Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – BAM’s 2019 edition of its iconic NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL gets off to a smashing start, featuring exciting new blood

• By drediman
• October 21, 2019
• No Comments

This past week, the Brooklyn Academy of Music unleashed the 2019 edition of its multi-disciplinary Next Wave Festival with two striking, adventurous shows. This season of the iconic fall festival is particularly notable for being the first to be totally curated by new artistic director David Binder, who recently replaced predecessor Joe Melillo, who had been practically synonymous with the renowned performing arts institution for decades (having nurtured and sustained such now-mainstream talents as composer Philip Glass, theater directors Ivo van Hove and Robert Wilson, choreographers Pina Bausch and Mark Morris, and so forth). Mr. Binder’s initiative for New Wave involves only presenting artists who will be making their BAM debuts, cultivating a new generation of exciting, boundary-pushing artists, and thereby truly living up to the festival’s name. This bold stance inevitably involves risk, but also has the potential to pay-off handsomely. I’m happy to report that, based on New Wave’s first two offerings this past week, Mr. Binder’s investment in new blood was definitely worthwhile.

Michael Keegan-Dolan and Teac Damsa’s production of “Swan Lake/Loch na hEala”, an offering at BAM’s 2019 Next Wave Festival. Photo by Stephanie Berger.

First up at the Harvey Theater at the fabulously expanded BAM Strong was the daring retelling of the ultimate classical ballet “Swan Lake”, entitled Swan Lake/Loch na hEala (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) and the brainchild of Michael Keegan-Dolan, who wrote, choreographed, and directed the piece. I say daring because Mr. Keegan-Dolan and his company Teac Dams do away with Tchaikovsky’s famed score (replaced by a new chamber score by Slow Moving Clouds comprised of Irish and Nordic folk music, played live) and the plot’s royal characters and medieval setting (instead taking place in contemporary working class Ireland), both of which have been inextricably linked to the underlying ballet since its inception. Mr. Keegan-Dolan also incorporates spoken word into the mix – via astonishing, shape-shifting Irish actor Mikel Murfi, who was so vital when I saw him last year at IAC in The Man in the Woman’s Shoes and I Hear You and Rejoice – creating a bleak hybrid piece that’s actually more theater than anything else. By replacing the familiar elements of the oft-performed ballet with a distinct, visceral theatrical vocabulary, the emotionally-exposed Teac Dams performers more sensitively and vividly capture the psychological menace and instability underscoring “Swan Lake” than most productions of the classical ballet I’ve seen. Indeed, Swan Lake/Loch na hEala is haunting, soulful dance theater and a disturbing romance.

Nat Randall and Anna Breckon’s “The Second Woman” starring Alia Shawkat, an offering at BAM’s 2019 Next Wave Festival. Photo by Nay Marie.

Then at BAM Fisher, we had The Second Woman (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), Nat Randall and Anna Breckon’s hugely ambitious one-day-only production featuring actress Alia Shawkat (whom you may recognize from “Arrested Development”) in a marathon 24 hours of playing the same vague but emotive scene – based on Cassavetes’ 1977 film Opening Night – opposite 100 different men in a claustrophobic box of a set. What on paper seems like an intriguing but grueling exercise in durational theater actually ended up being an unexpectedly entertaining theatrical event. Although I failed to make it through all 24 hours (I was able to last through 5 of them), I was surprisingly hooked throughout, thanks largely to Ms. Shawkat’s uncanny ability as an actress to be simultaneously in the moment, as well as playfully and insightfully commenting on it. Invariably, depending on her costar, the tone (tragic, comic, and everywhere in between) and quality varied from scene to scene – which lasted anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes per addictive pop, driven by the chosen pacing and the chemistry between the two actors – but Ms. Shawkat’s commitment to the experience remained astonishingly consistent. Conceptually, Mr. Randall and Ms. Breckon are on to something here; what they’ve artfully exposed in this obsessive loop is that the outward manifestation of emotion is inescapably filtered through only a frighteningly finite set of physical gestures and vocal intonations, as restricted by a limited number of socially-defined templates. In other words, The Second Woman investigates the authenticity of human emotions. And with Ms. Shawkat in the driver’s seat, it was an especially odd treat to watch our tragically inherent absurdity hammered through — on repeat.

SWAN LAKE/LOCH NA HEALA
Off-Broadway, Play/Dance
Teac Damsa / BAM Harvey Theater
1 hour, 15 minutes (without an intermission)

THE SECOND WOMAN
Off-Broadway, Play
BAM Fisher
24 hours (with occasional breaks)