Williamstown, Massachusetts — “Saturday Matinee”The happiest at the concert“Just Williams Town Theater FestivalAnd there was a surprised embarrassment, with moody dissatisfaction floating in the air.
“Did you have a story about it?” A woman asked her companion on a patio outside Williams College’s ’62 Theater & Dance Center.
No, wife, obviously not. Or, Frank Loesser isn’t talking about the romance between the clunky middle-aged Tony and the waitress Rosabella in the 1956 musical “The Happiest Blow.” For the sake of fairness, no one promised to do so. This is not a musical, but a 70-minute song (and song fragment) program from the score. And it may cause you to hum those songs for days, as it was left to me. But this is not a friendly and patterned cabaret.
Invented and directed by Daniel Fish, this fast and busy show on the festival’s main stage (until July 31st) is far more aggressive and experimental than the sexy, bloody reboot of “Oklahoma!” .. He left the book as it was and staged Broadway. The work was so conscious of the presence of the audience that it featured a shared meal of chili and corn bread during breaks. Indeed, Fish eventually wanted to get us involved in the American culture of gun violence at the heart of the show. But it was important that we were there.
“Most Happy in Concert,” which includes two great veterans of Fish’s “Oklahoma!”, Seven Feller Freecasts, including Mary Testa and Mallory Portnoy, is a completely different creature. From that audience.
Not to mention applause, it’s not just about one song flowing into the next without breathtaking. From the opening number, “Oh! The actors perform” My Feet! “In a remote area behind the scenes, this work does not require anything from us, and it is strange that it runs quickly even if no one is watching from the auditorium. There is a feeling of shrugging. As Fish approaches solving the show’s mystery, it may change in future iterations. For now, it’s a real obstacle.
The problem isn’t a lack of artistry, nor is it a cast that includes Tina Fabrice, April Mathis, Erin Marquee, Maya Lagerstam, and Kiena Williams. Songs like “Somebody, Somewhere” and “Big D” are nice, and Fabrice makes every second of “Young People” completely yours. The only case that this concert makes clear is that someone needs to give Fabric a full-fledged musical, big and juicy role as soon as possible.
But more points are lost. What does it mean to take the girl-watching harmony of “Standing on the Corner” out of a man’s mouth and put it in the mouth of these actors? not clear. What does the relationship between actors mean if no one is playing a musical character? Same as above. Fish uprooted these songs from their original context without planting them in new ones. (Music arrangement by Daniel Kluger and Nathan Kochi, vocal arrangement by Kochi and Fish, orchestration by Kluger. Music director by Sean Peter Forte.)
Amy Rubin’s set, which features a dynamic curtain of golden fringes, lowers the stage hand to puddle on the floor and spins in the air as it rises. Fish seems to be more interested in exploring the architectural space and the geometry of the body within it. It’s more than he’s communicating with the audience. Someone who, depending on where he sits, can’t always see part of the show happening on the wings.
Is this chilly album, choreographed by the founder of Urban Bush Woman, Jawol Willa Jo Zorer, but rarely full of dance, a three-dimensional album? Is it a music video? As impressive as “Most Happy” sees (lighting by Thomas Dunn, costume by Terese Wadden), it feels less lively and less shared than the theater.
Fish said in Q. and A. of the digital program that the show seen at last year’s Bard Summer Scape, where many design elements weren’t yet in place, was ideally “a suggestion or provocation to the audience.” I have. “What if this person sings this song with these people in this space?”
That’s an interesting question, but he doesn’t help us endanger our guesses. He’s definitely provoking the audience, but for what?
Next to the small Nikos stage in Williamstown, Anna Ouyan Menchi’s “God man(Until Friday) will be built, built and will take its audience to an uneasy, dark and comical vehicle. The plot summary does not suggest cheerfulness.
The minister (Albert Park) took four high school girls from his California church on a mission trip to Bangkok. He also hid the camera in their bathroom. That discovery puts teenagers in jeopardy when the play begins — instigating some of them with the idea of using their trust to kill this probably holy man.
“When you read the Bible, there are many examples. People are killed at a much lower cost.”
At the ages of 15 and 16, the girls have little in common other than the church. Jen (Emma Gal Brace) is a smart and ambitious feminist. Mimi (Erin Ray Lee) is a kneeling rebel who likes four-letter words. Samantha (Shirley Chen in the performance I saw) is naive, but smarter than others acknowledge her achievements, but Kyung-Wha (the day I saw the show, July 16th) Helen J. Shen, who took over, is deep, conservative and keen to give the pastor a suspicious benefit.
The “Man of God” directed by Maggie Burrows in a messy-living hotel room set by Se Hyun-O was able to use some tightening in both text and performance. .. However, it is a play that accumulates its effectiveness while balancing the usual adolescent hustle and bustle of hungry awareness. The girls’ illusions can be seen to collapse because they take into account the common grounds between weird sexual exploitation and quieter and more insidious predation.
It’s a smart and thoughtful play, with no words, the penultimate scene is a tense tour deforce. The girl packs her suitcase and goes home, releasing anger and betrayal. And the fantasy of revenge that leads to it? They are much more fun than the murders considered.
All of that causes something like chatter after the show. People enthusiastically ask each other in their car, “Did you kill him?”
God man
Until July 22nd at the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. wtfestival.org.. Execution time: 1 hour 30 minutes.
The happiest at the concert
Until July 31st at the main stage of the Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts. wtfestival.org.. Execution time: 1 hour and 10 minutes.
