Gravity: “Life and art are inseparable.”
So today, Sunday Dec. 9, I went to see this show, Gravity, at the Connelly Theater (220 East 4th street, between avenues A and B). I initially wanted to go to this dance performance because of the fact that it was based on something Anton Chekhov wrote, about a woman named Ranevskaya, and something about France, when the Seine overflowed and made all the clocks stop at the same time, and also something about Einstein’s ideas of time and relativity. Yes, if you’re confused, I was too. Let’s just say, what really got me interested in seeing the show was the fact that the dancers performed both on-stage and above it.
Read on to find out more!
The stage was small and the set was really minimal. There was a wooden platform, a wooden frame hanging above the stage, and on the platform, two boxes. One of the boxes was a stool and the other was a music box.
The show started when the lights when out and the theater went completely dark. The audience was left to their hearing, listening to the sound of rain coming down. Then, the lights turned on on-stage and a woman, gray hair tied back, dressed in a long nightgown, a long skirt on top, and a thin purple robe on top, was hanging above the stage in the frame.
At that point, the audience’s adventure into the mind of Ranevskaya began. As the story began to unwind, we learned that this story was about a woman who lost her son, Grisha, when the Seine river overflowed and stopped all the clocks in France. Her son drowned, and this changed her life completely. The audience was looking into this woman’s mind as she remembered the events of her past and how she perceives reality now. In the words of the director, “Our play takes place in the mind and memory of Ranevskaya.”
This show was something new to me: a dance show that has a distinct plot and storyline. I’m used to shows where the dancers just dance to the music- there is no talking and no dialogue. In this show, however, every actor was also a dancer. I thought this was interesting and original, but, then again, it’s not like I have so much experience with dance shows that I can say that this was never done before. I’m sure it has, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it.
In all, I would recommend the show just for the purely unusual experience it was. I went through the show with a sense of utter confusion. It felt like the twilight zone with everything that was happening. We literally ventured into the mind of a woman who had gone mentally insane, and honestly, it was hard to make sense of things. I think that it would have helped to read the script for this show before seeing it, just to be able to understand everything and really appreciate the chain of events that got Ranevskaya to where she was during the show. It was kind of evident with the little bit of information that is given in the program in the director’s notes, but honestly, I felt much too lost during most of the show. For that reason, I would also not recommend the show.
Clearly, I’m still a bit confused with my take on this show. It had some really interesting and entertaining elements, what with the dancing in the air and different nuances with the stage design (the platform kind of..wobbled…or balance on its center, so if the actors didn’t stand in the center and balance all of the edges, it would tip over); but the confusion of everything that was going on kind of ruined it. I wish I could give a better synopsis of the show and a better opinion, but in truth, I’m quite conflicted with it. I really like the idea of the show, and the acting, especially on the part of Robyn Hunt (Ranevskaya), was phenomenal, but the story just wasn’t clear.
It’s playing again Dec 12-16, so if anyone does go, please let me know what you thought. I’m really curious to hear other opinions about the confusion of the show. I suppose it helped set the mood that the audience was confused (or maybe I was just confused), but I would have preferred knowing what was going on and what everything meant.
Here’s the link to the site: http://pacificperformanceproj.com/next.html
Please let me know what your thoughts are if you go.
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Just a note on the quotation in the title: This was one of the lines in the play, which I thought would actually do really well to describe our experiences in this class. I have, at least, learned that people can find art in anything, and in truth, life and art are inseparable. I guess that refers back to those questions professor Orenstein sent us in the beginning of the semester. There were all these questions that are hard to answer, just because there are so many things that depend on the answer. I think at this point, my answer to those questions is “Life and art are inseparable.”
I think I just found the title to my final project. 