Contact comprises three absorbing and provocative dance dramas. In a forest glade, 1767, a servant pushes a pretty girl on a swing while an aristocrat spreads a picnic basket. The aristocrat is obviously beguiled by the girl, whose insinuating legs are sent flying over his head like clipping scissors. His interest in her grows more amorous as she playfully taunts him with each provocative shift of her body. When the doting aristocrat departs to get more champagne, the girl notices that the servant's previously passive behavior is becoming more aggressive. What could be more titillating than to see how her flirting has set in motion a wickedly funny sexual encounter with the servant on the moving swing while the aristocrat is gone? Aside from the exhilarating pleasure of watching some highly erotic swinging, there is sexual tension and a twist too marvelous to give away.
A famous 18th century painting by Fragonard ("The Swing") is the inspiration for "Swinging." But Susan Stroman's naughtily perverse interpretation of the scene, that uses a jazz score set to the music of Rodgers and Hart, is a delight, as are the dancers, Sean Martin Hingston, Stephanie Michels and Scott Taylor. But the tasty little sexual dalliance in the 18th century acts as a warm-up for the more complex, pathological, psychological, sex-driven dramas to come. One would be remiss in not stating just how gritty and psychologically compelling are the stories provided by Weidman, author of two of the most mature books ever written for a musical: Pacific Overtures and Assassins. Set in an Italian restaurant in Queens, 1954, "Did You Move?," features the dynamic Karen Ziemba as the browbeaten wife of a jealous and boorish brute, played with steely-eyed menace by Jason Antoon. While dining out, the wife, who lives in a perpetual state of fear and loathing, is brought close to tears by the voiced threats and humiliating behavior of her husband. It's buffet night. So, whenever he leaves the room for more pasta or rolls (a running gag), the wife lets her imagination take flight. Enhanced by music of Bizet, Tchaikovsky, and Grieg, grim reality becomes a surreal escape through dance. Drifting in and out of this world, as determined by the number of trips the husband makes out of the room, the wife is momentarily freed from her stifling marital bondage to emerge as a diva of dance, a love-goddess with no inhibitions. For a partner, the wife chooses the handsome and accommodating headwaiter (David MacGillivray). Choreographer Stroman doesn't forget to make the other patrons mysteriously fascinating, even as they are self-involved and oblivious to the wife's fantasy. Although there is a rather bitter and chilling end to this story, it is the impact of Ziemba's performance and the dances that so hauntingly reveal the woman inside her.
The time is the present in "Contact," the third, longest, and most complex of the dramas. It features a haunting performance by a superb Boyd Gaines, as a despondent, suicidal Manhattan advertising executive. Although the ad man is the recipient of numerous awards in his field, he feels completely out of step with life and disconnected to all other human beings. In his bleak high rise apartment, he decides to kill himself either with a drug overdose or by hanging. That both attempts fail miserably provides a rather macabre prelude to his adventures in self-discovery. When he wanders disconsolately into a swing dance club, the self-absorbed habitues intrigue him. Here he watches them pair off and become the sensuous adventurous people that by day they may not have the heart or, indeed, the need, to be. The ad man returns night after night and finds comfort in a corner of the bar, where he is befriended and encouraged to participate by the bartender, played with a variety of wise looks by the versatile Mr. Antoon. The catch is a girl in a yellow dress, an aloof but sexy blonde who arrives mysteriously each night and will only dance with the most attractive and best dancers. Although he can't dance, the ad man dares to hope that the girl with whom he has become hopelessly infatuated would not only notice him but dance with him. This paves the way for a series of humorous and humiliating false starts to their inevitable relationship.
Tall, icy and beautiful Deborah Yates is the girl. At first cool, then curious, then compelled by the ad man's persistence, she coaxes him little by little to find the dancer in his soul. It doesn't take long for the dancers' jealousies, rivalries and personal neurosis to externalize. Stroman's passion-fueled dances, set to familiar music from the swing era, take these sets of intimate strangers to the heights of their hedonistic displays. Even more impressive: there isn't a dancer in the crowd to whom Stroman's fails to give a life with past. Again, Weidman's story ends with twist worthy of O'Henry. All three dance dramas provide a twisty, tangy and tempting treat.
