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The big print on the publicity says "Frankie
and Johnny" and the little print “Plus Eliot Feld’s ‘Pacific
Dances’” but, if you’re talking about quality of product, it really ought
to be the other way around. Smuin Ballet’s season opener features the first-ever
dance from a choreographer outside the company and, artistically speaking, Feld’s
innovative, quirky island idyll stole the show. The audience, however, caught up in the
Smuin flash and dash, went wild for “Frankie and Johnny” as well. Go figure.
Frankie and Johnny is
dedicated to the memory of Gene Kelly and, if the late, great Hollywood hoofer is somehow
aware of that fact, he must be turning over in his grave. Less of an homage than a parody,
Smuin’s piece is an over-the-top excuse for a lot of Latin rhythm, smoldering passion
and seamy simulated sex. If there is a fine line between haute camp and low-down poor
taste it may have been crossed it here. Even the hot (albeit canned) music by the likes of
Tito Puente, Perez Prado and Arturo Sandoval and the presence of the always-excellent and
usually-classy Celia Fushille-Burke can’t save this one.
Smuin’s Latino take on the
old "Ballad of Frankie and Johnny” has Johnny (an agile and excellent James
Strong), decked out in a horrible ensemble of purple pants, fuchsia jacket and orange
shoes, picking up Frankie (Fushille-Burke), an innocent lass in a white dress, at the
seashore (hideous set by Jay Kotcher Studios). If you could tell by his outfit that he was
a pimp, you’d be right on the money. By the second scene, Johnny is selling his lady
love to four guys hanging around the local bar. Enter the notorious Nelly Bly (here named
“Cat” and danced by Nicole Trerise). As Nelly and Johnny slither around, on and
over the bar, we catch glimpses of the gang and Frankie in an upstairs room. It’s a
little like the rape of Aldonza in Man of la Mancha but a lot less scary and a
lot more distasteful.
Let loose at last, the distraught
Frankie shoots her lover, is promptly arrested and almost as quickly released, presumably
for just cause. Glitter falls on the stage and … everybody mambo!
In contrast, Feld’s 2001 Pacific
Dances is an oasis of calm and light, cleverly combining a billowing sheet of white
parachute silk with nine women in white old-fashioned swimsuits, toe shoes and white socks
and the haunting music of the Hawaiian slack key guitar. The sheet is expertly manipulated
by four men in black and later by the dancers to serve as backdrop, clouds, waves and
anything else the imagination cares to bring forth. The Smuin women turn in fine ensemble
work here, dancing Feld’s hula moves that suggest but never parody the island dances,
swimming in the waves of the sheet and breaking out in a goofy, jazzy jitterbug. Erin
Yarbrough, Vanessa Thiessen and Trerise contribute outstanding solos, with Thiessen’s
hypnotic hula a mesmerizing standout.
The program opened with a very
classic curtain raiser, Smuin’s somewhat atypical Chants d’Auvergne set
to the folk music adaptations of Joseph Canteloube. This is a pretty dance for six couples
that speaks of innocence, springtime and youth. Again, strong solo work from Strong,
Thiessen and David Strobbe with the best saved for the last, a stunning pas de deux for
Trerise and Strong to “Bailero,” the loveliest work in the collection.
May 7, 2005 - Suzanne Weiss
