Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Week 12: The final week dazzles with Andrew Schneider’s NERVOUS/SYSTEM & the return of Mark Morris’s THE HARD NUT

• By drediman
• December 24, 2018
• No Comments

The time has come for the 2018 edition of BAM’s Next Wave Festival, the final one curated by outgoing BAM Executive Director and influential festival founder Joseph V. Melillo, to come to a bittersweet close. And what a way to go – two of the three offerings I took in were dazzlers, but one not so much.

Andrew Schneider’s “Nervous/System” at BAM Fisher.

Ever since catching auteur theater maker Andrew Schneider’s groundbreaking youarenowhere as part of the the now-defunct Coil Festival three years ago, I’ve made sure not to miss this technical wizard’s shows whenever they’re performed in New York (like last year’s haunting After at the Under the Radar Festival). Mr. Schneider creates theatrical experiences like no other – intensely immersive, at times uncomfortably so. His theatrical visions are typically so completely realized that I have the inverse issue with his shows than I typically have when watching theater; instead of having to suspend my disbelief, I find myself pinching myself that his visceral creations are merely illusions. His latest Nervous/System (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), which I caught at BAM Fisher, may well be his most ambitious project yet, employing a large cast and a wider array of images than his past works. Even if this time around the seams were starting to show (understandable given the scope of the piece), I was still nonetheless blown away by Mr. Schneider’s mediation on missed connections and the vitality of every single moment in our lives. There is no traditional narrative in the 70-minute Nervous/System, just a breathless, aggressive assault of mind-bogglingly precise stage pictures depicting patterns of human behavior, which, when eventually broken, lead to new universes of possibilities. Mr. Schneider is an important and completely unique theater artist, and I can’t wait to see what trickery he has up his sleeves next.

The Builders Association’s “Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw” at BAM Harvey.

Next up at BAM Harvey was Strange Window: The Turn of the Screw (SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED), The Builders Association’s bizarrely lifeless stage adaptation of Henry James’ classic novella. I really wanted to like this devised multi-media take, written by James Gibbs and directed by Marianne Weems, on the creepy tale of an increasingly paranoid governess who believes the grounds to which she’s consigned to care for two young wards is haunted by ghosts. Unfortunately, lost in the pseudo-contemporary translation is the pungent, psychologically stifling atmosphere of the underlying novella, an ingredient necessary to making the piece work. In stripping the “The Turn of the Screw” of its mysteries, The Builders Association’s production falls flat despite the company’s more than competent multimedia stage work (however, I would direct you, first and foremost, to Ivo van Hove’s astonishing hit stage version of Network starring Bryan Cranston currently packing them in on Broadway if you are a fan of such stagecraft). The game cast tried its darnedest to get our bloods pumping, but alas, to limited success.

The Mark Morris Dance Group’s “The Hard Nut” at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House.

Last but certainly not least was the return engagement of Mark Morris Dance Group’s playful and utterly inspired take on The Nutcracker entitled The Hard Nut (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House. What’s truly wonderful about Mr. Morris’s unorthodox 1970s-set version is how closely in spirit and narrative it maps to Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov’s perennial original (which would later be repackaged by the likes of George Balanchine). Mr. Morris’s choreography seethes with supreme wit, effortlessly mashing the elements that make the holidays both artificially-induced (e.g., the unabashed commercialism of it all) and an authentic joy (e.g., the indisputable and unalloyed goodwill of the season) through hilarious camp and parody, as well as exquisite lyricism. Oh, and you won’t see a Waltz of the Snowflakes quite as disarming and inventive as Mr. Morris’s. Additionally, the piece has Tchaikovsky’s immortal score, here beautifully conducted by Colin Fowler and played by MMDG Music Ensemble’s 53-piece orchestra and sung by The Hard Nut Singers (not even New York City Ballet’s celebrated production can boast of a live children’s choir for the Act I finale). Visually, The Hard Nut is a zany spectacle, inspired by the sickly-sweet, almost subversive comic book aesthetic of Charles Burns (I remember being deeply disturbed by his dark graphic novel “Black Hole”). As for the MMDG dancers, they remain one of the ideal purveyors of the human experience through movement. As Clara, the petite, ever-youthful Lauren Grant was as beguiling as ever.

BAM’S NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL
Theater / Dance
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Harvey Theater, BAM Fisher
Various running times
Festival runs through December 23