Tag Archives: donald byrd

Arts & Entertainment, Dance, Music, Theatre

Oklahoma!‘s Kicks are as High as, Well, You Know (Review)

The Cast of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! at the 5th Avenue Theatre. Photo: Chris Bennion

Oklahoma! at the 5th Avenue Theatre (tickets available now through March 4) is as good a production as you’ll likely ever see of this classic R&H musical. What makes it that much better is the choreography by Donald Byrd–giving this already solid production a depth that you don’t often see in the show.

Byrd, the artistic director of Spectrum Dance Theater, is a world-class choreographer who has created pieces for major dance companies all over the globe. Having him choreograph a show and embed his dancers in it is sort of like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Not to take anything away from the fine choreographers that the 5th and its colleagues typically use, it’s just that this isn’t your typical musical theatre dancing.

It starts with the song “Kansas City,” in which the actors blend ballet-infused moves into western and ragtime styles. It is, however, in the “dream ballet” sequence at end of Act II, that we see Byrd’s signature most clearly. Overtly balletic, the dancing in the scene embodies Byrd’s telltale mixture of humor and darkness, sexuality and violence (especially when Laurey is dragged by Jud across the stage as his conquest). It’s classic Byrd: beautiful with a pulse of malevolence that reminds us that not all is pretty on the prairie.

It’s not just the dancing that makes this production special. There are some standout performances, big and small, that raise the level of the game. Eric Ankrim as Curley would give anyone else who has played that role (with the possible exception of Hugh Jackman, sans claws) a run for their money. Ankrim brings an easy confidence to Curley, with no false notes. The always-good Anne Allgood plays Aunt Eller as both wise and wise-ass in a way that grounds the entire production. Someone always has to be the adult, and she plays it beautifully. David Pichette as Ike Skidmore–a role that shows up first in Act II and doesn’t really have a whole lot to say–shows us yet again how an amazing actor in a relatively small part can give the production so much more headroom.

Even smaller moments, such as when dancer Amber Nicole Mayberry regally, lovingly reaches down to turn over Jud after he is stabbed, add a dimension to this production that you wouldn’t expect. Her small act, and the focus and dignity she brings to it, changes everything in that moment, humanizing Jud in an instant.

Standing literally over all of them was Kyle Scatliffe as Jud. A big man, Scatliffe has an even bigger voice–warm, booming and powerful. When he’s on stage, there is a buzz and tension that owes something to the character he plays but more to the actor portraying him. In his Act I aria “Lonely Room,” Scatliffe unleashes fury and power as he convinces himself that his options for a meaningful life with Laurey are dwindling and that he must take action. As he does so, red light seeps through the slats of his smokehouse, growing in intensity with the billowing intensity of his emotion. Like a hot wind whipping down the plain.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Intiman’s Million-Dollar “Maybe” Pays Off

Which is more incredible? The Seattle Times reports the embattled Intiman Theatre, against all odds, has raised the first $1 million they will need to reopen. Playwright-gadfly Paul Mullin writes a post titled: “Sincerely, Good Luck.”

Ever since the Intiman’s board announced their selection of Andrew Russell as artistic director, along with a summer-festival slate from Seattle’s most talented, I’ve been biting my tongue. As it happens, I know some of the people involved, personally and professionally, and I have every confidence that they will create a festival of real artistic import. Not to overstate it, but any one or two of them collaborating would be an event–this cavalcade of artists is almost unprecedented and if you aren’t thrilled by the possibilities, you need to check with your doctor about dialing back on the dosage.

On the bill so far, a Russell-staged Hedda Gabler with Marya Sea Kaminsky and choreography from Olivier Wevers, and an Allison-Narver-directed, Israel-Palestine-referencing Romeo and Juliet. Plus, rumors The Stranger, “a certain iconic American play by an old white guy directed by Valerie Curtis-Newton, and something ‘outlandish’ that is ‘conceived by’ […] Dan Savage.”

So far, so good. The “Under New Management” sign is out, and a sustainable (we’re told) budget of $1 million is in play, but I remain torn. Intiman’s board–neither the old nor the reconfigured version–has never publicly explained the multi-year erosion of their $3.6 million endowment, and no one seems eager to investigate.

Given the Intiman’s repeated abuse of its donors’ and subscribers’ trust–someone spent down their endowment, the leadership did announce $500,000 would keep the doors open but then closed once it was raised, and finally subscribers were told they couldn’t have refunds because that money had been spent, too–it felt as if the “new” Intiman was voluntarily placing a stinking albatross around their neck. Why not simply form a new artistic enterprise?

But as Misha Berson reports in the Times, at least half the $1 million raised were major gifts were made by previous Intiman benefactors, who didn’t want to let their theatre go without a fight, and by the Intiman board. Still, a fight is what it will take. As Berson notes:

Intiman intends to now operate on a pay-as-you-go model, with a shorter season, a smaller staff and strict financial accounting. “Our budget used to be five or six million dollars a year,” noted Jones. “Clearly we could not sustain that and needed to dial it back.”

Other challenges lie ahead, both artistic and economic. Intiman has just begun to pay $370,000 in back rent and utilities owed to its landlord, the city-owned Seattle Center. It also must devise a plan to retire more than $500,000 in debt owed to other creditors.

To give you a sense of perspective, keep in mind that the City of Seattle just made this announcement: “Mayor Mike McGinn today announced more than $1.6 million in investments to Seattle-based arts, heritage and cultural organizations through the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs’ Civic Partners program. The program will provide funding to 137 organizations in 2012.”

Arts & Entertainment, Dance

Byrd’s Beast Dares You To Sit and Watch

Spectrum Dance Theater's Kate Monthy, Donald Jones Jr., and Amber Mayberry in Donald Byrd's The Beast (Photo: SDT/Gabriel Bienczycki)

There are many affecting moments onstage in Donald Byrd’s remount of The Beast (at Spectrum Dance Theater’s studio theater through October 16), but a good number also arise offstage: Rarely does an audience feel so implicated in a work, as in this dance of domestic violence that had its premiere in 1996.

The New York Times review of the original work, which featured a glowing rectangle and dancers spattering stage blood, called out Byrd’s eclectic blend of Brechtian alienation and overheated German Expressionism.

In this 2011 re-visioning, Byrd has doubled down on Brecht, with the aid of Matthew Richter’s stark scenic design, Doris Black’s cool gray costumes, and Tom Sturge’s expressive lighting: Multi-colored rectangles of strike tape map out the floor like an electronic schematic showing power flows, a puppet head shrieks an abusive screed, projected blood drips down a screen, a long white over-determined table suggests dining room, dance platform, morgue. The sharp snap of a wooden clapper signals an end to scenes. A dancer introduces the next via megaphone.

It’s irrational, of course–why should you interrogate yourself about watching a representation of domestic violence? The resemblance to real-life domestic violence (in that there are usually spectators of a sort who hold back from intervening) produces an anxiety that can’t be resolved within the piece, even as it reaches its conclusion.

Post-show, there’s a discussion that ranges beyond dance to domestic violence, and allows people, consciously or not, to voice the source of their discomfort. One audience member over the weekend asked if the dancers could hug each other. Another wanted to firmly state that a “certain kind of person” gets battered, which the domestic violence counselor on hand just as firmly disagreed with.

The dance’s narrative, Byrd admits, is drawn archetypically from case histories of abuse: The Beast (danced by the charismatic Donald Jones, Jr.) grew up witnessing abuse. He is charming and explosively angry. He disparages his young wife (Kate Monthy), slaps her, treats her as a sex object, balances his beer on her, then apologizes, begs for forgiveness. She is confused, cut off from friends, made to feel worthless and the center of his world. It’s her fault, she sets him off, she can change him, every relationship has problems.

There is a fairy-tale wedding, everyone wearing big, plastered-on smiles. The bride’s dress is beautiful, she dances with her husband, his hands tighten on hers–really tighten. Soon he’ll beat her. At the side of the stage, musicians Judith Cohen, piano; Jamie Maschler, accordion and percussion; Alicia Rinehart, violin and viola; and Tobi Stone, woodwinds, play dance and theatre composer Andy Teirstein’s off-kilter cabaret score.

Byrd’s choreography turns the trust relationship of dance on its head–he dramatizes in dance (rather than simply using dance to illustrate) the gut-wrenching whip-arounds and reversals, seizures and falls, of a partnership that’s no partnership to speak of. His leads, Monthy and Jones, are frighteningly (in this context) talented actors as well, giving you volumes with a slight shrinking away, a thousand-yard-stare, an embrace that reminds you of a boxers’ clinch.

They are, speaking of complicity, replicated by three couples that share to some extent their physically and emotionally contorting dynamic. At times you see Vincent Lopez and Ty  Cheng throwing their partners around like meat dolls, posturing, stamping, competing in spousal put-downs; but when The Beast takes things “too far,” they also become a chorus of disapproval. (Cheng also plays The Beast’s father, bristling with his own rage.)

There’s a moment when the women link arms that’s not at all anthemic, but still lets you know these are formidable people, not passive victims. Newcomer Jade Curtis in particular is strikingly fast and strong, her lines compressed arcs that suggest a bow and invisible arrows.

In Byrd’s telling, revenge is a natural culmination–and failure. There’s no getting even.