Reviews

 

 

 

The Miracle Worker

Reviewed by Madeleine Shaner

June 03, 2009

PHOTO CREDIT

Joel Daavid

Director Joel Daavid renews his production of William Gibson's play, originally at the Matrix Theatre, with a stunning show that includes several of the original cast. Familiar to many from a TV special (1957), a Tony-winning play (1960), a film (1962), and The Story of My Life by Helen Keller herself, it's a telling drama, shocking and emotional. Carlie Nettles as the young Helen is extraordinarily good as the blind, deaf child who can only "speak" through physical outbursts against those who love, but almost regret, her. Guiltily catered to by her parents—Captain Keller (a sternly inflexible Stuart W. Howard) and her overindulgent but ultimately brave mother, Kate (a hauntingly beautiful Julie Austin Felder)—Helen grows into the persona of an undisciplined terrorist and tormentor, shattering the family's physical and psychological peace with her mutinous tantrums. Nettles is immensely moving, as Helen battles for connection in a silent, unseen world she can't understand or conquer. Nettles' performance reaches a dramatic zenith when 20-year old Annie Sullivan (a superb Erin Christine Shaver) is hired to teach Helen to behave—and succeeds, against odds and expectations and through violent physical battles of will, in connecting with the dissociated child. There's great work by Christopher Irving as Helen's misunderstood stepbrother; Tara Thomas as much-used and sometimes abused housekeeper Viney; and Viney's grandchildren (Brianna Hodge and Theodore Martinez Jr.); and a Servant (Theodore Martinez), who also engineers the scene changes, which are sometimes longer than the scenes they are setting.

Daavid, also an award-winning scenic designer, has created a superb two-story setting for the play but must limit his passion for design to maintain the momentum, force, and through-line of the drama, which could also stand some strategic cuts; letters read aloud, unnecessary narrative enhancement, and ghostly visitations from Annie Sullivan's other world could disappear without a trace. Especially fine are Shon LeBlanc's costumes, Peter Bayne's original score, and Judy Pisarro-Grant's stunning choreography.

Presented by Russell Nichols and Joel Daavid at the Edgemar Center for the Arts, 2437 Main St., Santa Monica. May 22–June 28. Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (Except Sun., 1 p.m., June 7). (310) 392-7327. www.edgemarcenter.org.

 

July 25, 2006 Los Angeles Times   

DANCE REVIEW

Sure-footed in exploring ideas

 A pair of sharp quartets and two showpiece solos enliven the LaDanserie program.

  By Lewis Segal, Times Staff Writer

For nine years, a resident company called La Danserie has offered local audiences creative contemporary ballet programming influenced by European trends. The slate proved typically diverse and stimulating at the Unknown Theater in Hollywood on Saturday.

Tatiana A'Virmond's artful new quartet, "Alma Brasileira," began with a dreamy, lyric solo for Amanda Lynch but grew forceful and rhythmic with the arrival of Heather Lipson. Unison dancing could have been sharper, but the choreography always used its arrangement of music by Villa-Lobos with great surety.

Dancer Yoko Ambe dominated company artistic director Patrick R. Frantz's expert quartet "Di-Fusion," which layered surprising modernistic gestures onto classical steps in the same way that the accompaniment added jazz accents to music by Bach.

Ambe also soloed strongly in Judy Pisarro-Grant's new trio, "No Way / Any Way," which often used the dancers to soften and undercut two assaultive violin sonatas by George Antheil. Ten dangling vertical rods defined the dance space — and suddenly went askew when the music surged into overdrive.

French guest artist Alexandre de la Caffinière contributed two unforgettably twitchy showpiece solos. His comic "ballet-tics" used the music and some of the steps from the last-act male and female variations in the ballet "Don Quixote," mixed with all manner of incredibly fast sight gags drawn from Charlie Chaplin and other sources. "Ibou" was even better: a display of benchmark millennial virtuosity in which every limb, muscle or sinew could be isolated, twisted in on itself or used to propel the whole body into bold movement experiments.

Lipson's pop suite "Even the Stars Have Gone to Bed" used recordings by Anita Ellis, a vintage song stylist best remembered nowadays for supplying Rita Hayworth's singing voice in the "Put the Blame on Mame" number from the 1946 noir classic "Gilda." Unfortunately, Lipson managed neither to evoke nor parody Ellis' world with any distinction, though Ellen Rosa and, especially, Nicole Mathis looked comfortable in choreography that often seemed perversely disjointed.

Dancer injury caused reductions and rearrangements in Lipson's piece, plus the cancellation of Frantz's new "Appassionato." Both should be fully restored by next weekend. 

 

October 29, 2001 Los Angeles Times

DANCE REVIEW

LA DANSERIE DISPLAYS CREATIVE POWER

By VICTORIA LOOSELEAF, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Choreographer Patrick Frantz has some big ideas. Fortunately, he's got the talent to back them up. It was the stage of the Madrid Theatre, where the locally based collective La Danserie performed Saturday, that was, at times, too small for his vision. Frantz and five other choreographers premiered nine works, giving further proof that La Danserie is a major creative force.

Frantz's two large works, "Time to the End," boldly set to an excerpt of Poulenc's opera of martyrdom, "Dialogues of the Carmelites," and "Destiny," tackling no less than the "Molto Vivace" of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, both painted emotion-filled tableaux. The former, featuring 12 dancers portraying doom and time's inevitable march, had leaping women crumbling in the face of merciless men. The latter saw eight dancers exalting in hope, where outspread arms and powerful leaps resembled glorious birds taking flight. On a lighter note, a whimsical, tutu-clad Lisa K. Lock performed Frantz's "The Infinite Fifth," a spoof on barre work.

From Lock as choreographer came "500 Watts," stunningly danced by Moonea Choi, Ellen Rosa and Johnny Tu, an athletic look at power plays set to the dissonance of Penderecki, and "Night Prayers," a rich duet, punctuated by elegant lifts, between her and Jennifer McDonald Wilson.

McDonald Wilson's own solo, "Bound," had her resolutely grappling with a rope to Barber's "Adagio," while Judy Pisarro-Grant's "Mosaic" saw her, McDonald Wilson and Lock in lovely unisons set to Baroque music.

L.A. Times

...on Sunday, Highways Performance Space welcomed the exhilarating collective La Danserie.

Choreographer-dancer Lisa K. Lock dominated the Highways evening in stamina, versatility and technique. From "Voiceless," a love-hate contact improvisation between her and Juan Francisco Robles, to "Perpetual Identities," in which Phillip Chang, Vanessa Jue, Tony Licon, Jennifer McDonald Wilson, Grant Wilson and Jennifer Usyak shed light effectively on issues of trust, fear and isolation, the work soared.

Lock shone, too, in McDonald Wilson's take on "Waiting for Godot," her loose-limbed playfulness a perfect foil for Jue's equally enchanting high jinks. Choreographer Patrick Frantz made use of Lock's heron like presence in his "Chosen Ones," an Ellis Island-like scenario abounding with fugal moves and furious passion. In addition to Lock, McDonald Wilson and Usyak's hand wringing solos, corps of immigrants displayed fine folk-step­ping in Chang, Shaun Law-Bow­man,  Brandy  Odgers,  Judy Pissaro-Grant, Joe Weiss, Wilson and Leslie Viano.

Demonstrating his ballet background, Frantz made "Verdi Sola," on Bernadette Glenn, who embodied Romance on pointe. Another solo, "Still Thoughting? (Morphing the Fluff)," by Jue, flaunted McDonald Wilson's contortionist skills.