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The Power of Love: Rappaccini’s Daughter, Out the Window
Two One-Act Operas - Theater for the New City

by Joel Benjamin

Under the clever umbrella title of The Power of Love, the Theater for the New City presented two modern one-act operas based on period sources. 

Displaying Lauren Hoffmeier and James Parks - 1 - in Out The Window.jpg
Lauren Hoffmeier and James Parks Photos by Peter Welch

  Out the Window by Seymour Barab is an over-the-top gloss on a Feydeau sex farce, and Rappaccini’s Daughter by Michael Cohen (music) and Linsey Abrams (libretto), a dramatization of the famous Nathaniel Hawthorne short story about a Renaissance-era mad scientist who uses his daughter as a petri dish. 

Somehow the Feydeau’s delicious high energy, upper-crust antics of are nowhere to be found in Mr. Barab’s contemporary interpretation.  Perhaps, the transition from France to the United States stifled original’s exotically foreign perfume.  Farce demands that each character be totally and deeply obsessed, but Mr. Barab’s libretto stressed over-the-top dialogue above psychological motivation.   Beginning with the drab, cartoonish kitchen scenery by Mark Marcante, Out the Window is unsubtle and over-acted, going for easy laughs.  It’s indefinite about period (the fifties?) and place (suburbia? city?). Both actor/singers—James Parks as the Husband abandoned by his jealous wife and Lauren Hoffmeier as the Wife from across the way who wants to use Mr. Parks’ character as a way of getting even with her spouse—have clearly been directed by Lissa Moira to over act.  In addition the ancient attitudes toward gender roles and violence are not softened by either Mr. Barab’s unsettling book or his serviceable music making one wonder why he chose to dramatize this scenario.

The two performers do capture the lunacy of jealousy and certainly sing well.   Although Mr. Parks lacks the elegant body language of the character he is supposed to be playing, he is ingratiating in his befuddlement.  Ms. Hoffmeier has a strong soprano, knows how to seduce with her words and body, and is a good, grounded foil to Mr. Parks.

Displaying Douglas McDonnell, Darcy Dunn & Samantha Britt (below) in Rappaccini's Daughter.jpg

Douglas McDonnell, Darcy Dunn & Samantha Britt

 

Rappaccini’s Daughter is far more lush in both its setting (also by Mr. Mercante) and its music.  Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Rappaccini continued the themes explored in its predecessor, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  Again an egotistical scientist messing with God’s laws leads the way to tragedy.  Rappaccini keeps his lovely daughter Beatrice a virtual prisoner in his garden while he poisons her both physically and emotionally.   He employs Lizbetta, a sexy maid to help keep Beatrice in check.  Meanwhile Rappaccini rents out a room overlooking his surreal garden to a young medical student, Giovanni who soon falls for Beatrice.  Giovanni’s mentor at the university, Baglioni, tries to persuade the guileless Giovanni to leave Rappaccini’s residence and certainly leave Beatrice alone.  Giovanni and Beatrice’s romance is doomed—as are both of them.

The setting is overrun by large artificial flowering plants.  In a clever move, Ms. Moira and her choreographer Robert Gonzales, Jr. use four women dancers as anthropomorphic plants, dressed in gray, hooded unitards covered with vines and glitter.  The four dancers ooze about the stage menacingly, a truly fascinating image.  The music often rises rhapsodically, particularly in the love duets.  Otherwise, the score enhances the Mr. Abrams’ efficient translation of Hawthorne into theatrical terms. 

Darcy Dunn’s Lizbetta had a modern edge, but she sang with strength and created a vivid character.  Martin Fisher had great gravity as Baglioni.  William Broderick’s good looks and clear singing made Rappaccini’s sinister side more exciting.  Douglas McDonnell, a boyishly handsome leading man sang Giovanni with his large voice expressively inhabiting the ardor of his part.  Samantha Britt was simply lovely as Beatrice, her singing sweet and poignant.  She managed to combine an ethereal quality with a young lady’s blossoming romantic feelings. 

Opera is a difficult art form to get right.  These two one acts make valid intelligent artistic statements that should be taken seriously by opera lovers longing for new repertoire.

The Power of Love:  Two New Operatic Musicals
September 11-28, 2014
Theater for the New City
155 First Ave. (between 9th & 10th Sts.)
New York, NY
Tickets & Information:  212-254-1109 or www.TheaterForTheNewcity.net  or 212-868-4444 or www.SmartTix.com