Since Nan is not teaching this semester we took our time getting back to Durham, waiting to the third week in January to head down. We did the overnight trip which lessen traffic issues around D.C., but leaves you tired for three days afterwards. One of treats waiting for us when we got back was a performance by Savion Glover at Duke. We had seen him before at The Egg in Albany and loved his skill and showmanship.
The show was entitled SoLe Sanctuary and was a 90 minute ode to tap dancing. It featured Glover and a companion dancer, Marshall Davis. Jr. Also on stage was a man who remained in the lotus position meditating for the entire performance. Also hung on stage as a backdrop were the portraits of some famous tap dancers. I recognized Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Gregory Hines, but it would have been nice for the uninitiated tappers(myself included) to have them identified.
First let me say that Savion Glover is the greatest tap dancer you can see. He is a tremendous talent and his companion was equally adept.. Having said that, it asks a lot of an audience to listen to 90 minutes of incessant, fully-amplified tapping, most of which was not accompanied by music. It is the aurical equivalent of hearing the same sentence over and over again with different words and syllables accented. I was not surprised some of the audience left. And by the way Savion, we got it. This was your meditation on tap dancing. We didn't need the guy in the lotus position. The overall performance did not live up to my expectations.
Since Nan has been teaching at Duke, we've had only one major winter storm. The second occurred at the end of January when we made some major icing. We were scheduled to see the New Century Chamber Orchestra performing a program that included some Mendelssohn and Strauss on the night the storm hit. The concert was cancelled. We're still waiting for our refund.
A week later we had another theater experience. Again a dance program, but this one went far beyond my expectation. Diavolo Dance Theater from LA put on a spectacular performance, doing two pieces: Fearful Symmetries and Trajectoire. It's difficult to describe the performance in words, so I suggest you check them out at their website: www.diavolo.org If you visit the website the pieces we saw involved the movable rectangular boxes and the rocking platform. It was great.
One of the great things about the Durham area is the availability of reasonably priced live theater. (Unfortunately for me, most of it non-equity). The quality of the productions for the most part have been pretty good. We went to see a one-person show entitled "My Princess Bride" written and performed by Joe Brack. It debuted as part of the Washington DC Fringe Festival and was on a brief tour. The show is basically the retelling of the William Goldman classic movie, The Princess Bride put in the context of Mr. Brack's life. The retelling worked very well, bringing many smiles to our faces. The personal anecdotes worked into the story were less successful. However, taken as a whole, it was an enjoyable night of theater.
The largest equity theater in the area is Playmakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill. Associated with UNC it brings a consistently high quality theater experience to the Triangle. Each year since we've been down here, they have done a mid-winter series of plays in rep. This year they are doing A Raisin in the Sun and Clybourne Park. We went to see the latter. The play won the Tony Award for best play in 2012 and the Pulitzer for Drama in 2011. It is an interesting take on the changes (?) in race relations in the 50 years between the sales of an inner city property. Well acted (particularly by our friend Jay O'Berski) with excellent scenic design, the play is an unsettling (sometimes funny) look at race.
We have had the chance to see several plays on the issue of race since we've been down here. By far the most dramatic and emotionally challenging was a production of The Shipment by Young Jean Lee. The opening 10 minutes of The Shipment was so shocking I wanted to leave. I didn't get the play until the final few lines, and suddenly it all fell into place. I didn't have such an epiphany with Clybourne Park. We've heard this message before, perhaps not packaged as humorously, but it's not a ground-breaking play. Entertaining - yes. But I always look for an arc in a play. How have the characters changed as a result of their interaction? Sadly, they don't, and maybe that's the point.
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