Michael Dale’s Theatre Crawl – Company XIV Gets Biblical With An Enticing New Edition of Seven Sins
Chanel Stone and Scott Schneider in Seven Sins (Photo: Deneka Peniston)
By Michael Dale
This week…
Company XIV’s Seven Sins at Theatre XIV through August 20. Tickets start at $95.
Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight at The Flea Theater through April 30. Tickets $40.
On The Right Track at AMT Theatre through May 11. Tickets $50, Students/Seniors $35.
“The sexiest date night in town”
In my fifteen or so years of reviewing just about every show on Broadway, I’ve never had a quote displayed in front of a Broadway theatre. I’ve seen revivals post raves from Clive Barnes years after his passing, and, during the time I was reviewing for BroadwayWorld, friends would sometimes mention that they saw quotes from me posted at a Broadway theatre or on a New York subway ad, when it was actually from one of the website’s pre-Broadway out-of-town reviews. (Invariably, the positive words would be for a show I was less than enthused over.)
So it gives me a special pleasure to hop off the L train at Jefferson Street, take a right onto Troutman and walk down that graffiti-strewn block to see the above quote from me prominently displayed on a sandwich board outside the red-velvet roped entrance to Theatre XIV, where the brilliant director/choreographer Austin McCormick’s Company XIV welcomes guests to Seven Sins, the latest attraction from a troupe that indeed is always offering the sexiest date night in town.
Well, maybe it’s tied for the honor now with Cocktail Magique, which I wrote about a few weeks ago; the premiere offering at Company XIV’s intimate new sister space, Cocktail Magique Theatre.
This is Company XIV’s third production of Seven Sins, which premiered shortly before COVID closed the city’s theatres. But as a frequent viewer of McCormick’s lavishly sensual creations, I know he doesn’t like to repeat himself. As with all XIV “revivals”, a general scenario is retained, but the details are tailored to the talents of whichever top shelf dancers, singers and burlesque and circus arts performers he’s gathered. In that sense, McCormick has established himself as a true Ziegfeld; a curator of talent that he properly showcases in spectacular revues.
LEXXE in Seven Sins (Photo: Alexander Sargent)
This tour through erotic representations of pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth is guided by LEXXE, a thrilling ballet dancer turned singer/songwriter who draws on her Catholic Puerto Rican upbringing to create a unique perspective for her role as the Devil.
“As a queer person growing up in bible classes I heard that I needed to repent for my sin of being gay,” she explains, “but always ‘You’re still loved. It’s the sin, not you!’”.
She dismisses that attitude, which she describes as hateful, in her lyric for “One Bite” where she tempts Adam and Eve with the fruit from the tree of knowledge.
At the performance I attended, the two innocents were superbly played by ballet dancers Chanel Stone and Scott Schneider whose spotlight moments portraying the first couple’s growth from playful innocence to knowing sensuality were conveyed with breathtaking beauty.
Exquisite moments include a representation of jealousy via Alex Frankel’s singing of Carmen’s “Habanera” in a baroque gown and bondage hood to accompany aerialists Alisa Mae and Nolan’s gasp-worthy intertwining above the audience. Displays of beauty and strength are in abundance with the addition of Donna Carnow’s swirling force in a swinging pole and Lola Carter as a bird maneuvering through her hanging cage.
Belly dancer Syrena accents her undulations by balancing a sword on her head and smokey vocalist Brandon Looney amps up the silliness with a gluttonous rendition of Cab Calloway’s hit “Everybody Eats When They Come To My House”, which segues into the wild exuberance of Austin McCormick’s signature full company orgiastic can-can.
As always, resident set/costume designer Zane Pihlström fills the room with a mixture of visual elegance and bawdy fun, bringing home the message that sexy, body-positive celebration is by no means a sin.
Debating the difference between F = mv and F = mv² was all the rage among Parisians in the 1740s…
…or at least that’s the impression I got out of Lauren Gunderson’s vibrant and heady bio-play Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight.
Gunderson, who has topped American Theatre Magazine’s list of the most produced playwrights in American (who aren’t named William Shakespeare) three times in the past several years, uses what might be regarded as a familiar dramatic structure – that of a historic figure in some sort of afterlife looking back at their past – but it’s a most appropriate way to approach this chosen subject.
That’s because our narrating Emilie du Châtelet (a fully ingratiating Amy Michelle), who passed on at age 42 due to complications during childbirth, is best known for her book on natural philosophy, translating and commenting on Sir Isaac Newton’s volume on physics, where she supports Gottfried Leibniz’s concept of Force Vive (F = mv²) over Newton’s F = mv. The simple squaring, du Châtelet explains at the play’s outset, is the difference between force being able to live through regeneration or eventually dying out.
Amy Michelle and Erika Vetter in Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight (Photo: Ashley Garrett)
Much of Gunderson’s play is the cerebrally flirtatious give and take between artist and philosopher, but the concept that there can be no physical connection between the living and the dead requires Erika Vetter to step in as younger du Châtelet whenever things start getting sexy.
In director Kathy Gail MacGowan’s humorously charming production, Vetter is joined by Bonnie Black and Zaven Ovian to form a supporting ensemble playing numerous characters.
If romance and sex seem at times to dominate Gunderson’s presentation of du Châtelet’s story, that’s by design, as the focal character keeps a tally board on stage chalking up the score in a competition between love and philosophy.
Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight, covers many of the expected themes when it comes to exceptional women putting up with mediocre men in order to achieve deserved recognition, but it’s a witty concoction that may have you rushing to physics texts for more.
It’s like Plaza Suite on wheels…
That’s the thought that hit me about twenty minutes into Tony Sportiello (book) and Albert M. Tapper’s (score) three-person musical, On The Right Track, mounted in a spiffy little production by director Mauricio Cedeno.
Dana Aber, David L. Murray, Jr. and Cody Gerszewski in On The Right Track (Photo: Crystal Blake)
Not that the buoyant 90-minute piece is on the same level as Neil Simon’s classic boulevard Broadway comedy, but it does utilize the same set-up; two actors play three unrelated couples in a trio of unrelated (musical) comedies. Instead of a suite at the Plaza Hotel, each of the musical’s three scenes are set on a Northeast corridor train (the unit set is designed by Josh Iacovelli) between its stops in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC.
The first scene is the strongest, where Cody Gerszewski plays Larry, a somewhat tipsy research scientist traveling home from receiving a humanitarian award at a banquet. Though his proud and supportive wife Kim (Dana Aber) looks a knockout in her formal gown (Debbi Hobson designs the costumes), she’s also feeling she has to compete for her husband’s attention as he starts evaluating his life choices.
“Larry, you are literally curing cancer.”
“I want some variety.”
“What do you want to take on next, arthritis?”
In the next scene, Gerszewski and Aber are a pair of political spin doctors, molding favorable public images to their clients instead of fighting for the candidates they believe in. Things get metaphysical in the final scene when the pair play out a Wall Street wiz’s encounter with an unusual stranger.
Serving as host and spiritual guide for the musical is, naturally, the conductor, played with snazzy musical comedy polish by David L. Murray, Jr. He’s the symbol of change and choice for our travelers, although the character’s material sometimes feels like padding between scenes to cover costume changes.
I’d say an all-around sharpening of the text and score is in order to bring out more of the genuine cleverness that pops up at various times throughout On The Right Track, but the spirited cast helps make for an enjoyable excursion.
Curtain Line…
Musical theatre lovers have always fantasy-cast revivals. Now they also fantasy-assign someone to rewrite the book.