Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – The Sting “dansical” import MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE uses street dance to convey the refugee experience, to mixed results

• By drediman
• May 6, 2024
• No Comments

This past weekend, I had the chance to take in the new jukebox “dansical” Message in a Bottle by dance theater maker Kate Prince (who is the Artistic Director of ZooNation, a dance-based company which she founded in 2002). First seen across the pond in London, the production arrives stateside at New York City Center, where it is currently enjoying a two-week run. In short, the piece tells the fictitious story of a family torn apart by civil war, in particular following the fortunes of three scattered siblings who are forced to fend for themselves as refugees.

Similar to dance-driven shows such as Susan Stroman’s Tony-winning Contact, Message in a Bottle utilizes a pre-recorded mixtape of existing songs to frame and inform its story. In this case, Prince mines Sting’s catalog of chart-topping songs, which have been lushly re-arranged by Alex Lacamoire (Hamilton, In the Heights). But perhaps the show that Message in a Bottle has most in common with is the energizing Beyond Babel by Keone and Mari Madrid (the duo is Tony-nominated this season for their choreography for the all-but-forgotten Britney Spears jukebox musical Once Upon a One More Time). Both use the hip hop vernacular to inject emotional urgency into their respective narratives, although I found the Madrids’ work more inventive and organic. And while the street dance aesthetic also works to well convey the scrappy pursuits of its protagonists, Prince’s need to stop the show at every turn with dance numbers that ooze commercial sheen seems at odds with the overwhelming direness of the current global refugee situation.

I also miss the element of live music, a feature that makes Justin Peck and Sufjun Stevens’ Illinoise bloom so magnificently over at the St. James Theatre (you can read my review of that superior dansical here). But despite my misgivings of the piece, Message in a Bottle is, at the end of the day, undeniably crowd-pleasing stuff. Indeed, the dancers are a fresh and energetic bunch, and their enthusiasm is infectious. Suffice to say, it’s hard not to cheer for them as they give it their all. By the end of the evening, they had the audience on its feet with the force of their exuberant dancing alone.

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MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
Dance Theater
New York City Center
1 hour, 50 minutes (with one intermission)
Through May 12