Word: stagings
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...eight pieces on the Dance Company program--all choreographed by Harvard students or affiliates--three seemed to be less dance pieces than theatrical pieces about dancing. Elizabeth Lurie's "A Touch of Folly," for example, used the stage as a frame for the whimsical meanderings of a quantity of balloons dropped from above, tossed from the wings, or (almost incidentally) blown up and carried by dancers. At least the equivalence was consistent: dancers sprawled on the floor next to balloons with the air let out, balloons ascended and dancers rose on tiptoe, balloons bobbed and floated while dancers circled...
...other hand, merely manipulated surfaces, whether of theatrical convention or of psychological cliche. The plot was straight out of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," predictable from start to finish, though it detoured along the way to poke fun with elephantine subtlety at ballet, tap, show-dancing, stage mothers and theater people in general. Small girl, repulsively well-scrubbed, trips off to dance class. Glitteringly costumed dancers enter to whir through various routines like wind-up toys. Small girl joins them, they acclaim her: fantasy fulfilled. Suddenly, hints of menace. Small girl is abandoned. Bunny dancer/mother rocks her to sleep. Moral: something...
...here had been washed smooth, and the rhythmic impulse, as in a dream, was the time of the sea-drift, rippling the dancers' bodies like wind on water. Meg Streeter's "Waves Blown Back" was less articulate, though still structured with thematic clarity. Streeter's dancers flashed across the stage in nimble zigzags, exploring the buoyant thrust of clean angles from a compact center...
...This bathos gives Jack Lemmon his star turn: fast-food epiphany, downstage center. Neither he nor Slade really needed this--although it must be fun to break down onstage. Tribute slobbers when it ought only to quiver; the mask comes off and the jelly underneath dribbles all over the stage...
...flawless cast plays superbly off of Lemmon, especially Robert Picardo as Jud. Unafraid of being charmless or unendearing, Picardo gives a wiry, courageous performance which ultimately wins us over and holds its own against his formidable stage father. Director Arthur Storch provides one of the smoothest, cleanest pieces of staging I have ever seen--he also invokes splendid, precise comic timing from the entire cast. William Ritman's split-level set is sheer genius, both aesthetically and thematically. Like Scottie, it has something for everyone: paneled walls, lots of framed photos, ultra-modern but ultra-comfortable furniture, all in attractive...