Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Those Summer Nights: New York Performing Arts Festival-ing

• By drediman
• September 8, 2014
• No Comments

Now that summer has officially come to a close, it is a good time to look back and recap the highs and lows of the numerous performing arts festivals that took place in New York. Traditionally, summers have been slow months for the performing arts in the city. In the past, I’ve tended to travel to destinations like the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada to get my performing arts fix. However, recent years have seen an explosion in performing arts festivals right on our doorstep. These festivals’ goals run the gamut from nurturing new works (e.g., New York Musical Theatre Festival) to exposing audiences to high profile works not typically seen here (e.g., Lincoln Center Festival).  Indeed, these days, regardless of one’s inclinations – theater (new works and the classics), dance, classical music / opera, performance art – you’re likely to find something to get your performing arts fix during the hot, long New York days and nights without having to leave the very streets where you live.

 

BRITS OFF-BROADWAY FESTIVAL

59E59 Theaters got things to a rollicking start with their Brits Off-Broadway Festival. Every summer, 59E59 does an excellent job of presenting a comprehensive and eclectic set of smaller productions from across the pond. These shows would have otherwise gone unnoticed by New Yorkers if it weren’t for the good work of this Festival.

HIGHLIGHTS: Certainly the highlight of the festival for me was the trio of plays entitled the “Ayckbourn Ensemble”, which included two buoyant New York premiers (“Farcicals”, “Arrivals & Departures”) and a somber stunner (“Time of My Life”) from the prolific master. The latter was one of the strongest, most substantial plays I’ve seen from Mr. Ayckbourn in a long, long time.

COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS SEEN:

Ayckbourn Ensemble: Farcicals

Ayckbourn Ensemble: Time of My Life

Ayckbourn Ensemble: Arrivals & Departures

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Pat Kirkwood is Angry

The Lovesong of Alfred J. Hitchcock

So, This Then Is Life

Chalk Farm

 

RIVER TO RIVER FESTIVAL

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s dance-oriented, site-specific River to River Festival was one of the new festivals on my radar this summer. And boy did it make an impression. The three performances I saw were memorable in their own right, less because of the actual choreography on display (much of which was stimulating) and primarily due to the carefully chosen physical surroundings in which these pieces were performed: in an old church on Governors Island (Wilson), against the backdrop of the East River (Brown), in an unfinished lobby of an anonymous Wall Street building (The Set Up).

HIGHLIGHTS: All three performances were highlights, but if I had to choose just one, it would have to be seeing one of Trisha Brown’s last works, the serene “I’m gonna toss my arms – if you catch them, they’re yours”, casually but superbly performed against the gorgeous, ever-shifting backdrop of the East River and Brooklyn beyond.

COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS SEEN:

Reggie Wilson: …Moses(es)

Trisha Brown: I’m gonna toss my arms – if you catch them, they’re yours

The Set Up: I Nyoman Catra

 

NEW YORK MUSICAL THEATRE FESTIVAL

The popular New York Musical Theatre Festival (or “NYMF”, as it is lovingly referred to) had another enthusiastically-produced set of wildly diverse new musicals in its lineup this summer. Sadly, I use the word “diverse” in both the positive and negative senses of the word (i.e., variety in the types of musicals, as well as quality). I guess this is to be expected from a festival whose mission it is to nurture fledgling works on a limited budget.

HIGHLIGHTS:  Highlights included the insanely funny but uneven “Cloned!” and “WikiMusical”. Both rank as two of the most enjoyable, hilarious evenings spent in the theater this year despite some qualms. I hope to see these developed further. The feel-good “Propaganda! The Musical” was also very much worthwhile.

MEMORABLE MISSES: There were certainly a few head scratchers, but nothing could beat the utter inanity of “Deployed”, a musical set in war-time Iraq. I’m still shaking my head and chuckling at this one. In the words of Hedwig, “I laugh, because I will cry if I don’t” …

COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS SEEN:

Always, Rachel

Academia Nuts

Cloned!

Somewhere with You

Deployed

Sing Me Home

Zombie Strippers

The Yellow Star

The Gig

WikiMusical

Propaganda! The Musical

Fable

Clinton

Mother Jones and the Children’s Crusade

 

LINCOLN CENTER FESTIVAL

The Lincoln Center Festival, along with its late-summer counterpoint, the Mostly Mozart Festival, rank as the snob performing arts festivals of the summer. And rightfully so: tickets to see Cate Blanchett in “The Maids” could have set you back upward of $400 for a pair of tickets. Luckily the Lincoln Center Festival, which focuses on dance, theater, and opera, had quality to back some of the exorbitant prices it was charging. Besides Ms. Blanchett, the main draw of this summer’s festival was the return of the Bolshoi to New York, where it performed an opera (the rarely-performed “The Tsar’s Bride” by Rimsky-Korsakov in concert) and a trio of its signature ballets (“Swan Lake”, “Don Quixote”, and “Spartacus”).

HIGHLIGHTS: There were many riches here, but the highlights were: (1) Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker dancing her own iconic moves in “Rosas Danst Rosas” (Beyonce has nothing on her!); (2) The Bolshoi letting it rip to thrilling effect in its big, bold, and bombastic ballet, “Spartacus”; and (3) Cate Blanchett owning the stage in Genet’s “The Maids”.

MEMORABLE MISSES: I was most looking forward to seeing the Bolshoi’s rendition of “Swan Lake”. However, the performance came off flat and lacking in any sort of dramatic cohesion or comprehension. Bewildering.

COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS SEEN:

Kaidan Chibusa No Enoki

Rosas: Fase

Rosas: Rosas Danst Rosas

Rosas: Elena’s Aria

Rosas: Bartok/Mikrokosmos

Bolshoi: The Tsar’s Bride

Bolshoi: Swan Lake

Bolshoi: Don Quixote

Bolshoi: Spartacus

The Maids

 

MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL

As the sole classical music (with some choreography from Mark Morris) festival of the summer on my list, the Mostly Mozart Festival did its job admirably. As the name of the festival indicates, much Mozart was played but his was not the only music explored. This year’s iteration also focused substantially on that other great master, Beethoven.

HIGHLIGHTS: The Festival Orchestra sounded magnificent this year under various maestros. I’m a big fan of the way the impersonal, shoebox-shaped Avery Fisher Hall was transformed into a more intimate concert hall for the the Mostly Mozart Festival. It certainly makes smaller orchestras (like the Festival Orchestra) sound immediate and vibrant. Perhaps the New York Philharmonic should take note?

COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS SEEN:

Mark Morris Dance Group: Acis and Galatea

A Little Night Music: Mozart, Debussy, Poulenc

Festival Orchestra: All-Beethoven Program (including Symphony No. 9)

Festival Orchestra: Boyce, Mozart (feat. Joshua Bell), Beethoven (Symphony No. 3)

Festival Orchestra: Martin, Bach, Mozart (Requiem)

 

NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL FRINGE FESTIVAL

HIGHLIGHTS: Much like NYMF, the New York International Fringe Festival was a hodgepodge of thrillingly good gems, overwrought messes, and everything in-between. One of the more prolific festivals in town, this year’s festival featured approximately 200 different productions at various venues around the the Lower East Side from theater companies hailing from New York, cities across the U.S., and countries abroad.

HIGHLIGHTS: Highlights from this year’s festival included Sarah Kane’s tortured but compulsively watchable “Crave” and the mesmerizing work of the Indian dance troop, Tejas-Luminous.

MEMORABLE MISSES: It was slightly excruciating to sit through “Wing to the Rooky Wood”, an embarrassingly undercooked theater thesis performed by what seemed to be clueless teenagers.

COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS SEEN:

Smashed: The Carrie Nation Story

Wing to the Rooky Wood

Crave

Come Cuddle Me

Xavier Toby: Mining My Own Business

Tejas-Luminous

Fuck You! You Fucking Perv!

Seven Seductions of Taylor Swift

 

NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL (AKA SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK)

The Public Theater’s venerable Shakespeare in the Park productions at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater opted to go all-Shakespeare this summer (typically, the programming includes one Shakespeare production and one non-Shakespeare production). This year, we got the irresistible duo of Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater in a sparkling production of “Much Ado About Nothing” and John Lithgow’s generous performance in “King Lear”. Without a doubt, Shakespeare in the Park remains one of the city’s most treasured, only-in-NY experiences.

HIGHLIGHTS: Although not technically a Shakespeare in the Park production, the Public’s brief run of the talented young director Lear deBessonet’s musical adaptation “The Winter’s Tale” was one of the most magical and joyous theatrical experiences I’ve had so far this year. Featuring a cast of 200 from across New York City’s five boroughs, the production was a spectacular pageant of diversity and community. Special guest appearances included Mayor de Blasio, Senator Schumer, and dancers from the New York City Ballet.

COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS SEEN:

Much Ado About Nothing

King Lear

The Winter’s Tale (not technically a Shakespeare in the Park production)

 

HUDSON VALLEY SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL

Another first for me this year was my journeying upstate to the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison, NY. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Hudson Valley, the festival has earned kudos for its honest, grounded acting. I would have to agree. This summer, I caught David Ives’ madcap adaptation of Pierre Corneille’s “The Liar”. And what a delight it was: the exuberant cast was clearly having a ball, and so was the audience at every step of the way.

COMPLETE LIST OF SHOWS SEEN:

The Liar