Photo: David Hou
Stratford’s Chorus Line, Musical by Michael Bennett, directd and choregraphed
by Donna Feore.
The opening moments are riveting. Some two dozen
raggle-taggle dancers are gearing up for a key audition sequence,
some bubbling with lithe, high-stepping confidence, others nervous and
not quite ready. We’re being plunged into a moment of high drama: we
can sense the adrenalin and with it the self-assurance, some of it
excessive, but also the anxiety — the terrifying anxiety. The stakes,
we realize, are high. After all, these hopefuls are hoping to win a
place in a new Broadway musical. And some of them won’t make it
The run-through ends. A more decisive testing is imminent. The words —
“let’s take it from the top” — ring out through Stratford’s Festival
Theatre. High above the stage, composer Marvin Hamlisch’s brassy
fanfare sounds, courtesy of an unseen orchestra. And the explosion of
dance begins — an exuberant, brassy outburst of synchronized talent.
The first big test of any production of A Chorus Line is the way it
begins. And at the Stratford Festival it’s in the experienced and
capable hands of Donna Feore, a director and choreographer who holds
both the material and the people she’s working with in obvious
affection. So, as her production moves sleekly into action, the
excitement is palpable.
Stratford’s revival of Michael Bennett’s groundbreaking musical
offers as thrilling a display of dancing as you’re likely to find
anywhere. The triumph of its opening moments — and again of its famous
closing, when we know which of these aspiring Broadway gypsies have
finally made it into the chorus line — is collective in its impact.
That’s important, that’s how it must be: Bennett’s valentine to the
nameless, faceless kids in the chorus line is a mixture of tenderness
and tough love — and tempered by a sad irony. It’s ultimately about
the creation of a precision ensemble that will provide the necessary
backing for the high-priced stars that will headline whatever big
musical is in preparation. And nobody will really care about who its
members are.
However the genius of A Chorus Line lies in the fact that Michael
Bennett did care. He and his creative colleagues — Hamlisch, lyricist
Edward Kleban, book writers James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante — were
also able to introduce us to real individuals in the midst of this
cattle-call situation. Before the evening is out, we’ll encounter both
the agony and the ecstasy of the audition process. And we’ll know the
participants as real people.
Such is Feore’s strength as choreographer. She ensures that many of
these young hopefuls begin defining themselves through their body
language — not merely those peculiarities in dance style that must be
homogenized should they wish a place in the chorus line, but also in
the way they may do a bend or cross the floor in a moment of
relaxation. Their individuality may be erased by the end when the
eight chosen dancers move with faceless, synchronized discipline into
One Singular Sensation, a number drenched in eerie irony given that we
have also come to know each and every one of them thanks to the
sensitivity and detail of this production.
To be sure, a considerable chunk of A Chorus Line consists of those
famous monologues, amalgams of both word and music, in which these
dance hopefuls respond, some bravely, some tremulously, to the demand
by Zach, their director, that they come clean in public about their
personal lives and inner fears. But Feore’s production seems to want
even more character detail than that — and for the most part gets it.
Zach’s demands essentially usher in a sort of therapy session — an
element that reminds us of this show’s Seventies antecedents. Does it
seem exploitive today? Perhaps — but then we remember these
confessions are the result of taped interviews with actual dancers
prepared to tell all in order to help the creators of A Chorus Line to
achieve their purpose. So we can’t easily dismiss the raw truth of
what we hear about the personal dreams, the anxieties, the spectre of
rejection, the hovering moments of despair, not to mention one young
auditioner’s tragic-comic fears about gonorrhea and the state of his
erectile tissue.
A Chorus Line is a fusion of dance, word and music — and with respect
to the latter, the show’s hidden orchestra, under the assured
direction of Laura Burton, is in robust form here. But the bottom line
is that everything must be in service to the show’s beating heart.
We’re in touch with it in Julia McLellan’s knock-out work as Val, the
plain jane whose hymn of praise to the virtues of “tits and ass” is
tempered by a mocking self-awareness and a clear-eyed acknowledgment
of the culture that led her to a plastic surgeon.
We get it again in the performances of Gabriel Antonacci, mercurial
and amusing as Al, and Alexandra Herzog, a bouncy delight as
Kristine, the wife he’s determined to protect because she can’t sing.
There’s genuine pathos when Conor Scully takes centre stage as the
conflicted Paul to come clean with his anguished memories of what
occurred the night his parents discovered that he worked in a drag
club. In contrast there’s the openly gay Greg of Matthew Armet, a
young dancer secure, maybe too secure, about his sexuality, and —
another contrast — Colton Curtis, very funny and at ease with the
character of the immature, sex-obsessed Mark.
Juan Chioran plays Zach, the director whose decisions on this crucial
audition day can make or break a career. He’s more empathetic in this
role than some Zachs we’ve seen, but given the constraints imposed on
him by the script, he gives a persuasive nuanced performance.
But there is a problem with the pivotal character of Cassie, once a
star dancer, now so desperate for a job — any job — that she’s ready
to return to the lowly chorus line. Dayna Tietzen, a vision in red, is
secure musically, and, in the evening’s celebrated Music And The
Mirror number, she works hard to serve the emotional demands of dance
drama. But Tietzen’s Cassie seems tonally wrong and out of synch with
much of the show. Because Cassie and Zach have a history, the show’s
biggest dramatic conflict stems from this fact and his reluctance to
give her a job. But there’s a synthetic operatic quality to Tietzen’s
dialogue in some crucial scenes, and her desperation isn’t really
believable. Juan Chioran has to do too much of the heavy lifting here.
One question remains. Is Stratford’s production of A Chorus Line
really as historic as some would suggest? Is it really a vindication
of director Donna Feore’s contention that this show would work
beautifully on the Festival Theatre’s famous thrust stage.? Michael
Bennett’s estate has been unbending over the decades in preserving
Bennett’s vision of how A Chorus Line must be staged: in the most
basic of terms, Bennett ordained that the very title of the show
imposed certain geometric demands on any production — and that those
demands required the use of an old-fashioned proscenium stage.
To their credit, Feore and her Stratford colleagues persuaded the
guardians of Bennett’s good name to lower the barriers and liberate
their precious property for a production in Stratford’s famed Festival
Theatre. But how valid is the end result?
Perhaps the old Scottish adage of “not proven” should apply here.
It’s certainly exhilarating to have the sensation of occupying the
same room as these aspiring dancers — the Festival Theatre has no
orchestra pit serving as a barrier between performers and audience.
Furthermore Feore, who in the past has not always been attentive to
the peculiar needs of this stage, is certainly delivering the goods in
the opening and closing musical sequences. On these occasions, her
stunningly patterned choreography effectively serves all sections of
the wrap-around audience.
But for too much of the evening, I was also conscious of the fact
that, seated as I was in the best seats in the centre of the
auditorium, the action was primarily being directed towards my
privileged section of the house. Yes, there were moments when the
spectators on the side sections were acknowledged in the staging, but
these moments were token. In brief the challenges of the Festival
Theatre stage were only occasionally being met. Essentially, one felt
one was watching a proscenium show.
That leaves one wondering about designer Michael Gianfrancesco’s
elegantly conceived mirror effects, confined as they were to the rear
of the playing area, yet so essential to the impact of key dance
numbers. How effectively were they working for audience members seated
on the sides? One such theatregoer, asked this very question following
the performance, had a puzzled response: “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Another audience member was more forthright: “What mirrors?” Ah,
there’s the rub.
(A Chorus Line continues at Stratford until Oct. 30. Ticket
information at 1800 567 1600 or stratfordfestival.ca)
