By Guest Blogger, Christine Facciolo
Christine holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Music and continues to apply her voice to all genres of music. An arts lover since childhood, she currently works as a freelance writer.
While Fifty Shades of Grey reduces sadomasochism to handcuffs and spanking, David Ives’ Venus in Fur — although not above dog collars and riding crops — delves deeper into the complex relationship between dominance and submission in an erotically charged play that revels in ambiguity.
The first scene of Bootless Stageworks’ production of this Tony-nominated play finds Thomas (Sean Gallagher) — the director/playwright of an adaptation of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s scandalizing 1870 novella Venus in Furs — pacing around a dingy New York studio after a long day of auditions and complaining to his fiancée over the phone about the pathetic parade of ‘starlets.’ He wants nothing more than to go home when in storms the un-fashionably late Vanda (Kelly Warne), furiously shaking her umbrella and swearing about perverts on the subway. Vanda may share a name with Sacho-Masoch’s leading character, and she may have come at-the-ready in spike heels and black leather bustier, but at first glance she doesn’t seem any different from the other 35 ditzoids he’s seen that day.
That quickly changes when she cajoles Thomas into letting her audition for the part. That’s when things get interesting as the reading and role-playing turn into a tense, erotically-charged exchange. Soon, it becomes less and less clear who is directing and who is acting; who is choosing and who is supplicating.
This is a play that depends heavily on its two actors, and director Rosanne DellAversano has done a superb job of casting. Obviously, Vanda is the meatier role, and Warne is wickedly masterful as she seamlessly transitions between the character’s various (at last count four) personae. In addition to the modern-day Vanda, the airheaded motor-mouth who dismisses Sacher-Masoch’s book as “porn” and the 19th Century Vanda, a haughty aristocrat with a Continental accent, there’s the seemingly intellectual Vanda who cites Greek mythology and offers cogent psychosexual insights. And she’s hilarious to boot. In the play’s comedic highlight, she lounges suggestively as a love goddess on the divan and, cooing an “I’ll be back” in a German accent that out-Schwarzeneggers even Schwarzenegger.
Through it all, her motives remain tantalizingly mysterious. We never find out how she managed to get hold of a full script instead of just the select pages Thomas provided for the audition or how she was able to commit it to memory from what she claims was a “glance-through” while riding the subway. And how does she know so much about Thomas and his fiancée? Is she a desperate — and clever — actress, or some sort of operative? Or could she really be — as the periodic thunderclaps hint — a goddess?
Gallagher’s turn as Thomas is far less theatrical, but he conveys the sinewy contours of a complex character with admirable subtlety that plays well off Warne.
This is a taut psychological play that forces us to reexamine our notions of power, gender and sex. Yet for all its sexual tension, for all its stated and implied social criticism, Venus in Fur is plain funny. Ives’ humor keeps it from degenerating into the tawdry and provides a welcome levity that balances the play’s darker themes.
Additional performances run March 15 at 8:00pm; March 16 at 3:00pm; March 20 at 7:30pm; March 21 at 8:00pm; and March 22 at 8:00pm at The Black Box at OperaDelaware Studios, 4 S. Poplar Street in Wilmington.
See www.bootless.org.
By Guest Blogger, Don Tyler
Don is an aspiring writer living in Pike Creek with his two cats, Sam and Dave. He enjoys finding good coffee and even better live music.
There's been an incredible crop of talent popping up in the Wilmington region in the last couple of years, and one name that keeps coming up is Glim Dropper. This infectious trio from Philly is making a second home in Delaware after two successful performances at The WIlmo Rock Circus in 2012 & 2013, wowing audiences both years. And in September, they took their rightful place as winners of Delaware’s premier music competition, Musikarmageddon, after their second place showing in 2012. And now this…
Simply put, their new album, Heartsick Phenomenon, is an amazing record. The 10 songs on this album are simultaneously fresh and familiar. Driving and dreamy, melodramatic and melodic, it just hits you with hook after hook. Dan Kauffman’s vocals glide across the landscape in smooth arcs in a way that’s both inviting and introspective. Dan’s bass work on the album is surprisingly complex while complementing the arrangements without being overbearing. Live, he handles both of these roles with ease.
Ben Geise uses the guitar to drive the pieces and helps create their overall sound with a smart balance of effects. At times, overdriving riffs are juxtaposed against a wall of delay and reverb that helps draw you into the narrative. For audiophiles, it just creates another layer to the already engaging album. Ben was named WSTW’s Hometown Heroes Best Guitarist two years in a row, and it’s a deserving recognition.
All of this happens over the solid drumming of Rob Schnell. Rob’s drumming is intelligent and a perfect match for Dan and Ben. Finding the right moments to pop, while recognizing when to hold back and let the song do the work. His choices show that drumming is more than just speed or power, though he offers up plenty of both over the course of the album.
Rob kicks things off with the title track, a short welcome to the record that never relaxes in its enthusiasm. They then dive into Shanghai, which dives right into one of their strongest melodies from beat one. They take a dreamy breath that pulls you in during Night Doctor with one of Dan’s most enticing vocal performances, then take it up a notch with The Velvet Way To The Grave. Then comes the unexpected: A beautifully crafted acoustic piece called Hangman that is both haunting and optimistic. Second Sleep is a great complex tune. It ditches any sense of formula and dances around the beat in a way that keeps your guard up. They follow this up with two straightforward songs: the upbeat First World Problems and the mellow intensity of Better Life. Strangelove is for the rhythm addicts. A 12/8 gallop that uses the triplets to fool your brain into thinking it’s in 4/4, and using the intensity of that pulse during the verses to build the tension before resolving back to the 12/8. Brilliance. The album closes with the moody and reflective Another One, which gently lets you down off of this 41-minute ride.
If you haven’t seen Glim Dropper live, I highly suggest it, and when you do, buy this album and hand it to the person next you. Then buy one for yourself.
HIGHLIGHTS: Heartsick Phenomenon; Shanghai, Second Sleep, Strangelove.
See www.glimdropper.com.
By Guest Blogger, Chuck Holdeman
Chuck is a regional composer of lyrical, contemporary classical music, including opera, orchestral music, songs, chamber music, music for film, and music for educational purposes. www.chuckholdeman.com.
On Sunday afternoon, March 9 at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Mélomanie, Delaware's half-and-half chamber group (half baroque, half new music) played its third performance of its third program of the season. Themed "Ultraviolet," the program celebrated beloved longtime Wilmington Friends School music teacher Violet Richmond with the premiere of Ultraviolet, written in her honor by local composer Mark Hagerty. His piece Context also received its premiere, along with music by 18th Century composers G.P. Telemann and Anna Bon and 20th Century American composer, Alec Wilder. The virtuoso guest percussionist was Chris Hanning — a star in the international drumming firmament, and who, like Mélomanie flutist Kim Reighley, is on the faculty of West Chester University. Reighley also had a big day, performing in all five works on the program.
Anna Bon di Venezia traveled with her parents as a prodigy, attended the music school where Vivaldi taught, and became a professional in the court in Bayreuth, Germany. While containing few surprises, her D major flute sonata is an extremely well-crafted example of the gallant style, which sounded beautiful on Reighley's wooden baroque flute, balanced so well with its harpsichord and baroque 'cello accompaniment. Telemann's A minor Paris Quartet, which opened the second half, was full of charming surprises, especially in its Coulant (flowing) middle movement — basically a set of variations interspersed with a beautiful ritornello. The unaccompanied flute and violin duet was striking, as was a solo variation, performed by Christof Richter on baroque violin. Viola de gamba player Donna Fournier also got a feature, and the tasteful continuo was provided by harpsichordist Tracy Richardson and Douglas McNames, baroque 'cello.
It was a rare treat to hear two new works by Mark Hagerty, a composer who has contributed so much to Mélomanie's repertoire, including his gorgeous Trois Rivieres, featured on the group's Florescence CD. I confess I'm a fan of Hagerty's work and have poured over his fascinating recordings. So it was a special pleasure to hear two works in which he seems to have broken new ground, also distinguished by the fact that Context and Ultraviolet have a virtually opposite point of view. Both use modern instruments, the former for alto flute and harpsichord, and the latter for the entire Mélomanie quintet with the addition of percussion.
While Context is slow, meditative, with a limited though arresting arpeggiated harmonic palette, enhanced by the lovely timbres of the two instrumentalists, Ultraviolet has many highly contrasted episodes, and a completely unbuttoned point of view, including a rock-out drum solo, thrillingly improvised by Chris Hanning. But that is only one end of the spectrum, because the work begins and ends with the most delicate sounds of the ocean drum — John Cage would have enjoyed that these sounds balanced well with the building's ventilation system. In between there were numerous well-graded explorations, including a quiet shimmer of strings, delicately accented by metal interjections from a flute, a harpsichord string, or a bowed crotale. How surprising it was when a poetic harpsichord cadenza suddenly morphs into an uptempo ensemble romp, or when Reighley picked up her alto flute for a sensuous duet with the middle eastern doumbek drum. And since the theme was color — or anyway the imagined nuances of light frequencies normally invisible — Hagerty managed to excel with a succession of colorful instrumental combinations, often quasi static, but then bursting into rhythmic complexity. Bravo Mark!
The program concluded with Alec Wilder's Flute and Bongos 1 and 2, composed in 1958, and still fresh and vital. Wilder wrote jazz standards as well as lots of classical chamber music, and we could hear his sophistication in both worlds. Reighley was virtuosic and Hanning's elaborate bongo drum accompaniment was apt and arresting. The drum part was so together with the flute, and so complicated, that I assumed it was all written out and then executed to perfection. Just now I read the program notes and found that Hanning was improvising — wow!
Mélomanie's next program at DCCA is Sunday, May 11, at 3:00pm.
See www.melomanie.org.
