As this the Anne Courtney Birthday Week edition, I have to start with happy birthday to my better half, my favorite culture and travel companion, and the person who always makes me want to be better. I love you, baby.
National Theatre’s Amadeus, Lucas Msamati as Salieri, taken from the NT’s official website
Theatre: Amadeus by Peter Shaffer, directed by Michael Longhurst, presented by the National Theatre.
I haven’t kept up as much as I should on NT’s stellar dive through their archive in response to the pandemic. My failing there was thrown into sharp relief as I caught the finale of their YouTube series, a jaw-dropping, perfect revival of Amadeus filmed in 2018.
I’ve been in love with the material since I saw the movie (probably younger than I should have) and it’s hard to picture a better take on Shaffer’s tragic hero of Salieri than Lucas Msamati here. Msamati conjures the character’s iron-willed belief in a just world and a forgiving god, and the shattering, destructive crash when it’s not so.
This Salieri’s judgmental nature poisons everything he touches, ultimately rotting himself from the inside out. His raging monologue at the end of act one and his final declaration, anointing himself to that holy pantheon as “patron saint of mediocrity” are as devastating as I’ve ever seen them. Beyond the stellar acting, Longhurt’s choice to have the Sinfonia on the stage playing the music amidst the actors adds to the mythic, widescreen feeling of this intimate epic.
Amadeus airs through July 23 on National Theatre’s YouTube channel.
Johnny Thunders, taken from Bowery Electric’s website
Music: Johnny Thunders’ Birthday Bash, streamed live from Bowery Electric
As expected, I’ve been missing New York bad as spring turns into full-bore summer. Clubs coming to life with full bands broadcasting into the ether instead of just someone in their apartment (though I’m grateful for that too) are helping salve just a little of that ache.
One of my favorite things about the city is the close proximity of people and one of my favorite immediate manifestations of that energy comes in bulging, riotous tributes. No one does those better than Jesse Malin (with help from Diane Gentile and others) and this online edition of his annual Johnny Thunders tribute at Bowery Electric was some of the most fun I’ve had on a couch all pandemic.
With a tight backing band consisting mostly of Malin’s players (including Derek Cruz on guitar and Danny Ray on sax), for about two hours they reminded us why Johnny Thunders still matters – as Bob Gruen said from his home upstate, he was “kind of Chuck Berry” for that post-74 generation.
MC Steve Krebs – who also closed the night with joyous takes on “Who Are the Mystery Girls” and “Too Much Junkie Business” – kept the well-oiled night moving. Younger acolytes partied through classics like Strange Majik doing “Personality Crisis”, Diane Gentile’s “Sad Vacation” and Kelley Swindall’s “She’s So Untouchable.” The previous generation showed up with stellar, lived-in takes on the catalogue from Keith Streng of the Fleshtones’ majestic cry on “I’m a Boy I’m a Girl” to Steve Wynn and Linda Pitmon’s swampy, minimal “Downtown” to Gilby Clarke’s trio rampaging through “Born to Lose.”
The icing on the cake was Lenny Kaye – who as Patty Smith’s first accompanist has the same kind of claim to “first barrage of punk rock” as Thunders and his Dolls bandmates, perfectly essaying the glittering melancholy of “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory” before kicking into “Gloria” with the mid-song rap directed toward the memory of Johnny.
In many ways, this made me miss the shows even more but it also reinforced that spirit that we’ll all make it out of this. And we’ll remember not only the people we lost but how good it feels to be in that room together.
Caroline Davis Quintet, screenshot from Smallslive stream
Music: Caroline Davis Quintet livestreamed from Small’s
Spike Willner’s club Small’s has led the charge getting real jazz played in clubs. Small’s is always a treasure, the highest quality of classic jazz in a funky, real setting. A bar that’s always made me feel good to be alive whenever I made it there – even though usually it was those nights when I wanted just a little more music, after a ticketed show somewhere else.
They’ve perfectly preserved that vibe on this series, the warm chatter of musicians setting up before playing, the great sounding but low-fi video. I’ve been averaging three or four a week – another charge Small’s led for years was recording and archiving all their shows and this finally pushed me over the line to become a monthly subscriber – and they get better and better.
This Saturday’s Caroline Davis Quartet left me in awe, firing up those pleasure centers jazz has a direct line to. Davis is one of the finest alto players working and a stunning writer, and this band was on fire from the first moment. Her front line with trumpeter Marquis Hill had a rare empathy from sinewy ballads to burning protest songs, tossing back and forth with the exquisite rhythm section of Julian Shore on piano, Chris Tordini on bass, and Allan Mednard on drums.
This and all Small’s show are archived at http://www.smallslive.com. It’s more than worth the cost. Each show is also available free for registering when it plays live at 4:45 pm every day.
The Few, Gideon Glick (l), Michael Laurence (r), taken from the Rattlestick website
Theatre:The Few written and directed by Samuel D. Hunter, Play-Per-View in conjunction with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
Play-Per-View has jumped to the front of the line providing electifying readings of acclaimed Off-Broadway plays for one night. This past Saturday they reunited the original 2014 cast of Samuel Hunter’s The Few with proceeds going to its original company Rattlestick. This was on my radar but the timing didn’t work and I was overjoyed to catch up with it here.
Bryan (Michael Laurence) washes up at the offices of the newspaper for truckers he helped found with QZ (Tasha Lawrence) and left her holding the bag years ago two days after the funeral of their third founder and best friend. In the intervening years, QZ turned the paper into a legitimate news source and even (marginally) profitable.
The triangle’s completed by the paper’s newer employee Matthew (Gideon Glick), a true believer on the run from a toxic homelife and broken in ways QZ and Michael know all too well. The Few is the kind of cry into the void I’m a particular sucker for. A paean and a ritual for human connection even in the face of all the pain tied up with it.
It’s beautifully acted: Laurence’s increasingly desperate pleas that “It’s all bullshit” and the anguish at what his old friend was capable of. QZ’s simmering rage at the disrespect she faces at doing the best she could and being played over and over. And Matthew’s youthful hope that he can use this paper to mean what it meant to him as a lonely kid. The writing is finely honed and lived in, with recordings of personal ads used as punctuation.
I’m glad when anyone makes theatre in the face of the requirement to stay apart from one another and I’m glad to see productions given new life in a way that doesn’t turn into the devalued nature of the sea of streaming.
Live Music: Nief-Norf Virtual Marathon 2020
I first became acquainted with Nief-Norf through their partnership with fellow Knoxville New Music institution The Big Ears Festival. Taking a page from similarly hiatused summer festival Bang on a Can, they threw a remarkable party drawing together composers, instrumentalists, alumni, performing new and classic work.
The charming interviews didn’t just add context, they reminded the audience of the role community plays in any art scene. The most crucial thing that’s in danger of being lost if funds dry up and institutions (from university programs to the bar down the street that hosts a jam session every Tuesday) go out of business are these connections, these memories, the sense that new generations want to be involved because it’s fun and fulfilling.
And the music, the main course, was astonishing. Highlights in the three hours I was able to catch included cellist Ashley Walters’ rolling, crackling tensions in her riveting take on Nicholas Deyoe’s Another Anxiety; Andrea Lodge’s meditative, warm reading of Annea Lockwood’s Red Mesa; and Joshua Weinberg and Philip Snyder’s glittering look at Flutronix’s Brown Squares.
“Setting my palms into the mud at the base of a gnarled vine, I pressed them together and whispered “speak.” But the vine’s silence just grew into the silence of the dead who once tended it.
Then I saw exactly how it was beautiful— how it held its world whole beneath its fog-slick bark, while the things we ask to hold us leave us spent.” -From “Where the Zinfandel Pass Their Seasons in Mute Rows” by Jane Mead
The pleasure of being in a room with performers, sitting with someone else’s voice, the feedback loop between audience and the stage, all resonated more strongly and felt more vital than ever this year. I saw a little less theatre – only one New York trip instead of the usual two and the Italian trip coincided with the opera houses being dark – about 55 performances between three cities – but still had a hard time carving out these fifteen performances.
Each one of these showed me something I didn’t know before, sent me spinning out into the night, made me desperate to talk to someone about them, and usually made me pound my fist into the heavy desk at the impossibility of coming close to doing it justice the next morning. These are in chronological order, instead of ranking, and are in Columbus unless otherwise specified. All art was provided by the companies for promotional use, either sent to me directly or on their site.
Available Light’s Appropriate
Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by David Glover (Available Light) – Available Light crushed this year by bringing the best writing for the American stage to Columbus and executing on it with jaw-dropping alacrity. The two David Glover-directed plays were standouts and Appropriate started my year of theatre-going with the thunderclap of a warning-shot pistol. I called it “An acidic, invigorating evening that will make you laugh, make you hate yourself for laughing, make you hate yourself for giving someone the benefit of the doubt, but acknowledge the horrible, beautiful nature of being human.” Standout performances – in a cast full of winners – included Kim Garrison Hopcraft’s righteous fireball of desperation, Philip Hickman and Beth Josephsen’s metal-grinder of a struggling marriage, and Jordan Fehr’s devastating look at the difficulty of atonement. My review for Columbus Underground.
Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book), directed by Brandon Boring (Imagine)– It’s rare for a production of a play I love as much as Into the Woods to shock me back into myself. Director Brandon Boring’s risky choices to go off-mic – with all credit to the strong, sympathetic singing of the cast and the nuanced work of musical director Jonathan Collura and his chamber orchestra – and work up an immersive set in a tiny room known for sound problems paid off big in this jaw-dropping, real, funny take. As I said for Columbus Underground, it “took me back to the same place of childlike delight as my first encounter. I found tears coming to my eyes at exactly the places they should have been.”
The Flood by Korine Fujiwara (score) and Stephen Wadsworth (libretto), directed by Stephen Wadsworth (Opera Columbus and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra) – The Flood pointed to a rich, challenging future for two of our best institutions. An original work grappling with a painful chunk of Columbus history, the Franklinton flood, moved me in more senses than just my coming from a family who settled in The Bottoms and ended up on the Hilltop. Fujiwara’s sparkling, layered, complicated score was executed brilliantly with astonishing performances from Lacey Jo Benter, Meröe Khalia Adeeb, and Daniel Stein, among others. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
Netta Yerushalmy’s Paramodernities
Paramodernities by Netta Yerushalmy with texts by Thomas F. DeFrantz, Julia Foulkes, Georgina Kleege, David Kishik, Carol Ockman, Mara Mills, Claudia La Rocco (presented by the Wexner Center) – It’s rare I see something that makes me say “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” It’s even rarer I’m in the theatre for over four hours still hungry for more when the lights come up. Yerushalmy’s wild grappling with the history of modernism, scoring dances to lectures set my brain and every part of my body on fire. I walked out wanting to grab everyone I knew by the shoulders and shake, “Why weren’t you there? You missed something special.”
The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, directed by Elizabeth Wellman (OSU Department of Theatre) – I was bummed to miss DeLappe’s play twice at Lincoln Center (once sold out by the time I got word, the revival opened the day I was flying home) so I was overjoyed OSU took it on this season and it did not disappoint. Elizabeth Wellman’s bone-deep understanding of patterns, their necessity for us to grow up but also their ability to weigh us down, sparkles here, with ferocious performances from Vayda Good and Mehek Sheikh anchoring a top-notch cast. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
Red Herring’s Waiting to be Invited
Waiting to Be Invited by S. M. Shepard-Massatt, directed by Patricia Winbush-Wallace (Red Herring Productions) – Red Herring’s ambitious play-a-month schedule this year yielded far more hits than misses. One of my favorites was Shepard-Massatt’s look at the early civil rights movement, directed brilliantly by Patricia Winbush-Wallace, with a stellar, perfectly balanced cast of Winbush-Wallace, Julie Whitney Scott, Demia Kandi, Harold Yarborough, and Josie Merkle. I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.
King Lear by William Shakespeare, directed by Sam Gold (Cort Theatre, NYC) – My favorite Shakespeare in an uneven – the reports were not wrong – at times gaudy and overwrought version, still had pleasures enough to make this list. Foremost among them, Glenda Jackson – I feel like I’ve seen the defining Lear of my generation, terrifying, imperious, wounded; I can count on one hand the performances I’ve seen on a stage that matched hers. Similarly, casting Russell Harvard, a deaf actor, as Cornwall paid off massively especially in the moments before the assault on the Earl of Gloucester (a brilliant James Houdyshell) with a frenzied argument between Corwnwall and his aide/interpreter, Michael Arden, in sign language.
Hillary and Clinton by Lucas Hnath, directed by Joe Mantello (John Golden Theatre, NYC) – A slice of life/secret history about the back rooms of the primaries for the 2008 election. Hnath’s uncanny ability to understand the rhythms of the way we speak to each other in different rooms and with different intentions sang through the amazing performances of Laurie Metcalf, John Lithgow, Peter Francis James, and Zak Orth.
Evolution’s The View Upstairs
The View Upstairs by Max Vernon, directed by Beth Kattelman (Evolution Theatre Company) – My favorite thing in a particularly strong season from Evolution this year. An original musical about the moments before the Upstairs Lounge arson, amplifying that tragedy by being about what brings people together for solace, especially people who are denied it elsewhere. Incredibly moving, warmly directed by Beth Kattelman and with a stellar leading role by Jonathan Collura who I did not know was a late addition until a friend told me that at a party weeks later. I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.
Fine Not Fine written and directed by Andy Batt (MadLab) – Andy Batt’s return to his former home as artistic director delighted me as it brought me to tears. I said at the time it “grapples with the most basic question of humanity: why do we keep living? What makes us want to keep living? It finds a magical strength in the lack of easy answers and in the absence of a magic bullet; in the very difficulty of the road ahead of us all. And it reminds us we don’t have to be alone in that struggle.” I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.
Available Light’s Dance Nation
Dance Nation by Clare Barron, directed by Whitney Thomas Eads (Available Light) – With every play Clare Barron stakes her claim on the title of best American playwright. This look at a teenage dance team boasted crackling direction and choreography from Whitney Thomas Eads and fantastic performances all around. I said at the time, “I’ve seen nothing that felt as much like adolescence – raging, wildfire emotions; the fracturing of friendships that used to feel like home; not everyone is special at the thing you most want to be seen for – as Dance Nation.” I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.
Between Riverside and Crazy by Stephen Adly Guirgis, directed by Ekundayo Bandele (Hattiloo Theatre, Memphis) – I’ve long admired Hattiloo Theatre’s mission. While plays have never been the primary factor in getting me to Memphis regularly, I’ve always been impressed they seem to sell out by the time I start planning. I finally rectified that error with a fiery, intense production of this rich Guirgis drama.
The Humans by Stephen Karam, directed by McKenzie Swinehart – Red Herring ended their run at the Franklinton Playhouse with this nigh-perfect take on Karam’s Tony-winning family drama. Orbiting around the devastating father-daughter dynamic of Christopher Moore Griffin and Becca Kravitz, I said at the time, “Swinehart treats what could be heavy, ponderous material with a light touch, letting her characters breathe and taking full advantage of Edith D. Wadkins’ jaw-dropping set. Love for these characters, even at their most broken, animates this The Humans, searing it into the audience’s brain.” I reviewed it for Columbus Underground.
Short North Stage’s West Side Story
West Side Story by Arthur Laurents (book), Leonard Bernstein (music), and Stephen Sondheim (lryics), directed by Edward Carignan (Short North Stage) – Carignan took this American classic and stripped it down to its raw emotion and primal darkness in this brilliant collaboration with Columbus Children’s Theatre. A shocking, wild take that preserved everything I love about this show I know so well and made me see it anew.
7 by Radouan Mriziga (presented by the Wexner Center) – Mriziga’s take on the Mershon Auditorium brought overload from every corner with voices and symbols, history being rebuilt and seen from various angles. I’d also like to take this moment to shout out the Wex’s recent commitment to accessibility, I saw people enjoying this who would have felt uncomfortable or made to specifically ask for basic accommodation at these kind of immersive performances in the past. It was fantastic to see the beginnings of that change.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” – Joan Didion, “The White Album”
“The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.” -Audre Lorde, “Power”
Mia Barrow in The White Album, provided by Lars Jan via the Wexner Center
The two soul-enriching elements best delivered by performance, empathy for others and the feeling of community, have never been more needed by me personally and by the world. In a year of extreme highs and fucked up lows, a year where I often didn’t know whether I was coming or going, theatre and dance were the balm they’ve always been – and more.
Having an outlet and hearing from people who were reading and listening and interested in digging deep meant more to me than I can say and I hope I did justice by what I saw. This year was the hardest in memory to whittle down a top 15 from the 60 shows I saw. There was more good work in a wider range of styles than I could take in. Mostly spread between New York and Columbus, I didn’t make it to Chicago and I couldn’t work plays into the handful of Cleveland trips. As always, everything is in Columbus unless stated otherwise. All art is provided by the artists/companies for promotional purposes, either sent to me directly or from their site.
Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and Other Works by John Bernd,conceived by Ishmael Houston-Jones and co-directed by Miguel Gutierrez and Ishmael Houston-Jones, adapting choreography and text by John Bernd. (Danspace, NYC) – This highlight of a particularly stuffed-with-joy APAP could have justified the cost of a winter NYC trip all on its own. Dance is one of the most alive, immediate artforms – we all know the body – and one of the most dazzling for its presentation of what the body can do. This work of memory, combining texts and choreography and compositions from the artists’ friend John Bernd (a tragically early AIDS casualty) reasserted how alive this work is and raged at the loss of its creator simultaneously. I wrote about it at more length here.
2. Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. by Alice Birch (Available Light) – In a year where Available Light hit it out of the park repeatedly with work no one else does better, this raw, mesmerizing Alice Birch play was first among equals. Eleni Papaleonardos’ direction balanced thoughtful abstraction with intense physicality and every performance showed me something new or painfully reminded me of something I already knew. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
3. Andrew Schneider, Youarenowhere (Wexner Center) – There’s a certain joy in seeing something that uses tropes you know in such a fresh way it feels completely new. This Schneider piece was a heartbreaking magic show: a virtuosic solo performance, the best science fiction grappling with alcoholism since The Man Who Fell to Earth and a chaotic jumble of the glitching, out of sync nature of the modern world glued to a beating heart. More images that haven’t left me since January than anything else I saw all year.
4. The Realistic Jones by Will Eno (CATCO) – This deceptively simple Will Eno fable about two couples named Jones was a perfect example of the beautiful, human storytelling CATCO brings to the table at its best. Bishara’s direction unwrapped this for the audience like a gift without pandering or trying to sand down the weirdness. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
5. The White Album by Lars Jan and Early Morning Opera, adapted from Joan Didion (Wexner Center) – A righteous performance by Mia Barrow at its core charged and illuminated this powerful adaptation of one of the finest American essays. A look at all the ways telling shapes the life and the stories grow into themselves. The accusations this wasn’t dramatized enough had some merit, but it’s probably not surprising hearing those words was as much of a shot in the arm as I needed.
6. Assassins, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman (Short North Stage) – My favorite Sondheim on a visceral level, Assassins, received a gorgeous technicolor-nightmare production at Short North Stage featuring razor-sharp direction by Gina Hardy Minyard and a cast that’s hard to imagine being bettered. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
7. Pursuit of Happiness by Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper (Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, Under the Radar, NYC) – Nature Theatre of Oklahoma have a knack for taking things we think we know and making sure we really see them. This look at America through the lens of the Western in collaboration with En Knap, blows up our treasured (or sneered-at) myths about America into a hilarious, grim Grand Guignol cartoon.
8. Company by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth (SRO Theatre); Falsettos by William Finn and James Lapine (Gallery Players) – These two shows are high water marks for the ability of the musical to shine a light on our worst, most craven tendencies and point to the hope of self-realization. Great direction – Kristoffer Green for Company and Ross Shirley for Falsettos – casts, and musical direction gave a new coat of paint on these fabulous scores and sent me out into the night thankful for my town and mulling a lot of things over. Reviewed for Columbus Underground: Company and Falsettos.
9. An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Available Light) – This Jacobs-Jenkins play was one of the most acclaimed and controversial Off-Broadway hits in recent years and the Available Light production was a marvel, directed by Matt Slaybaugh and with a for-the-ages performance by David Glover at its heart. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
10. [PORTO] by Kate Benson (Available Light) – Benson’s [PORTO] was a sharp and funny look at the complications and dangers of trying to live in the world, to stake out a place for yourself without treating others badly. Note-perfect direction by Eleni Papaleonardos and a phenomenal cast including standout performances by Elena Perantoni and Michelle Weiser, made this terrific play an experience that was impossible to forget. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
11. Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore (CATCO and Evolution Theatre Company) – These CATCO and Evolution collaborations always bear fruit and this gripping take on Whitemore’s classic dissection of Alan Turing, directed by Joe Bishara, was especially soul-enriching. A riveting performance by Ian Short as Turing and Dave Morgan as Dilwyn Knox, particularly Morgan’s horrifying soliloquy about compromise, knocked this over the fences. I reviewed this for Columbus Underground.
Etrois sont les Vaisseaux, Wexner Center
12. Étroits sont les Vaisseaux by Kimberly Bartosik/daela (Wexner Center for the Arts) – This dance piece, named for a mammoth Anselm Kiefer sculpture, took a look at a couple on a shifting, melting landscape of intimacy (danced by Joanna Kotze and Lance Gries). When I interviewed Bartosik for a preview she said her goal was to find that emotional, dramatic space without being dramatic or emotional and this succeeded in spades. Every subtle gesture, every undulation, felt charged and fraught without being obvious or over the top. This ripped my heart out and used it for a shadow play.
13. White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Nassim Soleilmanpour (Available Light) – This piece travels the world, speaking for its author Soleilmanpour, forbidden a passport because he wouldn’t serve in the military. It takes what could be a parlor trick, a play the actor hasn’t seen before the curtain comes up, and (with the careful facilitation of Eleni Papaleonardos) turns it into a fable about complicity and compromise. In the middle of a very long day – that started with a phone call from the day job at 4:15am – this shook me to the core. I couldn’t bring myself to stay for the talk-back but I stopped twice on the mile walk home to text friends about this; I just couldn’t not talk about it.
14. Our Country: The Antigone Project, Conceived and Devised by Annie Saunders and B. Wolff (Under the Radar, NYC) – This was a beguiling, complicated intermingling of memory and myth, childhood and America. Created based on taped conversations between Annie Saunders and her brother, and starring Saunders and Max Hersey, and with direction by Wolff that merged a deep empathy with not letting its characters off the hook, it was as immediate and accessible as a house on fire but so hard to nail down it would have required many, many viewings to exhaust.
15. Apologia by Alexi Kaye Campbell (Roundabout Theatre, NYC) – This British import featured a volcanic Stockard Channing at its center as an art historian who just published a summing-up memoir that’s roiled her family. With a supporting cast led by a terrific Hugh Dancy and Megalyn Echikunwoke and strong direction by Daniel Aukin, despite an ending that pulled its punch too early, this was a haunting look at the costs for women in pursuing success.
This is the time of year when performance slows, when companies lean towards the family-friendly, and those of us who think too damn much about arttuck into making lists. On which note, look for my live music list and records soon, theatre and visual art at the end of the month because there are things on the NYC agenda that could be contenders. But before you surrender to that warm egg nog stupor, there are two thorny, fascinating pieces this weekend to add a little bite and a second thought to your tidings of good cheer.
I saw Available Light’s production of Iranian playwright Nassim Soleilmanpour’s White Rabbit Red Rabbit in the last night of its first weekend at Wild Goose, at the end of a day that started at 4 am with a work testing call. I wrote a preview for Columbus Underground, interviewing facilitator (and AVLT Artistic Director) Eleni Papaleonardos and three actors in this project, so I was already excited. Public mea culpa, I apparently accidentally spelled Eleni’s name Elini in the article and missed it until just now. One of my favorite artists in Columbus, I should always get her name correct.
I left the theatre stunned. Even as exhausted as I was, the uncomfortable identification between actor the playwright’s unfiltered voice, the sense of watching a beacon from far away and having to decode its signals. The humor and the audience participation and sudden shifts into abject bleakness and rage all had a profound effect on me. I didn’t stay for the talk-back because my complicity and I needed air and sunlight, but I stopped at the taco truck and messaged a friend about it for twenty minutes. I don’t want to give much away but if you can tolerate random audience participation, do not miss this. Some of the best actors in town performing a sui generis experience.
Seancers
The other must-see this weekend is a poetic dance work from Detroit-based artist Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Séancers. I conducted a fascinating interview with Kosoko for Columbus Underground which left me hungry to see this work. In it, Kosoko said, “I also find art is a way of communicating with an audience, so we know that we’re asking the same questions as it relates to our humanity and ways of being in the world,” Kosoko said. ”We’re going about it in different ways, but I think those core inquiries are certainly present in all of us. That proposal invites the audience, piques their interest enough to venture into the room and come on this journey with me.”
This work received amazing press from the New York Times, in which Kosoko said, “The creative work for me is a catalyst to engage in dialogue and critical conversation. That’s really what I thirst for, to be part of a larger conversation.” Art in America called it “powerful interrogation of the way whiteness restricts and confines and fails to provide ways out.” In a solid year for dance and theatre at the Wex, this promises to be another high point. Get out there, try to open yourself up, especially if, like me, you easily get overwhelmed and beaten down this time of year.
Adam O’Farrill’s Stranger Days – photo courtesy of Wexner Center
I hope the handful of you reading this got the three-day weekend to rest up because there’s enough unmissable stuff this week to kill the weaker of constitution.
Starting off on Wednesday we see one of the early blendings of new Performing Arts Curator Lane Czaplinski and outgoing curator Chuck Helm. Helm booked, in collaboration with CCAD, NYC artist Neil Goldberg for his one-man show Inhibited Bites fresh off two performances around APAP. Czaplinski makes good on his commitment to connecting the Wex beyond its four walls by bringing the show to Franklinton’s Idea Foundry. There have been happy hours related to Wex events before, but this at Land Grant is one of very few we’ve had steps away from the show. I wrote a preview for Columbus Underground.
Neil Goldberg’s Inhibited Bites – photo courtesy of the Wexner Center
Thursday, the Ogún Meji Duo kicks off a six-month residency at Art of Republic. One of our finest composers, Mark Lomax II, and my favorite saxophone player in town, Eddie Bayard, bring their fiery, flexible. Each of these residencies features a special guest and this week’s is very special: visual artist Bryan Christopher Moss. Friend and editor Andrew Patton previewed this for JazzColumbus.
Friday, one of our finest record labels, Heel Turn, celebrate their third anniversary with two showcases of our best rock and roll on the Old North High Street corridor. The appetizer at Dirty Dungarees features Bloody Show – never have better Stooges-style songs graced our town – with Mr. Clit and the Pink Cigarettes and the new Outer Spacist/Terrestrials offshoot Psychotropic. Facebook event. And the main event is headlined by my (and pretty much everybody else’s) favorite Columbus band right now, DANA, with Burning Itch from Knoxville, and Messrs and Raw Pony also from Columbus. Get there early, you don’t want to miss Raw Pony if you know what’s good for you. Facebook event.
Saturday, one of the finest young trumpet players from NYC, Adam O’Farrill brings his quartet Stranger Days to the Wex. I had the privilege of interviewing O’Farrill in advance of this show, and this is the kind of pure jazz that can move people who aren’t necessarily interested in jazz and leave those of us who already drank the Kool-Aid high for days. I previewed this show for JazzColumbus.
Later Saturday, Spacebar brings an unhinged rock extravaganza from near and far. I’ve barely been able to stop listening to London band Shame since they hit my radar before an NYC trip last year. Their first full-length Songs of Praise delivers on all the snotty, gleeful promise of their early singles with ingratiating post-punk grooves and snarled hooks that draw you in at the same time they’re pushing you away. Pittsburgh Sub Pop signees The Gotobeds have a slightly poppier shine to their stiletto sharpness but anyone who saw their Big Room show a year or two ago knows how hard they can rock. Local up-and-comers Kizzy Hall and Roof Dogs open, both of whom I’m looking forward to checking out again. Facebook event.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Tom Dugdale of new-to-town acclaimed theatre troupe The Trip. Their first show in Columbus runs for three more days.
How much of remembering is an act of love? That question suffuses every molecule of Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other works by John Bernd, the unequivocal highlight of my first day in New York this trip.
The first time I saw Ishmael Houston-Jones it was like the first time I heard Monk or Joni Mitchell; the first time I heard Amiri Baraka; the first time I saw a Rauschenberg combine. So I went into this revival presented by American Realness barely knowing anything about John Bernd, to whom tribute is being paid, and only a little more about Houston-Jones’ co-director Miguel Gutierrez. That instinct didn’t disappoint.
The cast of dancers is perfect, Toni Carlson, Talya Epstein, Alvaro Gonzalez, Charles Gowin, Madison Krekel, Johnnie Cruise Mercer, and Alex Rodabaugh. They feel like they like each other. Physical chemistry is paramount and abundant but there’s a warmth that’s much harder to capture. For a show about communion and tending to one another that sense means everything.
Sweet moments of singing syllables that boil down to “Oh, hi, heya” stretching out and sparkling like stardust (Nick Haslett beautifully reworks Bernd’s original compositions) master the supple stillness of being together many of us only strive for. There’s a gorgeous, subtle glow in the way these bodies slide through the original music; themes build, go through a chrysalis, then spark between the dancers.
Toni Carlson’s warm intensity, especially in concert with Charles Gowin, is a highlight; they ground the more abstract sequences in a heightened, best-selves version of the world we know too well.
There’s a delightful slapstick edge here, most prominent in a sequence about fighting illness by “Taking control of [your] diet” making a parody of a smoothie. This shifts into a thesis statement as everyone puts their hands on the blender like a sorcerer’s talisman and chant in tones equal parts defiance and desperation words of hope like “I will not die before I do justice to my gifts.”
The use of pre-existing songs here is remarkable, with nary a cop-out crutch or easy wink for miles.
Copland’s “Hoe Down” section from Rodeo gets jubilant irreverence. This only piece from a traditional ballet gets razor-sharp use of that post-Balanchine narrative dance language but also the childlike play at Cowboys and Indians and some frankly erotic “playing at cowboys.”
Prince’s Dirty Mind grows out of the kind of hard triplet stomping Houston-Jones says is a signature of Bernd, a thudding, sensual shudder that’s a call to attention that could turn into “Walk this Way” at any moment. With this Prince song, the dance vocabulary that served as a quicksilver carrier for many moods, flowers into an electric bacchanal. Pairing off, tossing each other around, finding space for one another’s body. The highlight for me was Epstein, split off from the others, dancing in shadow back by the audience, twitching like a power-line violently ripped from its moorings; the kind of intense, erotic defiance of gravity and death it takes this much craft to look natural. I blushed and wanted to look away but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. New Order’s Age of Consent captured the bursting joy and melancholy of that song in a way I’ve never seen any movie or TV use pull off.
The coup de grace (double-entendre sting on “grace”) came with Lou Reed’s Street Hassle. Circumventing what most people gravitate toward in this song, the hustler narrative, Variations drops us right into Part C. We get strings already growing lush and Springsteen’s cameo before the sweet, keening melancholy of “I need you, baby. Oh please, baby… Please don’t slip away.”
I know how reductive this is for such an intense and complex work. But what I left with was: no energy is wasted. Bernd was an unlikely candidate for the canon but his friends made a zine 10 years after his death in tribute. 20 years after that an oversold crowd had the privilege to sit in a church built in 1799 and marvel at all the work in this recreation.
I don’t want to get all “Can I get an Amen” on you, but… May we all be so lucky to have someone love us that much. To love even one thing we made that much. To be some small part of reflecting or amplifying that love in some small way.
Screen of Distance 