A five-week run of an innovative double bill featuring the Theater Alliance and Daniel Burkholder The Playground opened Thursday at the H St. Playhouse.
The evening included a one-act play, "The Dispute," by French author Marivaux, directed by Jeremy Skidmore with a new 45-minute improvisational dance, "Buried in the Sky" by Burkholder. The play, translated by Neil Bartlett, explores the theme of whether man or woman was the first to prove inconstant in love.
The audience witnesses four characters who have been separated from other contact their entire lives as they are introduced to each other and the world. Their emotions run the entire gamut of humanity as they discover the world and love. At some poignant moments words slip from these children that have emotional resonance beyond the immediate situation. Some were simple, like when the character Egle looks at herself for the first time in a puddle, and notes, "that's very pretty. What a shame I never knew that sooner." Others were more complex as when Egle and Azor meet, saying "My heart wants your hands." And moments became still more intimate, with Egle to Azor's, "I like your loving and adoring me more than I like your being here."
The cast is led by Andrew Price, Kathleen Coons, Lindsay Allen and Chuck Young as the children. Price was particularly effective, capturing the thrills and devastations of his character's situation with delicate and wondrous facial and body contortions.
Skidmore's decision to do the play again - it first premiered the week following Sept. 11, 2001 - proved rewarding for all involved. His direction, which includes the use of the dancers, and the judicious use of popular music are satisfying. The parsing of the material, however, which is set up by the blocks of music in the opening sections, is a little disconcerting yet unavoidable.
In the end, it is not so much the answer to the play's primary question that matters. The process of discovery reveals truths about relationships and self-love that make this play worth seeing.
In the second half, four dancers shared a stage covered with goose down feathers. The improvisational sounds of Jonathan Matis on clarinet further bathed the set. The piece, "Buried in the Sky," draws inspiration from a Tibetan burial ritual. Even heavily scored improvisation such as this should be an experience to simply absorb as the images wash over the viewer.
There is not a sense of heavy-handed content but more of tribal purity in this piece danced by Burkholder, Erin Donnelly, Deborah Karp and Jennifer Lee Clark Stone. Certain images continually reappear: three people standing, one in front of the other, as another is curled up in the feathers - all four wailing and thrashing as Matis curdles the air with intense dissonant tones. The dancers hurl themselves at each other's shoulders in graceful lofts that disintegrate into wrestling.
The performance succeeds where many improvisations fail - the entire space is very well controlled. Dance composition is not simply about the shapes one creates, but the space around the bodies, the tension between the performers. Burkholder and company establish a physical language early on, which allows one to feel the presence of physical contact between performers even when none exists.
The emotional range of the dancers is also compelling. A duet displayed this, with one moment of playfulness, which became temptation, then torment, then distance, and finally companionship, ending with the dancers sitting next to each other, backs to the audience, one head on one shoulder.
The able cast dances lusciously and powerfully and the lights, by Peter Joyce, accentuate both their changing states and the flowing robes designed by Stephanie-Felton Priestner and constructed by Chris Dalen.
The H St. Playhouse is a solid ten-minute walk from the Union Station Metro. For directions visit www.theateralliance.com. These performances will run Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. until Nov. 23. Tickets cost $35 for Friday and Saturday nights, and $30 on Thursdays or Sundays for both shows. Tickets cost $15 for just "Buried in the Sky" and $20 or $25 for "The Dispute," depending on the night. There is nudity in "Buried in the Sky"
