DOWN BUT NOT OUT
In this age of communicating through technology at an ever-increasing pace, the simple joys of storytelling tend to get buried beneath the frenzy of techno-babble.

Thanks to Milwaukee Dance Theatre's DOWN AND PERSONAL, storytelling was revived through a series of interpersonal monologues and dialogues last weekend at the Off-Broadway Theatre. Performers shared glimpses into aspects of their lives, personal to professional, success and setbacks, serious to humorous. And their self-reflection held up its own emotional mirror to the audience to gaze into and consider.

The "duologue" featured Milwaukee Dance Theatre (MDT) Co-Artistic Director Isabelle Kralj and an unannounced John Kishline (at Friday's performance) as a couple driving to her sister's house as they contemplate life, Anton Chekhov and the roads they have chosen, figuratively and literally. Their discussion of Chekhov's Three Sisters and their unfulfilled lives veer uncomfortably close to their own. The two actors work well off each other, Kishline with his indirect glances communicating his discomfort and unease as Kralj blithely and nonchalantly peels back the layers. "Will we ever get there? " moans the husband. And sometimes there's simply no end to the road.

For dog lovers and "trainers in waiting," Holly Hughes provided all anyone could possibly know—or care to know— about teaching a dog to listen and obey. Her naturalness in emphasizing inane facts and details made "Learning to Come" as hilarious as it was educational.

Less successful was "Five Table Exercise," a video by Malcolm Tulip, with its exaggerated theatrics and sight gags distracting from the evening's cohesiveness.

MDT Co-Artistic Director Mark Anderson's witty and self-deprecating monologues and interludes were the highlight of the evening, artfully demonstrating how routine tasks can be illuminating and funny at the same time. Even his short takes between the longer monologues held the evening together and brought it full circle.

Harry Cherkinian - shepherd-express.com (17 May 2007)

Aided by a spare stage and the Off-Broadway Theatre's intimate setting, Thursday night's premiere of Milwaukee Dance Theatre's "down & personal" offered something akin to the urgency of those ancient evenings.

Consisting of five set pieces of performance art woven together through a running Mark Anderson monologue, "down & personal" is billed as a chance for its performers to share the ups and downs of their lives much as they would if confiding in a friend.

Although Malcolm Tulip's video and Frank Pahl's monologue are indulgent and inflated, the best of "down & personal" delivers, sharing and then transcending the personal with stories reflecting how each of us learns to whistle in the dark.

With many of the "down & personal" performers now in their 50s, those stories exhibit an acute awareness of coming old age, while simultaneously wrestling with the tricky business of the past and the temptation of nostalgia.

Ed Burgess recalled the heady days of his youth while paying tribute to the actors and dancers who gave him the courage to be unconventional - and who sustain him as he confronts a future without his soul mate of almost 30 years.

The reliably hilarious Holly Hughes described the trials and travails involved in dog training, while also measuring how much is lost as our younger selves chase the illusion of success.

Expressly invoking Chekhov but actually closer to the whimsical tone of Anne Tyler, Isabelle Kralj and Hardy Gregory use an aging couple's car trip as a metaphor for the road they have taken - as well as the paths left behind and the journey ahead into undiscovered country.

Anderson's masterful monologue - attuned to both the fear driving artists to perform and the isolation that a life of performance requires - is the best thing in the show.

Anderson embodies Walter Benjamin's definition of the storyteller: a man who could let the wick of his life be consumed by the flame of his story.

Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (11 May 2007)

DIFFICULT STORY BECOMES COMPELLING
Dance Theatre presents provocative 'Woyzeck'
When language has become a tissue of lies, how does one speak the truth? And when the winners get to do all the talking, does the answer even matter?

These are recognizably modern questions, which makes it all the more striking that Georg Buchner was asking them in the 1830s while writing his last play, "Woyzeck."

Buchner didn't finish "Woyzeck" before dying of typhus at 23. One of many attempts to finish "Woyzeck" for him - a 2000 rendition with music by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan - undergirds the Milwaukee Dance Theatre's production, which opened Thursday before a small audience.

The theater deserves better. Although the opening-night performance was occasionally rough around the edges, Milwaukee Dance Theatre's "Woyzeck," as adapted and directed by James Butchart, is an intelligent and provocative take on the play.

The subject matter makes for a hard sell at the box office. Woyzeck is an exploited soldier stumbling toward madness under the abuse doled out by his army captain and a diabolical doctor. When he learns that his lover is sleeping with a handsome drum major, Woyzeck slits her throat.

The theater company's artistic directors, Mark Anderson and Isabelle Kralj, play Woyzeck and his lover, Marie. They look their parts: With jerky movements, the gaunt Anderson reminds us that Woyzeck is probably starving to death, and the short, broad-featured Kralj embodies a woman old and bruised enough to know she is nearing the end of the line.

This is no Hollywood couple, and they deliver no Hollywood lines. Both actors give stripped-down, almost affectless performances, sharpening the distinction between their simple humanity and the hot air circulating among the captain, the doctor and the drum major.

Buchner didn't give his authority figures names; their roles became their identities a long time ago. Aided by vaudevillian routines choreographed by Kralj, Ed Burgess (doubling as the captain and the drum major) and Janet Lilly (as the doctor) drive this point home through inflated slapstick performances.

The more these characters say, the emptier they become; aided by Iain Court's lighting and a simple scrim, the drum major is literally reduced to nothing but the shadow of a human.

Woyzeck and Marie grow in stature by saying less. Musicians Daniel Kahn and Frank Pahl do the speaking for them, playing multiple instruments and singing a gut-wrenching medley of anger, despair and hope that betrays a romantic core beneath the crusty lyrics - when those lyrics aren't swallowed by muddy acoustics.

While tinkering with the sound system, the theater should also dispense with the intermission, which is unnecessary in a 75-minute play without set changes. Having done a good job with great material, Milwaukee Dance Theatre can rest assured that its audience members will stay seated. The challenge with a play such as "Woyzeck" involves filling those seats in the first place.

Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (21 October 2006)

James Butchart who adapted and directed the production for a dance theatre format seems to have been equally inspired by both the original Buchner work and work musician Tom Waits did for a Danish musical theatre adaptation. Waits’ songs for the Danish musical (which were released on his 2002 studio album Blood Money) are classic Waits in his sprawling, drunken carnival mode. Having secured Wait’s okay to use the songs on Blood Money, Milwaukee Dance Theater worked with a pair of musicians to cover the songs. Predominantly a singer/songwriter, Waits has described writing songs for other people as being “mortifying at times.” Had Waits worked with the musicians in this production, he probably would’ve found the experience to his liking. Rather than sinking into some kind of exaggerated caricature of Blood Money, Daniel Kahn and Frank Pahl faithfully perform the music while maintaining their own distinct voices. Kahn and Pahl make this production of Woyzeck a pleasure to listen to for anyone familiar with the music.

The set is almost non-existent. Everything’s panted black. Stark lights give the stage a harsh feel. The only other decoration we see are the chalk marks Woyzeck makes on the stage at the beginning of the show. The musician’s set-up is a reasonably mad collection of instruments at the far end of stage. Two men play accordion, steel guitar, cymbals, slide whistles, bass, percussion and literally everything else necessary to capture the sound of Blood Money.

The story begins with Kahn introducing the title character as played by Mark Anderson. Kahn’s speaking parts and non-musical interaction with the production are well executed. He’s almost introducing the title character like a carnival barker at a freak show. Anderson is a towering, wiry figure in olive grey fatigues and combat boots. Anderson’s earnestness in the role sells both dramatic and comedic ends of the production quite effectively. In very short order we are introduced to the rest of the cast who we will come to know as Woyzeck’s subtly abusive superior officer (Ed Burgess), his somewhat abrasive lover Marie, with whom he has a baby (Isabelle Kralj) and the Doctor who pays him to be her test subject (Janet Lilly, whose comic German accent and relative height conjure up images of Dr. Ruth Westheimer). With the chalk outline of Woyzeck’s life firmly established, the cast launches into its first dance number to the sound of "Misery’s The River Of The World."

The plot progresses as Marie becomes increasingly attracted to a drum major (Ed Burgess again, but seen mainly in silhouette throughout the production in this role) and eventually the two begin a romantic affair. Rumor of this eventually spreads back to Woyzeck, putting things in motion that result in the inevitable tragic ending. Taken as a whole, the production has a feel of whimsical darkness that turns quite serious as the story ends in the last tragic moment (richly accompanied by Wait’s soulful "The Part You Throw Away").

Russ Bickerstaff, Vital Source (2006)