Starting From Scratch

by the members of the From Scratch company

Reviewed by Robert Viagas

A new multidisciplinary performing arts company calling itself From Scratch lifted off September 14 with a starburst of ambitious creativity. The inaugural gala showcase, titled Starting From Scratch, rolled out twenty-six original drama, dance, song and instrumental segments at the Ballet Arts Studio at Manhattan’s City Center.

Overseen by artistic director Robert Liebowitz, the twenty original company members performed the work of eight writers.
Among highlights:

• Gritty life among New York’s struggling class amid the dangers and discomforts of the public transportation system was turned into an exuberant ensemble dance in “The Subway at Night,” staged by company choreographer Albena Kervanbashieva.
• Kervanbashieva herself took to the boards to demonstrate From Scratch’s social consciousness with “Rhino, White Rhino,” in which a member of the endangered species fled from, then triumphed over, ruthless hunters.
• The generation gap was dramatized in Liebowitz’s playlet “Seven Scenes of Grande Grande Blah Blah Blah,” in which an older man (Jerry Lewkowitz) came into conflict withyoung woman (Weronika H. Wozniak) over coffee while a sardonic barista (Zack Rickert) headed toward a breakdown.
• “Queen of the Day,” a madrigal by D. Sanborn III, was sung and danced by Walter Dortch, Monique Romero, Jordan Davis and Samantha Randolph, as choreographed by Davis.
• Composer Tim Horace offered an elegy for the loss of a child in his instrumental “Murmurs of the Innocents.”
• Although the work of eight different composers were featured in the program, Starting From Scratch provided a special showcase for company musical director Stephen Cornine, who also served as composer, arranger, and pianist for the evening. Among his nine compositions s were the duet “Roses Bloom,” “Brand New,” and no fewer than three holiday tunes, “Christmas Coming Soon,” “On A Midwinter’s Day” and “Aftermas.”

For the record, other performers in the original multi-disciplinary multi-ethnic company include, Daniel Dunlow, Izzy Durakovic, Michael Durso, Charlotte Hagstrom, Helen Jiexin Cai, Valerie Johnson, Jordan McCallister, Teddy Montuori, Donna Morales, Alehia Renee, Michael Romeo Ruocco, Nana Tatebayaski.

Starting From Scratch played a single performance September 14 at the City Center in Manhattan. As for the future, the company is lining up a 2019-2020 season that includes Cornine’s Mirror Mirror, Liebowitz’s Last Night I Dreamed of Paul McCartney, and Martin Goldberg’s Tumble Blindly.

En – choreographed by Yoshiko Usami and company

Reviewed by Robert Viagas

Deep emotional connections between people and nature, between people and the creatures of the earth, and between people and other people, are embodied in the Japanese concept of  “en.” Japanese-American performance artist Yoshiko Usami (a.k.a. Yokko) explores those connections in her new Butoh-style dance/movement piece, also titled En.

Presented by the Ren Gyo Soh theatre group at the Triskelion Arts Center, Enshowcases Yokko and four other dancers beautifully imitating the movements of the natural world in more or less presentational ways, all expressed through the languid, deliberate movements of Butoh.

The opening segment is also one of the most successful and evocative. The five company members suggest the movements of tropical fish, feeding, chasing, exploring, mating. Costume designer Deepsikha Chatterjee adds a layer of environmental commentary by creating their fins and gills out of plastic bottles, egg cartons, product boxes and other detritus with which mankind has littered the ocean. He seems to ask, are these creatures enmeshed in the trash, or has the trash actually become part of them?

Though much of the rest of the performance is abstract, it seems to follow an arc from the ocean to the land, to the bustle of the human world. As a company they play on a beach like children in one of the more lighthearted moments, but also writhe with their heads trapped in cages in one of the darker segments.

Each of the dancers take moments to shine in solo passages they choreographed themselves. Petite and fierce Annie McCoy is frequently highlighted, at one point struggling on her back like a turtle or chick hatching from an egg, and at another point recreating the quivering pangs of childbirth.

Miles Butler provides a transition from the sea to the beach in a remarkable sequence where he sheds his fins and staggers onto a beach, like Adam in Eden, only to be swept up into a kind of factory where he loses his individuality.

Efrén Olson-Sánchez and Laura Aristovulos evolve through a variety of roles including teeth-gnashing wild animals, ghosts, and beings who struggle clumsily to stand but then suddenly acquire fluid grace. The show benefits from the occasional majestic appearance of Yokko herself, covered in ethereal white makeup, like a spirit of the earth.

All of this is performed with the deliberate slowness of Butoh. The evening would benefit from an occasional andante or allegro passage to set off the rest.

Lighting designer Rachel Zimmerman creates dark recesses on the open stage from which the dancers gradually emerge and to which they gradually return. Sound designers Alyssa L. Jackson and Jorge Olivo help suggest the piece’s various physical environments through the sounds of water bubbling, rocks clattering, waves breaking, machinery clanking, airplanes zooming overhead, and occasional evocative music.

In the end, the company seems to return to the sea, gazing out over the audience, as if surveying both the beauty and ugliness what man has wrought.

En played a limited run September 13-15 at the Triskelion Arts, 106 Calyer Street, Brooklyn.

Steeplechase by By Chris Nelson

Reviewed by Robert Viagas

A young woman goes on a rocky lifelong voyage of experimentation and self-discovery in Steeplechase, Chris Nelson’s offbeat but fun new “dark comedy” being presented at the Hudson Guild Theater as part of New York Theater Festival’s Summerfest 2019.

The play draws its perfect title from two sources: a ride at the old Coney Island amusement park that featured mechanical horses running along a track, and an Olympic obstacle course race. Despite the similar names, the first race always delivers its riders to safety, while the second is full of hurdles and potential pitfalls. Viv (Ariel Lauren), the central character of the play, is always searching for the first experience, but all too often winds up with the second.

Raised near Coney Island, Viv becomes addicted to drugs, addicted to abusive men, and addicted to the kind of pain that comes from feelings of worthlessness. Despite her repeated rejection of an actress (Allison Pappas) who plays her yet-unborn daughter, Viv finally wearies of the heartbreaks and humiliations of the high life and settles down with a dull but sweet guy who actually cares for her, and finally embraces the little girl, along with a traditional family life. In many ways, the play resembles a modern-dress version of the musical Pippin.

Nelson’s script treats the subject with a knowing humor that often breaks the fourth wall and acknowledges the audience. Director Maridee Slater’s fluidly kaleidoscopic staging keeps Viv and the story sprinting along from hurdle to hurdle. When she needs to bring in Viv’s mom ex machina, Amy Laird Webb comes crawling up to the stage literally over the backs of the audience, like some monster from the id.

The nine-member cast also includes Valerie Redd, James O’Hagan-Murphy, Amy Laird Webb, Rob McDermott, Joel Reyer, Schuyler Van Amson, Tyra Hardy, Cristina Lucas and Allison Pappas. Costume design is by Corina Chase. Lighting and set design are by John Salutz. Moody original music is provided by Mitch Wells, who leads the cast in a pre-curtain freestyle dance.

Steeplechase is playing a limited run through August 25 at the Hudson Guild Theatre in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.

Sea Wall/A Life
by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne
Reviewed by Robert Viagas

Parents, children and the incredible fragility of life are the subjects of Sea Wall/A Life, a pair of deeply dramatic monologues by Simon Stephens (author of Tony winner The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) and Nick Payne, as performed on Broadway with master class brio by Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Sturridge.

So many plays and films deal with family dysfunction for dramatic or comic effect. After all, conflict is the soul of drama. But these two plays find their drama in a pair of deeply loving families. The enemies are literally birth and death. These are plays about the unbearable preciousness of our closest relatives, and the agony associated with gaining and losing them. Though written by different authors, the two playlets are very similar in feeling.

In Payne’s Seawall,a moment of inattention has dire consequences. Sturridge plays a man who led a fairly colorless life until the birth of his daughter. The child in question comes alive in Payne’s exquisitely detailed script, related by a master storyteller. She is so innocent and adorable, that you just know some dreadful fate awaits her. That dread is the only overtly manipulative note in an otherwise glowing and harrowing play.

Stephens’A Life is more complex and creative. Gyllenhaal plays a man reliving the two most emotional nights of his life, the night his father died and the night his daughter was born.

At first it seems like they both happened the same night because he tells the stories overlappingly. But it gradually emerges that the events converge in his memory. Gyllenhaal conveys every emotion of the twin situations—the joy, the fear, the grief, the anticipation—and combines memories of his father with his expectations for his child. Both stories wind up in different wings of what is apparently the same hospital, and we pace with him and share his apprehensions and hopes as he waits for his life to be changed forever.

Presented on a nearly bare stage, Seawall/A Life is a double dose of raw storytelling. Walking out of the show and audience member was heard to say “Now that’s Broadway.” He said it about two one-act plays with no singing, no tap-dancing, no flashy costumes nor confetti cannon. In fact, little more than the proverbial two plans and a passion. That passion is love. Family love—the most fraught kind.

Directed by Carrie Cracknell, Seawall/A Life is playing a limited run at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway.

Back by Matt Webster

Reviewed by Robert Viagas

If you could go back in time with just ten precious seconds to fix the biggest mistake of your life, would you be able to do it? Would you still do it if it meant you would forever lose everything that happened since then in your current life?

These are the two burning questions facing Leah and Derek, the would-be couple at the heart of Back, Matt Webster’s fascinating science-fiction conundrum of a drama, presented as part of producer Ken Davenport’s RAVE Theatre Festival.

The sci-fi at element never overwhelms the emotional core of the story. Playwright Webster co-stars with Terra Mackintosh as a pair of lifelong friends and occasional lovers who do emotional dances around each other. The attraction is plain, but somehow even the warmest moments somehow turn into arguments. Despite how articulate both of them are, they are failing to deal with the central issue of their relationship.

Most of their arguments involve their failed dreams. Leah wanted to be a doctor, but a she was at the wheel in a car accident that killed a friend, and now her life seems to be a downward spiral. Derek dreams of success as an actor in New York, but apart from a fondly-remembered underwear commercial, his career is a bit of a bust. He longs for Leah to join him in the city; she longs for him to return home. Something always gets in the way of a stronger connection between them, and her solution is to use the “Back” option, leap back a decade and start over. To Derek, however, Backing is tantamount to suicide, since you disappear from this thread in the multiverse forever.

Derek finally realizes that he is not living in Leah’s original life, but in one of her failed Backs, and can think of only one way that he might undo all their mistakes, false starts and dead ends. But he knows the plunge will have its cost.

Beautifully written and acted, with genuine mystery and adult romance at its heart, Back plays like an especially intelligent episode of Black Mirror, though with a minimalist charm of its own.

The production features lighting design by Greg Solomon, which simply and effectively conveys the sense of going Back on the intriguing rectangular set designed by Tim McMath.

Directed by David Perlow, Back is playing a limited run through August 23 at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, 107 Suffolk St. in Manhattan.

Dandelion: An Original Musical

Music and lyrics by Colleen Francis, book by Jessica Francis Fichter and Sean Riehm, additional music and lyrics by Bill Zeffiro

Reviewed by Robert Viagas

To go to college or not to go to college? That is the question confronting the title character of the new musical Dandelion, which was presented in a one-night-only 75-minute concert version at Feinstein’s/54 Below in Manhattan. It’s a question confronting many young people, but for Jane (Hailee Beltzhoover), the stakes are considerably higher.

Jane’s mom (Colleen Francis, also the show’s composer-lyricist) has multiple unhealthy issues. She is mentally ill and alcoholic, and she has a contentious relationship with her ex, Jane’s dad. The mom is needy and dependent and, while there is a part of her that understands it is Jane’s time to head off to college and start her own life, she also oppresses Jane with guilt to remain her perpetual caretaker. Jane is torn.

As presented in its truncated form at 54 Below, this lite foray into Next to Normal territory displays a great deal of promise but still needs sharpening, focus and, above all, its own distinctive voice.

In addition to a performance that paints heartbreakingly vivid picture of the mom’s struggles, Francis has composed a musically diverse score that shows her skill at soul, folk, gospel, and above all, country. The choice of style often seems arbitrary, however. A lot of the songs play like pop rather than theatre songs: the character is at the same place at the end of the song as at the beginning.

The best songs reflect the various conflicts of the story. “Get Your Shit Together” is a snarling fight song between the mother and her ex (Adam James King). Jane and her BFF Gabbie (the funny and endearing Lillie Ricciardi) contemplate the non-academic joys of college life in “North.” “Stay” is the mother’s cri de coeur.

To dramatize the conflict within the mom’s head, Dandelion uses an Inside Out-style quartet to voice her Depression (Allison Sike), Control (Miranda Lane), Rage (Brianne Wylie) and Paranoia (Adam James King). At least that’s what it says in the program. They are not as well defined in actual performance, and seem just like a regular chorus. Much more can be done here to make the show interesting and special.

Because Jessica Francis Fichter and Sean Riehm’s libretto was presented in highly condensed form in the showcase, we also didn’t get to see the character development of the brother, Jordan (Brenden McDonald), who is introduced as not caring about his mother with a funny country song (“Sucks to Suck”) but makes an abrupt transition in Act II. Also, as presented, the story starts promisingly, then goes around in circles for a while as Jane decides to go to college, then decides to stay home with her mother, then college again, then mother again, etc. However the issue is settled in a very satisfying way that was skillfully set up in the first moment of the show.

There is a lot here. The writers should keep striving to find that voice and make it sing out.

Directed by librettist Jessica Francis Fichter, with music direction by Neveda Lozano, Dandelion: An Original Musical played a single performance at 54 Below in Manhattan on August 14, 2019.