XL WEEKEND REVIEWS
'Mamma Mia,' Old Settler's Music Festival, 'Plump Jack,' Deborah Hay, 'Thom Pain,' Bill Callahan
Tuesday, May 01, 2007'Mamma Mia' hooks us with pop hooks
Hey, it's formulaic pop. But it works.
On Tuesday night, "Mamma Mia" burst into the Bass Concert Hall for yet another run through Austin and it unapologetically proved once again why it's one of the most popular pop musical phenoms around.
It has the undeniable grab of a good pop song: It's sweet, romantic and terribly predictable.
And why not? "Mamma Mia" is nothing more than a stage vehicle for the songs of one of the most infectious and durable pop bands of the modern era: ABBA.
Twenty-two ABBA hits center the show, including "Knowing Me, Knowing You," "Dancing Queen," and "Money, Money, Money." Oh yes, there's a plot in there of sorts: On the eve of her marriage, young Sophie tries to figure out which of three men is her father. A difficult task given her mother's wild girl-band past. But the plot is not a hugely necessary element. And for that matter, it becomes increasingly — even laughably — irrelevant as the show progress.
But the plot is just enough of a loose fit for stringing together ABBA's fairy-tale sing-along confections. That, and lots of spirited dancing and hammy acting from a mostly young cast, and you have a stage spectacle.
And never mind the over-amplified, over-synthesized sounds screaming out of the orchestra pit. Never mind the rather thin sets and even thinner but effective lighting tricks. And forget that the singers couldn't all quite make the range of their parts or that the saccharine wall of background singers didn't always show up on stage. All the pop was there. And most importantly, they played "Dancing Queen" as an encore and the audience could get up and dance.
According to the show's producers, some 17,000 people a night around the world enjoy "Mamma Mia" in one of eight resident stage shows and two touring productions. The nearly 3,000 people who were at the Bass on Tuesday night were among the believers. ("Mamma Mia" continues at 8 tonight through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Bass Concert Hall, UT campus, 23rd Street and Robert Dedman Drive. $21-$70. 477-6060, www.broadwayacrossamerica.com.)
- Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Music: Old Settler's Music Festival remains fresh
The perfect tongue-in-banjo summation of this year's Old Settler's Music Festival came when the secondary stage announcer cheered on a hundred wildly happy people as the masked closing act wound up its electric set: "Isn't bluegrass wonderful? ¿Más?"
Wearing Mexican wrestling masks and black suits and ties, the four seriously talented rockers of Los Straitjackets were joined Saturday night by Big Sandy, a Belushiesque rockabilly frontman singing 1950s and '60s classics such as "Hang on Sloopy" — en español.
The small crowd that had resisted New Monsoon's jam on the bigger stage discovered an undeniable truth about the festival's 20th edition, on the banks of Onion Creek near the Salt Lick barbecue restaurant: Austin bluegrass fans enjoy every kind of music, if done well.
Over four days, supplemented by dozens of campground picking circles, a guesstimate of at least 10,000 fest-goers heard the traditional strings of Sam Bush and Honkytonk Homeslice, the writerly laments of Iris DeMent and Mary Gauthier, and the big voices of Ruthie Foster and Joan Osborne. In between were plentiful variations on banjo-mandolin-guitar combos, even instrumental workshops including one where veteran teacher Mike Marshall and Wimberley's teen wunderkind Sarah Jarosz imparted mandolin knowledge under a spreading elm.
Among the highlights of the 2007 Family Festival of Folding Chairs, which enjoyed cloud cover and cool breezes until Sunday's drizzle:
• Darrell Scott – This Nashville singer-songwriter, like some other fest acts, had two spots on the bill. At the campground stage he displayed masterful guitar work and wide-ranging vocals in equal proportion. Resonating was a song Scott wrote with his father in the Vietnam era about how he and his four brothers could have made good soldiers but likely would have returned in caskets. He brought up prodigy Jarosz for a few songs, including "Long Time Gone," Scott's money-maker for the Dixie Chicks.
• Mary Gauthier – With songs carrying such titles as "Mercy Now," "Empty Spaces" and "I Drink," no one was expecting "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah," as Townes Van Zandt used to say. The former Boston chef told her audience, "The blues make me feel good. I know it's an ordeal for you." Not so. Gauthier sings what she knows in detailed, haunting narratives and a smooth-to-the bone voice.
• Ruthie Foster – A big crowd greeted the hometown gal playing in a configuration of four women and three men. She's never sounded better or in more control of every number, ranging from gospel to reggae to Lucinda Williams' "Fruits of My Labor." Foster pronounced this the year Austin put its own original stamp on Old Settler's. Yes, thanks in part to her great set.
• Honkytonk Homeslice – Leaving behind his grandiose time with String Cheese Incident, Bill Nershi and wife Jilian turned in simple, fresh, acoustic picking and mountain air lyrics. Gram Parsons' "Fallen Angel" got soulful treatment and marriage battles were mined for a lighter touch in "The Big Compromise," a song Bill Nershi wrote with Jim Lauderdale, onstage ahead of Homeslice.
Who needs the endless Cheese jams?
• Sarah Borges – With her black hightops and decidedly non-hippy plaid dress, Bostonian Borges injected the fest with youthful pop energy. Her toothy smile and guitar licks matched up perfectly with side man Binky's fun, driving beat. Borges can do country, as well, honoring Dolly Parton with her take of "False Eyelashes."
• Sam Bush – This three-time Grammy winner who led New Grass Revival through nontraditional territory sounded a bit, well, traditional on his own compared with many of the fest acts. But his fast flights up and down the mandolin's short fingerboard were fun to watch. A tune about doing right by New Orleans reminded that another Bush will be branded as a villain for decades to come in folk songs about the great flood.
• Iris DeMent – The shy hillbilly from Arkansas grew up a while ago, but her little-girl voice remains the same: vulnerable and quivering and wondering what could go wrong next. A balky, unfamiliar keyboard left her brow furrowed until she moved to guitar. Songs about a worrisome but loving life with mama and daddy hit home for many in the audience. As she admitted in a lyric before closing with her well-known "Our Town," DeMent might be living on the inside a little too much. But how else could she pull out such truths?
• Joan Osborne – The name act got the largest crowd Saturday evening and Osborne delivered on her billing with a full-bore performance of hits, covers and a preview of her album of '70s soul sounds. With curly mane blowing in the wind, Osborne applied her strong, husky voice to the sassy man-hunt of "Pretty Little Stranger" and to the bluesier "Holy Water." She was all over the place, which fit the 2007 Old Settler's just fine. —Ed Crowell
Opera: 'Plump Jack' at UT
Usually, the University of Texas' Butler Opera Center selects challenging and interesting fare: shorter works or newer compositions often overlooked by mainstream opera companies.
Not so with their current offering. "Plump Jack" by Gordon Getty is indigestible.
The two-act opera — with both score and libretto by Getty, a San Francisco businessman and philanthropist who is the son and heir of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty — charts the life of Falstaff, the humorous cowardly knight of Shakespeare's Henry IV plays.
Getty calls "Plump Jack" a tragic comedy. (Interestingly, Getty was a major investor in San Francisco mayor Gavin Newson's Plump Jack group of restaurants and wine stores.) Unfortunately the opera never manages to be either comedy or drama and instead waffles distractingly in between. Ditto with the score. In style, the music is neither fully modern and avant-garde nor is it freshly neo-romantic, though it ladles each into the pot. Sometimes tonal, sometime atonal and noisy, the score never engaged.
Kudos to conductor David Neely for nevertheless serving up at least a tidy interpretation of Gordon's messy music. And as the portly Falstaff, baritone Phillip Hill managed to impress despite the uninteresting music and out-of-sync libretto. With rich tonality and considerable energy, Hill delivered an engaging vocal performance in an otherwise totally unengaging opera.
— Jeanne Claire Van Ryzin
("Plump Jack" continues 8 p.m. Friday and 7 p.m. Sunday at McCullough Theatre, UT campus, 23rd Street and Robert Dedman Drive. $10-$17. 477-6060. www.music.utexas.edu.)
Dance: Deborah Hay's 'Room'
Dancers who work with Deborah Hay seem to make eye contact with the audience via their entire bodies.
Sitting in a circle around Tahni Holt and Linda Austin, who perform the solos that constitute Hay's piece "Room," the dancers' presence appeals to the audience to pay utmost attention, even as tiny gestures seem to ask, "Why are you here looking at me?" Hay makes dance worth watching, while also asking why we watch dance. Thank goodness Refraction Arts' Fuse Box Festival brought Hay's work back to Austin on Friday at the Off Center.
Both solos emerge from similar structures: The women largely move in a circle, the lights randomly fade off and on, and moments have similar themes. Holt, prayerlike, crosses herself while sprawled on the floor, and then spasms orgasmically. Later Austin, bobbing about in a tall fleece hat and black ski bib, crosses herself while standing, semi-shouting, "Holy, moley, mia." The parallels connect the evening and make each solo a comment on the other.
Holt glides with a heightened sense of detail; different levels of effort inhabiting different parts of her body simultaneously. Her torso and legs remain loose, as two tense fingers slowly meet. More obviously comedic, Austin folds into awkward poses, arms outstretched and elfin hat pointed high, as though finishing movements with a physical "ta-da!"
Meanwhile the audience sits, a red ribbon stretched across our laps. Holt instructed us to put it there before she began. The ribbon's binding presence reminds me of what I keep feeling: I cannot stop watching.
— Clare Croft
Theater: 'Thom Pain' at Hyde Park
"Thom Pain (Based on Nothing)" certainly surpasses its source material. And the new production of Will Eno's one-man show at Hyde Park Theatre surpasses the script.
The play is simple enough in form. Thom Pain stands on stage, accompanied only by a life-size portrait of himself, a chair and a coffee mug. He tells the audience his life story, broken up into narrative chunks, and banters for 70 minutes while ruminating on the meaning of it all. It's deceptively simple, massively entertaining and incredibly dizzying, filled with constant reversals of mood, matter and mind. It'd be downright exhausting, however engaging, if Ken Webster weren't so appealing as Pain himself.
Eno has given the pessimistic Pain a monologue made up almost entirely of one-liners and lyrical recollections. There's no in between, but it's the swing between the two that counts. Webster is a master of letting an ominous conclusion hang in the air until the audience fills in the unspoken anxiety before finally deflating it with a wry punch line. He'll just as easily let you laugh until it hurts before pulling you down into Pain's pessimism. And then the cycle continues.
The text feels almost too labyrinthine to really get anywhere. But the moment-to-moment experience of following Thom Pain's story — laughs, awkward pauses, sympathy, and all — makes the journey worth it. And Ken Webster's the guide to take it with.
— Joey Seiler
("Thom Pain" continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays at the Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd Street. $15-$17. 479-PLAY, www.hydeparktheatre.org.)
Music: Bill Callahan
It was late Saturday night at Mohawk; alcoholic beverages were served, American Spirits were smoked and men with full beards littered the crowd. Nevertheless, the audience gathered close to Bill Callahan like elementary school children lost in the story at a library book reading. Although musical yarns about happy dwarves or sleeping princesses probably didn't make it to the set list unless they were fraught with tragedy. Callahan, formerly of the moniker Smog, has spent his past 12 albums turning ruined relationships and childhood memories into dark comedies. His gloomy baritone vocals put him in the company of greats — Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Stephin Merritt — as well as add a certain quiet serenity to his lyrics. Now living in Austin, Callahan's rich and dismal blend of country, blues and folk has found its mark here.
As well as many tunes off "Woke on a Whale Heart," released earlier this month, Callahan played crowd favorites such as mournful love pledge "Rock Bottom Riser."" Couples held each other and swayed under the big grey sky of the Mohawk patio area to simple, catchy song structures and a tender piano. "Bathysphere" combined deep, soothing vocals worthy of a lullaby with a haunting beat and violin into a tune that sinks to the bottom of your stomach and stays with you. Three-piece rock outfit Horse + Donkey opened with their grumbling bass lines and megaphone vocal effects, paving the way for local indie experimentalists the Weird Weeds and Moth!Fight! performing inside.
— Will Mills
Dance: Ballet East's 'Random Acts'
Ballet East Dance Company's "Random Acts" had a random feel Friday night, though that didn't dampen the enthusiastic approval of the capacity audience at the Dougherty Arts Center. Five local independent choreographers along with guest artist Dixon Mena presented new modern works.
Ballet Austin principal dancer Gina Patterson turned in by far the most accomplished piece of the night. Set to the sprightly music of Vivaldi, "Spring Eternal" had seven dancers alternately pairing up, then bouncing away from each other. With rapid, expressive and sometimes humorous moves, the dancers playfully iterated the frustrations of making romantic connections, Most importantly, Patterson didn't extend her idea any further than it needed to go. Short and sweet can rule, after all.
That wasn't the case with much else on the program. The other dancemakers overworked their ideas or didn't put enough in them to begin with. And that made for some conceptual and stylistic thinness. Bodies moved through space and time, but the dances didn't seem to take us anywhere.
— Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
