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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > February > 09
Monday, February 9, 2009
Review: ‘The Secret Live of the InBetweeners’
“The Secret Lives of the InBetweeners” launches with a musical number exploring the mind of the urban hipster as an artist, two women, a gamer, and rich Lothario pine for a breakthrough, love and independence, the next level and sex. Unfortunately, the mind of a stereotype doesn’t leave much room for secrets.
The new musical from Aaron Brown proceeds largely according to the pattern set by its first song. Joe is struggling to get his play and love life together. Tina, his sort-of sweetheart, wants affection, but falls for slime ball Harry. Her friend Charlotte, a computer programmer with dreams of the stage, warns her off but becomes caught up with video game fanatic Waldo instead.
Were it not for the addition of personified Hope and Fear, the plot would run like “Rent” revised by the “Sex and the City” team—with less of a sense of humor. Even these, though, are more clichés than archetypes. Hope, played by a doe-eyed, Raphaelite Betsy McCann, is indeed hopeful, but Fear, played as a snarky goth by Rudy Ramirez, doesn’t exactly set the knees knocking.
That may be part of the point. His opening number — in the vein of “Sympathy for the Devil,” but with less bravado — establishes him as the source of history’s problems, though he’s reduced by modernity to playing on personal insecurities rather than terror. Regardless of how the last eight years might stand against that, it makes for a less-than-compelling emotional conflict.
That’s particularly problematic as the second act of the play makes an abrupt jump from an urban relationship story to a supernatural wager, replacing Job with Joe. Except where Job had boils and a family massacre, Joe is a 30-year-old director with an overbearing mother who, in his moment of catharsis, he runs away from before getting scared and hungry after an hour.
The music itself is prone to quick switches, with most songs bouncing wildly around the thematic map and to the border of or out of many singers’ ranges. Instead of catchy hooks, it feels more like a mash-up collection of Muzak.
That’s too bad because the book and score obscure some performers that could do well elsewhere. While I found Waldo’s constant video game references annoying (or, as a gamer who also enjoys musical theater, almost frustratingly mocking) at first, Errich Petersen’s bouncy enthusiasm for Waldo’s lack of shame is winning. And when Charlotte, even more charmingly energetic and strong in Jo Beth Henderson’s jazzy numbers, finally sees that in him, the love story gets one of its few “awww” moments.
Musicals don’t have to be big and epic — Penfold Theatre Company’s recent staging of “The Last Five Years” proved that — but “Secret Lives” just doesn’t feel original.
(“The Secret Lives of the InBetweeners” continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays through March 7 at the Vortex, 2307 Manor Road. $10-$30. 478-5282. vortexrep.org.)
[Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance critic.]
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Review: KDH Dance and Mary O’Donnell
Saturday brought celebrations of arrival and longevity in Austin dance. Choreographer Mary O’Donnell introduced herself to Austin with “Eyes of Innocence” in the afternoon, and KDH Dance Company continued its 10th anniversary season with performances at Café Dance in the evening.
O’Donnell refers to “Eyes of Innocence” as an example of “responsible anarchy.” Some movement and ideas are set and remain the same across the piece’s rehearsals and performance, while some performers work to challenge that stability.
Five performers, embodying ideas more than characters, moved largely oblivious to each other. As the severe, black-suited Thunder, Kent de Spain was a constant presence around which Derrick Washington bopped, eyes darting. Julie Nathanielsz seemed Washington’s counterpoint; her movements were equally detailed. But where Washington settled into curves, Nathanielsz felt angular, though paradoxically soft. As Angel and Addiction, Lucila Velez and Seunghee Yang performed oblivion more consciously. Bellydancer Velez floated through curving paths, her turns signaled by the soft jingle of her costume. Yang’s sunglasses and a remote control truck, which had several crossings prior to Yang’s appearances, provided an aloof, but comedic layer. Teen-ager Lariza (identified by only her first name) functioned as audience surrogate, walking amidst the random environment, sometimes trying out performers’ movement and other times ignoring it.
KDH continues to build toward its 10th anniversary gala, slated for June 18-20. The current walk down recent memory lane features the company, led by artistic director Kathy Dunn Hamrick, in excerpts from four pieces made during the past seven years. A close-up view and Dunn Hamrick’s friendly introductions to each piece make the studio show a good way to ease in to dance spectatorship, even though Saturday felt more like a reunion of company family and friends.
KDH repeats the Café Dance program for the next two Saturdays, Feb. 14 and 21, at 6 and 8 p.m. For tickets call 512-934-1082 or go to www.kdhdance.com.
[Clare Croft is an American-Statesman freelance critic.]
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Austin Symphony Orchestra names new executive director
Austin Symphony Orchestra has named Galen Wixson as the organization’s new executive director. Wixson is currently serving as executive director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. He begins his job March 16..
Wixson will be in charge of all daily business operations of ASO supervising marketing, public relations, policy development and fundraising. Peter Bay remains music director.
Wixson is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management with a Master of Arts Management degree. He also holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Cello Performance from Wichita State University.
His previous positions include executive director for the Symphony of Southeast Texas, Reno Philharmonic, Manhattan Center for the Arts and the American String Teachers Association.
Previous executive director Jim Reagan retired in 2007.
Galen Wixon.
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Review: Jupiter Quartet
Friday night at the University of Texas’ McCullough Theater, the Jupiter String Quartet demonstrated again their exceptional technical and artistic quality. Following two previous engagements at the Austin Chamber Music Festival (in 2005 and 2007), the Jupiter on this visit offered a strikingly organized program performed with the tonal intensity and refined expression that are becoming familiar.
The first and last of the three works played were both in A minor and shared more than simply a key. Beethoven’s towering Quartet no. 15 in A minor, among his last compositions, is in five movements with a large central slow movement inscribed by Beethoven, “Holy song of thanks from one recovered to the Divinity.” This rewarding, uncompromising quartet received a young people’s performance, though these young people grasped the technical problems of the music almost flawlessly and were persuasive and self-assured in their expression. Their readings of it should be tremendous before long.
The 18-year-old Felix Mendelssohn intensively studied Beethoven’s last quartets when they were new publications; the boy’s Quartet in A minor, published as no. 2, was his response. Containing several allusions or quotations to the Beethoven quartets, especially no. 15, Mendelssohn’s is ambitious, with his artistic reach exceeding his grasp a wee bit. The Mendelssohn opened the evening, getting a serious, sophisticated treatment from the Jupiter that wanted a sharper interpretive focus.
Bringing the first half to an intriguing conclusion, ‘Arcadiana’ by the British composer Thomas Adés had the players acting independently of each other, producing unusual sonorities laced with numerous allusions to other composers, most notably Edward Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations. The players executed the piece with care and enthusiasm, sounding both angular and sweet.
Between having the Mirò Quartet in residence at UT’s Butler School of Music and receiving periodic visits from the Jupiter Quartet, Austin’s chamber music scene is blessed these days with high-quality string quartet playing.
[David Mead is an American-Statesman freelance critic.]
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