But that is merely an illusion. Before long, those heavy doors are thrown open to reveal designer Lee Keenan’s telescopic vista of a young woman, pedaling down the roads of a small town, as if her very life depended on her escape. The space occupied by the show expands exponentially from there.

That effect is an eye-popping theatrical moment in a very interesting and provocatively staged new show” - Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

By Chris Jones | Theater critic
March 4, 2008

At the top of Yussef El Guindi’s new play, we’re taken to a TV studio—it looks a lot like Fox News—where an iconoclastic host is about to interview the Arab-born author of “Jihad 101.” It’s a book that panders to the prejudices of conservative hosts who view all Arab cultures as nothing more than petri dishes for terrorism.

Oh no, I thought. Most plays don’t do either cable news or conservative authors well—the temptations of caricature prove too great. And for about five minutes, it feels like we’re about to get one of those earnest, liberal, grant-friendly and (if all we’re being is honest) deadly boring plays where the American mass media is vilified (like that’s hard) and a misguided character spends two hours discovering the spiritual importance of from whence he came.

El Guindi delivers no such thing. On the contrary, this world premiere of “Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat” reveals an exceedingly smart, sophisticated and compelling exploration of Arab-American identity and the opportunities as well as the perils of assimilation. Not only does El Guindi probe the dilemma of being Arab in a culture with little understanding of the Middle East, he’s also willing to explore the demonstrable personal benefits of leaving the past behind in America.

To its great credit, this play continuously undercuts its own identity. El Guindi stares in the face—his own face—what it means to be an out-front Arab-American writer benefiting from the incendiary mix of fear, curiosity, guilt and self-justification with which the American media approach all things Arab.

Should one do one’s earnest work at serious little Chicago theaters—like, say, the Silk Road Theatre Project?

Or should one give Big Media what they want—personal “beyond the burqa” memoirs starting in escape from a generically repressive Arab culture and ending in an appearance on “Oprah,” wearing designer clothes?

The central character of aspiring author Noor (Monica Lopez) is faced with a similar dilemma here. Smelling a compelling personal story, New York publishers want her far more than her fiction. Meanwhile, two men in Noor’s life (both expertly acted here) represent polarities.

Gamal (Kareem Bandealy) is an angry but mostly ineffectual radical. Mohsen (Andrew Navarro) is a highly successful but dangerous assimilationist. Both get their say. Both fight for Noor’s body and soul.

Although it moves well and features a dazzling little visual design by Lee Keenan and Mike Tutaj, Patrizia Lombardi Acerra’s production isn’t perfect—it sometimes flirts with archetype, there is some weird physicality, and the intensely credible focus achieved by the fine actors in the central love triangle doesn’t fully extend beyond. Toward the end, the play could use a trim, for speechifying dominates.

But if you’re interested in smart new plays, don’t miss this one. It’s the best piece by the hugely talented El Guindi that I’ve seen. And it’s further evidence that Silk Road has real guts behind its genial facade.

cjones5@tribune.com

“Our Enemies: Lively Scenes of Love and Combat”

When: Through March 30

Where: Silk Road Theatre Project, 77 W. Washington St., Chicago

Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes

Tickets: $28-$32

What a joy this was to light, the whole production is in greyscale, right down to skin and hair [thanks to the actors for their laborious preshow makeup job]. It is is dark,shadowy , high contrast, sexy, its Noir. And the show is funny, it comes from a clown aesthetic and plays at the noir style. It runs Fri-Sun till Nov 4th.

Reviews:

New City Chicago

“…in terms of aesthetics, Montgomery knows what he is doing. Lee Keenan’s lighting design is crucial–the long, husky shadows; the muted glow creeping through the slats of an unseen window blind, tattooing the wall. (Keenan also designed[actually I collaborated with Blake and Megan on] the set, a soaring space defined by pivoting walls that suggests the slipperiness of truth as it reveals itself in film noir.) ” – Nina Metz
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Chicago Reader

“Director Blake Montgomery and his six performers, who collaborated on this 75-minute piece, have distilled film noir to its essence. Ingeniously lit and often wryly funny it has a sort of genre urplot…” – Laura Molzah

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Chicago Tribune

“…The Building Stage’s expansive loft space is dark and atmospheric and filled with the shadows of window blinds. It does indeed rain. Attractive women lurk in the shadows. Guys with the right kind of hat and crooked tie occupy the attentions of our iris. And the talented sound-designer Kevin O’Donnell has come up with a score that manages to be every film noir you ever saw, distilled. In the first few minutes, it all feels like a very cool idea at one of Chicago’s newer and more promising creative outposts in the noir-appropriate West Loop…”

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The Centerstage Review, by Alicia Eler.
Wednesday Oct 03, 2007

In the dark, crime-ridden world of a 1940s film noir, unthinkable dramas full of mystery and intrigue play out daily. Detectives with brooding stares, lit cigarettes and voice-overs tell the audience what’s going on inside their heads, how a femme fatale-like lady is driving them crazy or how the rain hits the window panes of their low-lit office. In Blake Montgomery’s latest masterpiece, “Noir,” he brings famous lines from a bevy of notable film noirs, including “The Maltese Falcon,” “Gilda,” “Double Indemnity,” “The Big Sleep” and “Lady from Shanghai,” and crafts them into one play that incorporates the quintessential film noir detective and the woman who tempts him into evil.

Unlike more-straightforward, story-telling theatre, “Noir” does not give it to viewers quite so easily. Using two detectives instead of one and four femme fatales, Noir masterfully compresses many film noirs into one during the 75-minute production. The Building Stage differentiates itself from other theatre in the way that the show unravels: No performance is ever the same. Instead, each show is in the “building stages” and evolves during the evening.

Playing on every stylistic film noir element, from the high-contrast shadows to the detective’s ’40s-style desk to the lone streetlight on the dark street outside, Montgomery makes the entire theatre feel like a vintage film set. Each character wears whiteface; detectives brood, keeping up their hard-boiled façade, and the femme fatales play up their alluring characters. Though every performance differs from the previous one, theatergoers with a taste for this American cinema genre will by wowed by Montgomery’s creative interpretations and the cast’s strong grasp of this overly dramatized style of acting.
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The Creative Team

conceived and directed by
Blake Montgomery

created and performed by
David Amaral, Eddie Bennett, Sarah Goeden, Fannie Hungerford, Chelsea Keenan, and Daiva Olson.

costume design
Meghan Raham

lighting design
Lee Keenan

sound design
Kevin O’Donnell

production design
Lee Keenan, Meghan Raham, and Blake Montgomery

stage management
Sheena L. Young

assistant lighting designer
Ryan Williams

I’m really proud of this show. I designed the set and the projections on this our latest Silk Road Theatre Project: Shishir Kurup’s Merchant On Venice. The “On” is not a typo, this is a modern adaptation set on West LA’s Venice Blvd with Hindus and Muslims rather than Christian’s and Jews, its a perfect Silk Road show. Reviews have been phenomenal as you can see below. It runs through November 4th, don’t miss it.

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chicagotribune.com
THEATER REVIEW
Bold ‘Merchant’ melds Bard, Bollywood
By Chris Jones

Tribune theater critic

October 8, 2007

Shylock becomes an alienated Muslim trapped in a Southern Californian world of immigrant, movie-loving Hindus. Jessica runs away to Hollywood. To snag Portia’s hand in marriage, suitors have to pick the right DVD. And that famous pound of flesh? In Shishir Kurup’s remarkable polycultural deconstruction of William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” the owner of the Money Store wants to make his extraction from a most delicate part of the male anatomy.

This hip-hop influenced script somehow fuses references to Jim Morrison, Helen of Troy, Vladimir Nabokov, Leif Garrett (!) and Freddie Mercury, even as it translates events in the troubled original with astonishing precision. And everyone still speaks in blank verse.

I’ve no idea why “Merchant on Venice,” which apparently was workshopped and chatted about extensively at big theaters on both coasts, landed for a world premiere at the still-emerging Silk Road Theatre Company, which operates in a 100-seat theater in Chicago’s Loop. Actually, I do have some idea. It’s a big, new, risky, rambunctious show set in the U.S. South Asian community and thus out of the classical mainstream.

Silk Road has been promising us new work of international repute. In this case, they have most assuredly delivered. This is a show that will have an extensive international life. If Kurup could somehow get his script, say, in the hands of the right person at the Royal Shakespeare Company, this play might actually help that company better reflect the world in which they (and Shakespeare) now operate.

I found this “Merchant” 10 times as funny, smart and intellectually stimulating as “The Bomb-itty of Errors,” which it slightly resembles. And that has been a hit across the country. For sure, this piece is a must-see for anyone who follows progressive approaches to Shakespeare. And if you have a teenager studying this difficult play, a trip to see Kurup’s eye-popping version will have their eyes bulging out of their sockets.

But their heads will still be in the original Shakespearean themes — racial tolerance, personal bitterness, the way brutality begets brutality. That’s why this piece is so good. It’s a funny, lively show written with sharp satirical wit. It even contains a huge musical parody of the Bollywood gestalt. But it’s no mere spoof.

Kurup’s adaptation — appropriation is a better word — of Shakespeare’s most troubling story is both uncannily accurate and transformative.

Stuart Carden’s very lively production is a new high for Silk Road. Anchored by the complex Anish Jethmalani as Sharuk, the piece also features a very funny performance from Tariq Vasudeva and rich, punky work from the youthful likes of Sadieh Rifai, Amira Sabbagh and, especially, Pranidhi Varshney as Portia, er, Pushpa.

I’d argue the piece could lose 10 minutes from its second act. And you have to be willing to watch many competing aesthetic styles all at once. But given the free-wheeling style, that’s not overly bothersome. This is a superb piece of passionate, irreverent, insightful writing.

“He hates me for what I am,” says this Sharuk, raging within, “a rival businessman not of his faith.” On such turns a wider world than Shakespeare did imagine.

cjones5@tribune.com

“The Merchant on Venice”
Where: Silk Road Theatre Project, 77 W. Washington St.

When: Through Nov. 4

Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Tickets: $28-33 at 888-745-5849
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Worldly Hindus take on a strict Muslim
THEATER REVIEW | Take another look at the Bard’s ‘Merchant’
October 1, 2007

BY HEDY WEISS Theater Critic

Note to New York’s Public Theater, producer of Shakespeare in Central Park: Send a scout to see the Silk Road Theatre Project’s hip, funny, ingeniously reconfigured world premiere of “Merchant on Venice,” Shishir Kurup’s reinvention of Shakespeare’s most controversial play. Stage this production at the outdoor Delacorte Theater and you can bet half the Indian immigrant population of Queens will be lined up for seats, with the Muslims of Brooklyn right behind them.

And you thought this was a story of Renaissance-era Venice, where rich Christian businessmen crassly used, abused and finally destroyed the Jew who lived among them. Think again. Kurup (born in India, raised in Kenya, a longtime transplant to the United States), has a Salman Rushdie-like fluency in cross-cultural, pop-cultural hijinks and a flair for highly ornamented, wildly comical linguistic flights. And in updating his “Merchant” to contemporary Venice, Calif. — where wealthy, worldly Hindus face off against a prosperous, ultra-conservative Muslim — he has heightened the controversy for our times and conjured a feast of behavioral and musical correspondences that do Shakespeare proud.

Director Stuart Carden’s exceptionally buoyant, Bollywood-infused production — with an ethnic cast that clearly thrives on this material — is ambitious and delicious on many levels.

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Chicago Reader
MERCHANT ON VENICE Shishir Kurup doesn’t merely update the Elizabethan vernacular (he keeps the iambs) in his bold, smart, sardonic reinvention of one of Shakespeare’s most troubling plays. He also skillfully weaves in post-9/11 paranoia about “the other” as well as the prejudices of competing immigrant groups on LA’s Venice Boulevard. Here Sharuk/Shylock (a stunning Anish Jethmalani) is a Muslim mercilessly derided by Hindu Devendra/Antonio and his friends. This minority-on-minority conflict creates layers of cultural dissonance both intriguing (Sharuk’s daughter runs off to be a punk singer) and disturbing (Pushpa/Portia sneeringly dismisses a marriage proposal from a darker-skinned fellow Indian). Stuart Carden’s spirited world-premiere staging for Silk Road Theatre Project highlights equally the script’s sinister undertones and its giddy polyglot mix of traditional and pop-culture references. –

Kerry Reid
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From Barbara Vitello @ Daily Herald

” A sparkling production directed by Stuart Carden”

“It’s Kavita (Jessica) who finally stops the madness with an eloquent plea for tolerance and forgiveness that recognizes Hindu complicity in perpetuating prejudice and hatred (something Shakespeare’s Christians never admit). It’s in that speech – a quiet but powerful reminder that we can preserve our humanity if we wish to – that Kurup solves Shakespeare’s problem.”
“This show delights……Bravo.”
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At Collaboraction, ‘Jenny Chow’ a must-see
By Chris Jones

Tribune theater critic

Jennifer Shin must have been waiting for Jennifer Marcus her entire life. Or so this young Chicago actor’s blistering, careermaking performance atop a fabulous little Collaboraction show suggests.

Penned by Rolin Jones, one of those clever young writers known for language, “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow: An Instant Message With Excitable Music” sits on the page with a post-modern haze. To the casual reader it might seem hyperkinetic or pretentious. But in production — especially this production — this hip, smart and insightful play roars to life.

“Jenny Chow” deals with a tricky but underexplored topic — the arrival in adulthood of a baby, adopted from China and raised by parents in the United States.

Given that the main character, Jennifer Marcus, is an agoraphobic, obsessive-compulsive malcontent who creates a robotic look-alike to go looking for her real mother in China, you might think this play probes an adoptive parent’s worst fears. Not so. Jones has compassion for everyone involved, and his 22-year-central character is not only a certifiable genius (and valued secret employee of the Department of Defense) but a wondrous fusion of cultures.

Shin launches into Jennifer like an actress possessed. Her work is not only every bit as frenetic, smart and endlessly compelling as the character requires, but also reveals a deeply empathetic character. And that’s why this show is so darn good. Shin’s emotional honesty and vulnerability leavens and settles the frenetic intellectual jumpiness of the writing. An uber-eloquent but elliptical Yale playwright has encountered the honest, play-it-straight-from-the-heart quality of the scrappy off-Loop. Both benefit from the other. And the resultant show is a must-see.

For anyone familiar with Cecilie D. Keenan’s earnest, careful directing style over the last decade, this production is a revelation. It moves like T1-line on steroids. Collaboraction has scored shows before — this one has original music by Mikhail “Misha” Fiksel, played live on electric guitar by Ian Forester. But whereas Collaboraction’s prior fusions have often felt inorganic, Fiksel’s music sets this script on fire.

The pumping soundtrack raises the stakes and forces the show to keep up. And it lets Shin find the right techno-beat for her hyperlinked Jenny, a woman who conducts an entire world-changing life on bedroom computer. Shin’s knockout performance is part dance and part race to the finish, but mostly a picture of a regular girl who needs only understanding. To play someone eight times as smart as anyone else in the room is a tough assignment. Shin does it either by actually being that smart, or creating one smart facsimile thereof.

But she isn’t the only reason to see this show. Scott Kennedy creates several distinctly quirky characters. Laura T. Fisher, as Jenny’s long-suffering mother, oozes painful longing. And as Jenny’s robotic alter ego, Jenny Chow, Mia Park superbly negotiates the tricky divide between the artificiality of a machine and the warm heart of its creator.

The missteps here — occasional overplaying, and some too-cute staging tricks with models — are minor. Jennifer Marcus — and her faux-Jenny Chow — aren’t just excitable, they’re exciting.

‘Intelligent’ life in Collaboraction’s universe
March 9, 2007
BY HEDY WEISS Theater Critic
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Brilliant on all counts. That is the easy verdict in the case of “The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow,” a play by Rolin Jones with the aptly descriptive subtitle “An Instant Message With Excitable Music.”
The show, now in its Midwest debut in a Collaboraction production that might well be the best work this company has done in all of its own intelligently designed 11 years, is supremely winning from start to finish. Not only does it fly on an imaginative, tragicomic script that has a real heart beating beneath its techno-driven wings (a script that was a 2006 Pulitzer Prize finalist). But it comes with a dream cast under the impeccable direction of Cecilie Keenan, whose feel for the play’s mix of pathos and zaniness could not be more ideal.

Jones (now a writer on the hit Showtime series “Weeds”) has his finger directly on the electronically generated pulse of the twentysomething YouTube generation. Yet for all the youthful hipness (and geekiness) the play captures, it also is a deeply adult work — one rooted in a 21st century-style quest for identity and connection. Strip away all the cyber imagery, instant messaging and globalization and you have a play vaguely reminiscent of that late 1950s classic “A Taste of Honey.”
The central character in “Jenny Chow” is Jennifer Marcus, brought to life in a tour de force performance by Jennifer Shin, a young actress whose expressive genius and phenomenal physical and mental stamina eerily echo her character’s own off-the-charts IQ and manic energy. (Musician Whayne Braswell supplies the intriguing obligato to her chatter on bass guitar.)
Marcus began life as an abandoned Chinese girl — adopted in infancy by a California couple, and indulged in every privilege of upwardly mobile middle-class American family life. Yet now, at 22, she is still living at home, suffering from obsessive-compulsive disease and agoraphobia, and only venturing into the wider universe via her laptop.
Though fond of her dreamy, star-gazing dad (Ron Butts), Jennifer is at war with her hard-driving, fast-traveling mother, Adele (Laura T. Fisher, in a gorgeously limned portrayal that even involves some Chinese speech). And she is hellbent on finding her birth mother, who might be named Chow (the Chinese equivalent of Smith). Along the way, she “connects” via the Internet with everyone from a Mormon “pervie” missionary based in Shanghai, to a mad Russian-emigre scientist specializing in artificial intelligence, to a Defense Department nutcase (all played to uncannily hilarious effect by Scott Kennedy). She depends on true friendship with an underachieving pal, Todd (lovely work by Ian Forester). And she finds her spirited match in her cyber-age Frankenstein monster Jenny Chow (Jennifer Liu, so good she truly verges on the cyber).
A full explanation of “Jenny Chow” would require an entire silicon chip. Suffice it to say that it touches on all we know of this universe, or perhaps all we might never know, and that it is heartbreakingly real in its techno way.

East meets West in David Henry Hwang’s “Golden Child,” but not in a stereotypical way. Hwang does not rely on the usual scenarios of generations of Asian-Americans battling one another over conflicting ideas. Instead, he refigures the concept, setting the play in 1918 China, where much like today, globalization is changing the way the Chinese think about themselves and the world.

Best known for the Tony Award-winning “M. Butterfly,” Hwang was inspired by the stories his grandmother told about his ancestors — mainly his great-grandfather and his three wives. “Golden Child” is a compelling, thoughtful drama that honors his ancestors while also presenting Chinese culture in all its complexity.

Silk Road Theatre, a company dedicated to addressing themes relevant to the people of the Silk Road and their diaspora communities, is staging the Midwest premiere of “Golden Child.” The nicely paced production, under the direction of Stuart Carden, is accented by Carol J. Blanchard’s wonderfully authentic costumes and Lee Keenan’s graceful, period-perfect set.

“Golden Child” begins as an affluent landowner Tieng-Bin (Vic Chao) returns to his home after spending several years in the Philippines, where he has worked alongside white businessmen. Preceding him are troubling rumors that he has developed an interest in Christianity. On the home front, his three wives worry about the effect this newfound interest will have on a household where ancestor worship is a time-honored tradition.

While handing out puzzling gifts (a cuckoo clock, a waffle iron, a gramophone), Tieng-Bin informs his opium-addicted first wife, Siu-Yong (Cheryl Hamada); his strategizing second wife, Luan (Kimberlee Soo) and third wife, young and pretty Eling (Tiffany Villarin), that a visitor is expected. The visitor is the Rev. Anthony Baines (Kevin Kenneally), a missionary who sees Tieng-Bin as a prospective convert.

When Tieng-Bin announces he will convert, the family routine becomes riddled with jealousy and suspicion as age-old customs come under attack. Above all, what will Tieng-Bin’s religious conversion mean to his three wives? They are not content to wait and see. Jockeying for position, they use their wiles to secure a spot as the chosen wife.

“We look to you to bring home thoughts from the darkest corners of the world,” coos Siu-Yong, as Luan plots to convert to “modern ways” and Eling uses simple charm to secure her spot as the favorite wife.

Observing all this is Ahn (Melissa Kong), Tieng-Bin’s teenage daughter, a “daddy’s girl” who escapes the torture of traditional foot binding, thanks to her father’s progressive thinking. Her unabashed enthusiasm bring elements of humanity and hope to what is ultimately a tragic melding of cultures.

Hwang laces the drama with a sardonic humor (first wife Siu-Yong is particularly snarky) that sits uncomfortably alongside the serious debate about the women’s future. At times, you feel as if you’re watching two separate plays. Despite this concern, Hwang’s important questions about family and tradition are worth asking.

Note: Make sure to take a few minutes to contemplate the Zhou Brothers’ massive mural that graces the Silk Road Theatre lobby. A gift to the theater, it’s an epic abstract journey, the artists’ interpretation of a trek along the legendary Silk Road, painted in brushstrokes of black, red and white.

Audio from 848′s Dualing Critics on NPR

“smashing design”, “gorgeous design” -Christopher Piatt

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Chicago Tribune
`Dorian’ a blend of dialogue, movement

By Nina Metz
Special to the Tribune
Published August 11, 2006

Were he with us today, Oscar Wilde probably would roll his eyes at the tools of modern vanity — the nips, the tucks, the Botox and spray-on tans. This fixation with youth and beauty is hardly different than the one explored (and exploited) by Wilde in his only novel, “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” first published in the late 19th Century, and currently adapted for the stage as “Dorian,” by Ben Lobpries and Tommy Rapley for Bailiwick Repertory’s 2006 Pride Festival.

This is the second recent effort from Lobpries and Rapley — House Theatre company members who collaborated earlier this year on “Ellen Under Glass,” a production that attempted (and failed) to fuse dance and theater into a single language. Their accomplishments this time around in “Dorian” are more complex and intriguing.

In part, this is because they’re working with a better story. Dorian’s monomaniacal concerns about his looks drive him to make a pact with the devil; his portrait will do his aging for him, while the real-life Dorian remains unchanged — regardless of his increasingly hedonistic and loathsome behavior.

What Rapley, as director and choreographer, has devised are moments of dance and exaggerated movements spliced into scenes of naturalistic dialogue, resulting in two styles — the abstract and the naturalistic — intertwined into one.

There is something hallucinatory about it, and it works best in scenes that portray mundane actions. Dorian lights a cigarette, and the surrounding ensemble, doubled over, heaves and inhales with every puff. Dorian’s corrupter, Lord Henry — called Harry here — never drinks his cocktail but tips it back over his head, smoothing his hair in one fluid, Mephistophelian motion.

The portrait, of course, is literally made of flesh (in the guise of Kevin Simmons), and morphs into something horrid with the help of masks and gnarled choreography.

All this physicality highlights certain emotions and behaviors as if with a yellow marker. It is a clever and sophisticated way to approach storytelling, and the cast — led by Jamie Abelson as Dorian, Patrick Andrews as Basil (the painter), and Danny Starr as Harry — glides easily between exposition and movement. These actors are capable dancers, as well.

Rapley has paid close attention to visual details with the help of scenic designer Collete Pollard and lighting designers Lee Keenan and Rebecca Barrett, who have created simple but transformative columns lit from within. The wardrobe, from costume designer Debbie Baer, also matches the script’s split personality: period clothing is mixed in with a 1980s look from Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical” video.

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Chicago Reader
The Wilde Life

By Albert Williams | August 11, 2006

OSCAR WILDE WAS THE PREEMINENT SATIRIST of Victorian society, but his stories and plays endure because their dilemmas still resonate. No writer dramatized the pleasures and pitfalls of secrecy more powerfully than he did. Wilde—whose career was ruined when his homosexuality came to light in 1895—saw the need to hide one’s secret self as a fundamental aspect of the human condition; his characters go to extraordinary lengths to conceal their true natures. “What Dorian Gray’s sins are no one knows,” Wilde wrote in defense of his controversial 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. “Each man sees his own sin in Dorian Gray.”

In the novel, handsome libertine Dorian Gray becomes the living emblem of a “new hedonism” advocated by his decadent mentor, Lord Harry Wotton. Mysteriously, as the years pass and his misdeeds mount, Dorian never ages, nor does he show signs of guilt or worry. But a painting of him hidden in his attic shows him growing old and ugly, its increasingly cruel visage reflecting his escalating corruption. As his obsession with the accusing canvas grows, Dorian spirals into self-destruction.

Dorian, director-choreographer-writer Tommy Rapley’s imaginative, homoerotic new dance-theater adaptation, updates the story to 1980s America—think Bret Easton Ellis’s novel Less Than Zero and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s video for “Relax.” Rapley and coauthor Ben Lobpries have paraphrased or trimmed most of Wilde’s literate prose, replacing it with distinctly un-Wildean dialogue like “Wow! Is that really what I look like?” and “He’s so hot. Is he queer?” But this visually striking production captures the tale’s essence. Employing dance, mime, and stylized gesture, it focuses on Dorian, Harry, and artist Basil Hallward, whose portrait of Dorian—a gift from the infatuated painter to his self-absorbed model—unleashes a curse. The dynamic is symbolic of the human condition, with Dorian caught between his best and worst instincts—or, in religious terms, between a tempting devil and a loving but disappointed God.

The other important figure in Dorian is the painting itself, which comes to life to encourage Dorian’s wickedness, even to assist him in murder. Dancer Kevin Simmons twists his classically proportioned torso into monstrous contortions while wearing a series of increasingly grotesque masks. This is by far the creepiest stage or screen version of Dorian Gray I’ve seen, including the 1945 Albert Lewin film featuring the famous Ivan Albright painting that hangs at the Art Institute—it’s like watching a Caravaggio canvas turn into a Francis Bacon horror show. With his blandly pretty schoolboy looks, Jamie Abelson makes a perfect Dorian, cool and enigmatic even when he’s callously dumping his actress girlfriend because she’s not the perfect Juliet (she kills herself as a result), blackmailing an ex-boyfriend, committing murder, or dancing a dangerous pas de deux with his own portrait. Danny Starr and Patrick Andrews are excellent as serpentine Harry and earnest Basil. Collette Pollard’s simple set, Lee Keenan’s lighting, Debbie Baer’s dandyish costumes, Tracy Otwell’s porcelainlike masks, and Kevin O’Donnell’s moody techno sound track all enhance the impact of this provocative 90-minute one-act.

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Time Out Chicago / Issue 76: August 10–16, 2006

Review | Dorian | Bailiwick Repertory. Adapted from Oscar Wilde by Ben Lobpries and Tommy Rapley. Directed by Rapley. With ensemble cast.

TREASURE CHEST
Jamie Ableson, left, and Kevin Simmons show off their pecs

Oscar Wilde’s novel about physical versus moral beauty is like an exquisite box holding a rather mundane gift. The gothic tale of a young man who remains beautiful while his portrait takes on the physical manifestations of his sins verges on the twin territories of moral fable and one-trick-ponydom. Only Wilde the storyteller and raconteur can transmute it into something more.

In translating Wilde’s tale to a dance opera set in the New York art scene of the 1980s, Rapley pulls a similar trick, replacing verbal intricacy with visual fireworks. Everything about this production looks gorgeous, from its elegant set to its exquisite costumes (designed by Collette Pollard and Debbie Baer, respectively). But the real star of the show is the dance. Rapley the choreographer constructs a potent visual vocabulary, one flexible enough to deliver both a psychological punch and a striking stage picture. Carefully treading the line between literal and abstract, he builds a solid narrative framework with plenty of space for the free play of imagination. And his finely tuned ensemble is right there with him, melding movement and emotion to startling effect.

And that spell holds, at least until the production opens its collective mouth. Rapley and Lobpries’s dialogue—often from Wilde’s novel—is rarely a logical extension of the dance. By saying too much, too definitively, it detracts from the rich mystery of Rapley’s visual iconography. Thankfully, these verbal distractions are sporadic, leaving one to revel in the far more sumptuous and evocative wordless portrait.

—Kay Daly