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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2008 > December > 08
Monday, December 8, 2008
Review: Ballet Austin’s ‘The Nutcracker’
Something magical happened to Ballet Austin’s production of ‘The Nutcracker,’ now at the Long Center for the first time.
It glitters like never before.
After years in the University of Texas’ Bass Concert Hall — and last year spent at the Paramount Theatre while the Long Center finished construction and the Bass was under renovation — ‘The Nutcracker’ has landed in its new home with a re-invigorated splash of sugar and spice.
Maybe it’s the Long Center’s sharp acoustics that make Tchaikovsky’s romantic score sparkle. (The necessary use of recorded music last year at the Paramount gave the show a dreary feel.) Guest conductor Jeff Eckstein led the Austin Symphony Orchestra in an engaging performance.
Maybe it’s the excitement of performing in a new permanent venue built just for Austin’s top trio of performing arts groups (Ballet Austin, Austin Symphony Orchestra and Austin Lyric Opera). Across the cast Saturday night, the dancers projected verve and excitement. They have room to breathe on the Long Center stage and it showed Saturday night with bright, animated performances. Rebecca Johnson and Edward McPherson gave an inspired and flirty performance as the pair of Arabian dancers. As the Sugar Plum Fairy, Aara Krumpe kept the multiple pirouettes full of pop. And Allisyn Paino’s Snow Queen was utter elegance.
Then again maybe it’s Tony Tucci’s refreshed lighting scheme that gives this ‘Nutcracker’ a pretty new shimmery look. Tucci washes the magical Land of Snow with soft violet shades and adds some fun special effects when Clara’s house morphs into a dreamlike world. And to the Land of the Sweets, Tucci adds nice touches of subtle motion and shifting mood.
Thanks to the Long Center’s superb sight lines, the pretty freshness of this ‘Nutcracker’ projects even up in the balcony where the budget-minded can find seats for $12 to $45. (The show runs about 2 hours and 10 minutes including intermissions.)
And after a year’s hiatus, the guest Mother Ginger role is back. Who doesn’t enjoy watching a local personality goof it up while dressed in a giant red hoop skirt?
And who wouldn’t enjoy letting this ‘Nutcracker’ transport them away?
Ballet Austin’s ‘The Nutcracker.’ Photo by Jay Janner.
‘The Nutcracker’ continues 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Dec. 18-23, 2 p.m. Dec. 20-21 at the Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr. Tickets are $15-$71. 512-476-2163, www.balletaustin.org
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Review: ‘Still Fountains’
“Still Fountains,” a set of two one-act plays, shows both the strengths and weaknesses of Austin playwright Michael Mitchell. One feels like an intellectual exercise in metaphor, while the other is a touchingly simple bit of humanity.
The first selection, “Highway Home,” tells the story of a dysfunctional family gathered to mourn a lost matriarch, sitting outside her home by a fountain long-since broken, but still emotionally loaded. The group’s alcohol-fueled, courtroom-themed wordplay and interactions has a clear precedent in the work of Edward Albee and Eugene O’Neill. That’s a style, though, that’s gone somewhat dormant, and the barbs of the family and their hunt to score points, explicitly kept and monitored, for aggressive puns seems unnatural. Likewise their fascination with making metaphors explicit, ranging across the entire geography of the backyard from the fountain to the imposing highway on the horizon, seems heavy-handed. It’s telling that at several points different characters ask, “Why can’t we just talk like normal people?”
Still, while it can be hard to see the forest for the constant imagery, it’s still there. Gina Houston as the African-American lawyer who’s married into the decidedly Texan family provides an often cold riposte to the rest of the group, but also still, quiet moments of support for her husband, who is holding on to the fountain as a last bit of familial memory. Garry Peters, on the other hand, plays the old uncle who raised the family with a mix of bitterness and regret. A monologue of reminiscence forces him to consider what about the geometry of the house’s windows he finds beautiful and sad. The metaphor is, again, a bit much, but Peters makes the differences between squares and rectangles worth noticing.
The strengths of “Highway Home” are exaggerated in “Them,” which tells the story of two men who meet at a fountain known for anonymous sexual hookups. In a largely two-man show, Jude Hickey as a young possible hustler and Douglas Taylor as a questioning pastor show what Mitchell can do when he sticks to simple, direct human interaction.
To be sure, the fountain is a central metaphor, representing everything from the waters of life to diving into new experiences, but the story is lived by these two instead of spun out in wordplay. Mitchell’s dialog for young people—my own 25 or so—across both plays, is peppered with more “likes” and “dudes,” than I find natural, but Hickey’s flirtations with the older man carry a mixture of sexual and philosophical intentions. Likewise, Taylor’s pastor is as powerful, both physically and spiritually, when he’s pushing himself on Hickey as offering to wash his feet.
To work with the theme of the diptych, the fountain that looms large over both plays, simplicity wins out: When the cast is forced to climb over the fountain, hopping up and down and focusing more on the thing and its imagery than story, they suffer for it; when they can simply sit in front or dangle their feet and talk, we get a refreshing look at a promising new playwright’s work.
“Still Fountains” continues at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. through December 14 at Salvage Vanguard Theatre 2803 Manor Rd. $15-$30. 389-0315, salvagevanguard.org.
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance theater critic.
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Gallery Lombardi to shut its door
Gallery Lombardi, the spirited indie art space with the ‘everyone welcome’ attitude , will close its door Jan. 15.
The gallery just isn’t able to turn a profit and proprietor Ron Prince can’t financially do it any more. Prince opened the gallery in 2000 in a former warehouse on West Third and Bowie streets. When that location was sold to a developer wanting to build a condo tower, Gallery Lombardi moved to its current West Seventh Street location a couple years back.
Even in the best of financial times, operating a professional gallery is a tough business and very few are long-lived. Austin has never had a deep nor developed culture of private art collecting — the kind that comes from deep pockets. And our current recession is only that much tougher on an already-tough business.
What distinguished Gallery Lombardi was its open door, almost anything goes attitude. To Prince — and to hard working gallery director Rachel Koper — every artist, and every one who proclaimed themselves an artist, was welcome. “If you are a creative person, and you have an opportunity to be creative, consider yourself blessed,” Prince is quoted in news release. “The rest is window dressing.”
Sprawling group exhibitions with rocking live music at the late night openings characterized the scene at the free-spirited Gallery Lombardi. Not all the art at Gallery Lombardi was great. And the place never graduated beyond its scrapy, free-for-all feel. But then it never tried to be anything it wasn’t, and that’s admirable.
By Koper’s estimation, she organized an impressive 144 group exhibits. And Koper — who also writes for the Austin Chronicle — has been an important force in the indie art scene.
“Xmas Expo” is the gallery’s last exhibit, a signature Koper/Gallery Lombardi showing with dozens of artworks displayed salon style. “Xmas Expo” continues through Jan. 10 and is open noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays and the gallery is open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. It’s also open 2 to 5 p.m. Sundays through the holidays.
“Xmas Expo” at Gallery Lombardi. Photo by Rachel Koper.
