing-Boeing was a blast of sexist slapstick farce, anchored by Mark Rylance’s ebullient award-nabbing role as Robert. We meet him and his misogynist pal Bernard again in the current Roundabout revival of Camoletti’s follow-up, Don’t Dress for Dinner. Remember the adage “all’s well that ends well”? Well, Bernard and Robert may have married, but have they settled? To borrow another phrase, it ain’t necessarily so.
John Tillinger directs Dinner, a play that cannot rise above Camoletti’s junior-high hijinks. In fact, Dinner may be better-dressed (costumes courtesy of William Ivey Long) and better-accented, but in every other way it predicts the subterraneanly lowbrow Hangover films. Between plays, Bernard and Robert have divorced the flight attendant wives and moved on. Bernard (Adam James) is now married to Jacqueline (Patricia Kalember) but trying to hide an affair with his mistress Suzanne (a miscast Jennifer Tilly) during a weekend in a French country house (John Lee Beatty designed the sturdy, if sterile, set). He has roped in Robert (Ben Daniels) yet again to help with his scheme, an offer that his friend gladly accepts. You see, he and Jacqueline have been having a fling of their own.
But wait, there’s more! Camoletti’s web gets further tangled when the unfortunately named Suzette (Spencer Kayden) arrives and Robert confuses her with Suzanne, the woman he’s supposed to be pretending to be dating. Predictable mayhem ensues, but Tillinger can’t recreate the same balletic sense of pinball confusion Warchus achieved four seasons ago in Dinner’s predecessor, which is a shame because in some ways, Dinner (adapted here by Robin Hawdon) benefits from sounder structure. But eventually, every character’s motivation erodes, and the play begins to feel interminable when it should still be amping up. The silly pratfalls of farce require much precision, and the rhythms here are all a bit off. Setups take too long, and misunderstandings feel redundant and too predictable.
This even extends to Kayden’s scene-stealing role. Suzette agrees to swap identities from mistress to cook but only if she can extort money from Bernard and Robert to help fuel their scheme, and this thread runs afoul of its spool very quickly. She’s supposed to stand out as the voice of reason, but her own self-serving choices, tucked under an over-exaggerated French accent, make us think her character belongs with these motley fools. Meanwhile, Tilly seems to have no interest meshing with her other characters’ physically comedic chops or even trying to act in period.
The other actors play horndogs and coquettes nimbly. The oily Daniels’ and James’ jocularity is well-suited to the piece, and Kalember suffuses the brittle Jacqueline with a glimmer of sensuality and self-worth. It’s nice to see the battle of the sexes’ combatants so evenly matched, but must they all be such twits?

Don’t Dress for Dinner
American Airlines Theater, 227 W. 42nd St. Tickets $117. Call 212-719-1300 or visit roundabouttheatre.org

Ben Daniels and Spencer Kayden in "Don't Dress for Dinner" Photo by Joan Marcus