Day 352/365 - A Midsummer Night's Dream

After not having seen any of Synetic Theater's productions in the ten prior years I've been living in the DC area, I seem to be making up for lost time. Tonight I went to see my third production of theirs this year, a silent version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The story was performed entirely through dance and pantomime with no speaking parts at all.

"Midsummer Night's Dream" has never been one of my favorite of Shakespeares's works and as heretical as this may be to say, I think I like it better without the dialogue. The plot, such as it is, involves a love triangle -- scratch that -- a love hexagon featuring criscrossed paramours, bumbling actors, and warring pixies and sprites.

It's a quick production, running only 90 minutes without an intermission. As is almost always the case with Synetic, the choreography is fantastic. Among the cast the standout performers are the delightfully expressive Helena and the half-Slinky, half-Plastic Man Puck, who moves in ways you wouldn't think a human could absent demonic possession. The play's score is reasonably good and the staging, though minimal, is effective. As is also almost always the case with Synetic, the costuming and make up are sensational.

This one makes up for the lackluster "Lysistrata" they performed earlier this year. Now I'm looking forward to the version of "Dracula" they have coming up next month.

(Taken with my Nikon D90)

Day 190/365 - Lysistrata

My first exposure to the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes' play "Lysistrata" came from my World Lit class in undergrad. I remember being surprised by how funny and, um, earthy it was. I guess I thought anything that old and classic had to be dry and sedate. Although I'd read the play many years ago, I'd never seen it performed live until last night when I caught Synetic Theater's production of it. Technically though, I guess I've still never really seen it performed live.

Synetic's version of "Lysistrata" is more a re-interpretation or re-imagining than a straight production. It's a joint production with the Georgetown University drama department and most of the cast is composed of Georgetown students or recent grads. The play concerns a Greek woman who, tiring of the ceaseless war between her city-state and a rival state that drains their treasuries and destroys their men, organizes her fellow women and the women of their rival state to press for peace. The women's tactics include occupying the treasury building and stealing their men's armor and weapons, but their primary strategy involves a sex strike. No peace, no nookie. The immovable object of war thus meets the irresistible force of sex.

Synetic's production of "Lysistrata" is certainly funny, but a bit disappointing. They settle too easily for the broad, cheap laugh and the efforts to modernize the play come off as heavy-handed and a trifle clumsy. While they've largely maintained Aristophanes' original story, they've done more than a bit of violence to his words. Here's a thought -- when a play has survived for over 2000 years and been hailed as a great work all that time, the less you monkey with it the better. Case in point, the godawful rap sequence. Although I will admit that changing the lyrics of the Eagles' "Desperado" to "Lysistrata" in a later serenade scene was pretty damn funny.

"Lysistrata" is really an odd fit for Synetic. They do best when they focus on telling a story through dance, motion, and pantomime. There's not much of that in this production and what is there is a bit too MTV-ish. "Lysistrata" is more dialogue-driven and that is not Synetic's strength. Stretching yourself and trying new things is fine, but hopefully they'll return more to what they do best in future productions.

The costumes, score, and set for this production are all adequate but not particularly noteworthy. Nothing about any of them really stands out. Similarly, the performances are workmanlike, but none of the actors really shine in their parts. Synetic's production of "Lysistrata" is fine if you're just in the market for a few cheap laughs. Otherwise, you're better off reading the original.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)

Day 128/365 - Dante

I ventured over to the Rosslyn Spectrum tonight to see 'Dante' -- Synetic Theater Company's adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy. Well, it's billed as an adaptation of the entire Divine Comedy but actually it's the Inferno with about five minutes of Purgatorio and Paradiso at the end. That's fine, though. The Inferno is the most interesting of the three parts anyhow.

It took me a bit of wandering around the byways of Rosslyn to find the Spectrum. It's one of the most unprepossessing performance spaces you're ever likely to encounter. It's a drab, concrete, underground auditorium with even less warmth and life than GW's Lisner Auditorium. Once the peformance begins though, none of that matters.

I've been wanting to catch one of Synetic Theater's productions for some time but I always seem to miss out. I wanted to make sure I saw this one, though. Given the source material, I had a feeling they would be able to do some amazing things with this production. I was right.

Synetic relies primarily on dance and motion and silent film style acting to advance the narrative of the works they perform. A few years back they did an entirely silent version of Hamlet that got rave reviews. 'Dante' features a fair amount of exposition, however. I believe this may be one of their most dialogue-heavy shows. That doesn't detract from it being a phenomenal thing to watch.

The set and costume design for 'Dante' are nothing short of brilliant. In fact, it's nearly worth the price of admission just to see the character and set skectches by production designer Anastasia Ryurikov Simes that hang in the Spectrum lobby as pictured above. It's a very visually arresting production. There are images and scenes that will stay with you long after the performance ends, particularly the sight of damned souls being dragged by demons to their torment in slow motion. Visually, the production holds echoes of the movies 'The Cell,' 'Escape From New York,' and 'The Road Warrior'; German expressionist cinema; and various Marilyn Manson videos. That sounds like an odd mix, but it works and works well.

The performances are outstanding, although I'm not entirely sold on the performer portraying Virgil. The score is adequate. It's difficult though to view the various aspects of the production in isolation. It's really a work that needs to be analyzed as a whole and as a whole it's excellent. It's immediately obvious that a great deal of effort and energy went into the production, all to great effect.

Synetic's 'Dante' is an amazing and memorable work of performance art. It's certainly not the sort of thing you'd expect to encounter in an underground auditorium on a sidestreet in Rosslyn. But no matter where this production was being staged, it would be worth going to see.

(Taken with my Nikon Coolpix S200)