Ten countries performed traditional theater to circus and dance drama in the International "Festival in Paradise" 2010 hosted by Venice Theatre, FL, June 22-26. Murray Chase, VT's artistic and administrative leader, coordinated the event.
Off-stage classes and workshops covered Clowning, Suzuki Theatre, Senior Theatre, Commedia and Travel to Theatre in addition to traditional performance techniques, design, and rehearsing and
auditioning.
When performance rights to a scheduled American company were denied a week before its scheduled opening, Jeffrey Kinn and his Players of Sarasota stepped in with an approved cutting to an hour of Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff's The Who's Tommy. Technologically spectacular, with side screens amplifying scenes as well as music with its abstract designs, the piece brought traumatized child Tommy through youthful abuse by sadistic family members and neighbors. Finally an adult, he was helped into reality by his mother and became a star pinball-player.
A large (36) and uniformly convincing cast, directed and choreographed by Jared E. Walker with musical direction by Berry Ayers, smoothly duplicated their recent season's hit. Designers included Kirk Hughes, Ellie Pattison, Michael Pasquini, and JB Tomlin. Patty Snyder-Atkins was stage manager.
The United States' scheduled performance was based on a 15-year partnership, impulsed by the Selby Foundation, of Loveland, a Sarasota County center for the developmentally disabled, and Venice Theatre. Ronald Krine Myroup fashioned the revue, Loveland, This is Your Life!, showing the kinds of performances developed and using music from them. Among the most applauded numbers: a medley from The Sound of Music and a duo in wheelchairs rolling through the song, "Rolling on the River." Director Rebecca Holahan was assisted by Gina Cahill. Ray Goins directed the music; Dorian Boyd, sound. Donna Buckalter's scenic design auspiciously used screens to change places and moods of action.
Maner Manush from Rome gave Portraits of Commedia dell'Arte by Cinzia Grande and Andrea Lattari. In a veritable history of the form from the 16th Century to today, the actors used costumes, masks, gestures and sound to reproduce lazzi, scenarios, music, and dance for comic effect. Tying in locations where commedia developed and still exists, from Venezia, Italia, to Venice, FL, the versatile pair used the entire stage.
Stock characters they assumed included the popular Arlecchino. His traditional costume of colored patches was the work of costumer Grande. Salvo Lo Presti designed lights; Domenico Canino, set; production management, Imago Mundi. Because of emphasis on physical comedy, language was not a major problem.
Poland's Memory, written and directed by Barbara Thieme, attempted to perpetuate consciousness of those who passed away, particularly during the country's occupation. With few words, images and suggestions of elemental emotions predominated in this presentation by Theatre Magapar of Lubaczow.
Basically a dance drama, it seemed visually influenced by Grotowski, with its performers almost always in light and shadow, but mainly dressed in robes of white against a dark curtain. The six were S. Krzych, M. Zarembska, K. Wazna, P. Huk, I. Zla, and R. Damm, performing mainly on the proscenium.
Black Box Pangea of Copenhagen, Denmark, presented Any Body. This multi-media presentation staged by Emilie Bendix employed puppets' heads designed by Karen Monrad. Henriette Aarup and Karen Monrad were the manipulators "receiving" culture through headphones, cell phones, computers, loudspeaker, projections, movies. In their dance or stunt-like movements, they converted means of communication to offer their own views of the world. Music used was mostly American. Was that surprising or part of their message?
Speaking of surprises, the Israel festival entry, Second Life, had absolutely no ethnic references. Black-leotarded, at-risk youth from the Yoram Loewenstein Performing Arts Studio of Tel Aviv, moved above a floor of frames while also actually framing their torsos and faces. The frames suggested computer screens and, metaphorically, being boxed in from outer reality. The "hero" is an at-risk young man who plays the virtual reality game, "Life," incessantly on a computer. The game purposes to answer his desire to get ahead in life. But it's hard to tell what is actually real. At the end of the drama, when he gets the life he wants, what does it cost him? Director Hanan Itzhak relied on E. Y. Maayan for dramaturgy, design, and costumes; Ronnnie Pzear, for music; Amit Zamir, for choreography (with much side-stepping); R. R. Herring, for lighting (using black theatre techniques). The cast could easily have passed for professionals. Their salient characteristic: Nobody touched anyone else.
Another basically dance and mime performance came from Lieder Theater Company of Goulburn, Australia. The Colour Play was created to be played for children in isolated aboriginal communities where
English is not spoken. In his creation, Chris John Hancock directed ten adults dressed by Lee Gray, Pauline Mullen, and Doreen Mullen primarily in primary colors: women "chickens" in yellow, delivering to blues and raggedy reds appearing within nature's green. Elemental roles of beings born on earth were the least mystifying parts of the unspoken but full-of-sound performance. As the symbolic characters aged, two muscular men in tights and athletic tops exerted power. Changes included play, racing, separation of groups from each other, conflicts including war-waging, attempts at protection of a baby. Ultimately life was shown to be mysterious, leading only to unity in "the dust of time." Most of the sound was distorted, like the "play" to many observers.
An outstanding one-man, many puppets Dust Circus or Circo Poeira, designed and directed by Dust Circus and interpreted by Caio Stolai, came from Sao Paulo, Brazil. The program tells the tale perfectly: "A puppeteer gives life to the Old Master and the show embarks on a journey to relive his memories." They are silently (in the sense of unspeakably) tender. Among the acts are a ballerina (doll) who emerges from a trunk to dance and white and black horses (blocks) who kiss. The handler turns juggler of plates that turn on poles placed atop the animals. A small elephant herd of decorated wood acrobatically forms a pyramid. There's tambourine playing, fire jumping, and fire eating -- in short, all the feats of a circus - before the ballerina kisses the Old Master and retires and the music box tune fades. A perfect miniature circus framed by a perfect puppet and situation!
How to Make a Man Absolutely Unhappy by Fernando G. Tola was staged by Manuel Bueno for Colesterol Teatro of Torrevieja, Spain. Played in Spanish, its farcical elements and gesturing allowed basic understanding of the plot by non-speakers of its language. Staging in a cage represented the couple "caught" in their relationship and in daily activities like eating, dressing, going off to work, returning home for supper and eventually bed and sex (or thwarted sex, as much fun is made of looking under their shared sheet). Upstaging the couple played by Valle Villasanta and Bueno (even with his close-to-nudity), a pair of real chickens who were to mirror their human counterparts' entrapment instead became feature players. One or both continually jumped onto a low wall at either side of the cage, as if trying to escape. Although the actors always got the chickens back, sometimes by pushing or near-kicking them, they didn't quite pull off their being a planned part of the show. If any love was lost, it was not just between the man and wife due to too much togetherness!
Were anyone to question Russians' command of realistic acting, viewing Theatre Maneken of Chelyabinsk's She Who Made the Miracle, their adaptation of William Gibson's The Miracle Worker, would dispel doubt. Directed by Yuri Bobkov, the longer-than-most play featured teacher Annie Sullivan not only having to tame wild child Helen Keller's manners and teach her to understand, cooperate and communicate. Just as important was Sullivan's need to win over Helen's parents and siblings. Scenes with the Keller family took place mostly in a large, hanging central circle enclosed by ultra sheer netting, with apertures. Other activity--like arrivals and departures, "lessons," struggles (with adversaries draped over a huge ball), and discoveries (as of water from a pump pouring into a trough) -- took place at sides and up and downstage. Family dinner scenes indicated Helen's willful wildness, then her progress away from it or regression, in addition to the part her family played in her actions. Props were minimal but, except for the ball, realistic (e.g., the dinner table, a doll Annie used as a teaching tool), as were end-of-the-19th Century costumes. Mikhil Sobolev's sound design helped to transition scenes as well as moods. The outstanding Russian troupe included M. Zakharova, N. Ovinova, A. Berezin, N. Kirich, A. Butin, G. Dolganova, A. Tetyev, and I. Berezina. English words and phrases were sometimes set into the Russian translation of Gibson's text.
Elegance and simplicity blended beautifully in Singapore's Chinese
Opera Institute's Painted Skin. Dr. Chua Soo Pong, artistic director and script writer, interpreted the 17th Century's Qing Dynasty story: A professor falls under the spell of a beautiful woman, who is really a devil in a self-created painted skin. Despite knowing the devil had been painting and having sought help from his priest, the professor welcomes and drinks with the temptress. He tries to hide the affair from the loving woman of his class, but she finds him out and leaves him to "dance" to his ruin with the devil.
A classic drama on the appearance-reality theme, Painted Skin used mandolin and Zhuang Hai Ning's percussion music, costumes of rich pastel and bolder colors and various fabrics, and marvelous masks and make-up. Action took place before the professor's hut of simple lines and at a table to one side, with changing lighting managed by Chua Yi Hui. Classic gestures, especially use of the hands and fingers, enhanced the acting. G. Xuqian, A. Hui Xuan, Li Shuai Min, H. Kun Yu and M. Viswani performed.
When last-minute thwarted travel prevented the appearance of Developing Artists of Zimbabwe, conference exhibitor Timothy Mooney stepped into the would-be void with his one-man show, Moliere Than Thou. In 17th Century wigs and transformable-on-stage costume, he expertly explained scenes from the comic master's plays, then acted excerpts. Before the curtain and into the audience, Mooney brought to life the titled Bourgeoise Gentilhomme, Tartuffe, The Doctor in Spite of
Himself and such other characters as Arnolphe of The School for Wives and Scapin. At times he had audience members read dialogue with him, and he didn't hesitate to go all through the house to find willing accomplices! His script features his own translations of individual Moliere plays, which he offers separately in acting editions for use by theaters and schools at timmooneyrep.com.
Aside from Mooney's professional presentation, all others were adjudicated after the opening of each. Adjudicators were Paul Bourne of England (who also led a workshop on Acting), Ron Cameron from Canada, and Kathy Pingel, of the United States. However, the Festival was non-competitive.
Guest workshop leaders and their subjects included Joan Hazel, Master Voice; Steve V. Smith, Clowning; Bert Harris, Asian Elements in Modern Theatre; Leymis Bolanos Wilmott, Fuzion and Contemporary Dance; Dr. Chua Soo Pong, Chinese Opera Staging; Joe Simmons, Senior Theatre; Eric Berkel, Dance; Maner Manush, Commedia; Nicholas Hartman, Costume Design. Exhibitors who offered workshops were: Stage Craft Institute on how to prepare for a New York City audition;
Music Theatre International on new resources for musical theatre and licensing info; Manhattan Tour and Travel on ways to make an NYC theatre tour a success.
Venice Theatre has been asked to host another AACT International Festival in five years. AACT's National Community Festival will take place in Rochester, NY, using GeVa Theatre, June 20-26, 2011.
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Natalya Ovinova (L) & Marianna Zakharova in The Miracle Worker.
