Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – ERC’s TCHAIKOVSKY: NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART lets the tortured composer’s work do the talking, movingly

• By drediman
• June 8, 2018
• No Comments

Joey Slotnick and Shorey Walker in Ensemble for the Romantic Century’s production of “Tchaikovsky: None But The Lonely Heart” at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

I recently took in a performance of Ensemble for the Romantic Century’s Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart, the company’s final production of its 2017-2018 season, at the Pershing Square Signature Center. For its shows, the company utilizes mostly primary artifacts – letters, music, paintings, writings – to animate, somewhat disjointedly, the lives of some of the of the most revered artists of the Romantic era. ERC also incorporates classical modes of performance (classical ballet, classical music) in its productions to create hybrid, collage-like experiences that’re uniquely the company’s.

Although their latest is the least flashy of the three offerings this season – the piece doesn’t have the high tech projection design of Van Gogh’s Ear nor ballet superstar Robbie Fairchild’s scene-stealing dancing in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – Tchaikovsky is in my book the most emotionally affecting of the lot. Indeed, it’s specifically because of this unfussy, straightforward presentation that the production, directed by Donald T. Sanders, attains its potency; it simply lets Tchaikovsky’s emotive musical compositions depict the composer’s tortured soul (he was dogged with shame about his homosexuality throughout his life).

As Tchaikovsky himself, Joey Slotnick downplays his usual comic gregariousness to give a subdued, deeply moving performance. There’s a mysterious alchemy that occurs when watching him transfer his focused attention from his personal correspondences – particularly with Nadezhda von Meck, one of his primary benefactors (played by a very fine Shorey Walker) – to his rich musical works. The music becomes an extension of the composer; we see his soul, and it communicates to us. The show depends on live music-making, and the quartet of young, talented musicians — tenor Adrian Kramer, cellist Ari Evan, violinist Stephanie Zyzack, and pianist Ji — deliver gloriously.

RECOMMENDED

TCHAIKOVSKY:  NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART
Off-Broadway, Play
Ensemble for the Romantic Century at the Pershing Square Signature Center
2 hours (with one intermission)
Through June 17