Theater
The play is usually “the thing,” but for John Holleman and Company’s new production of Metamorphoses, the playing area takes on equally important dimensions. Holleman and his masked theater artists are performing the Nashville premiere of Mary Zimmerman’s popular play—which adapts the mythic poetry of Ovid—in the Parthenon, a site that incurs a range of untoward logistical considerations.
“People in Nashville take this building for granted,” says Holleman, whose troupe performed Euripides’ Medea on the structure’s outside steps last spring. “It’s one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Hence we may have to deal with the perils of site-specific art, but unlike other productions of this play, we have a real, live Parthenon.”
Alan LeQuire’s massive statue of the goddess Athena will watch over the proceedings, for which Holleman has had to install audience seating for 150, temporary lighting equipment, 20-foot-high flats to baffle the Parthenon’s cavernous echoes and, most importantly, shallow pools of water, a staging device integral to the play’s symbolism.
“We had to think about things like how much the water weighs, or the possibility of springing a leak,” Holleman says. “There’s an art gallery below us, after all. So we’ve devised a shallow pool by getting creative with some washing-machine drip pans. The idea of water is deep in this script, and this is our approach to working in a performing space that has its own special integrity.”
According to Wesley Paine, director of the Parthenon Museum and an actor in Holleman’s company, there hasn’t been live theater inside the building since Mac Pirkle’s Southern Stage group—the precursor of the original Tennessee Repertory Theatre—mounted The Lion in Winter more than 20 years ago. “John considered doing Metamorphoses without the water,” Paine says, “but clearly we had to find a way to stay true to the play’s essence.”
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Zimmerman’s 2002 Tony Award-winning Broadway production reintroduced theatergoers to mythological figures such as Orpheus and Eurydice, Eros and Psyche, Midas and Pandora via Ovid’s tales of love, loss and human need, melding their classical origins with a freer contemporary mode of expression.
“Zimmerman develops her works with an ensemble of actors,” Holleman says, “and their process is to latch onto intellectually and emotionally challenging material and to work it with movement and comedy and without a grand plan. What emerges is both funny and horrifying. There’s huge freedom in her approach, and the language is beautiful and accessible. Our goal is to experience that sense of adventure.”
Holleman has on hand his usual cadre of dedicated performers, including Paine, John Devine, Ric Harman, Trish Moalla and Stephanie Vickers. He’s also receiving some critical technical support from apprentices from local high schools. “I can’t say enough about the company,” Holleman concludes. “The actors are barefoot and wet half of the time, and rehearsals are cold and uncomfortable. Yet we’re in a space that’s a masterpiece, these myths are masterpieces and Zimmerman’s adaptation is a masterpiece. To come to work and deal with all of that is simply a gift.”
Nashville Ballet tackles Stravinsky
Classicism of a different kind happens this weekend at TPAC’s Polk Theater, where Nashville Ballet performs “Sensual. Seductive. Stravinsky.,” a double bill of the world-class composer whose rhythmic scores—with their startling, sometimes cacophonous orchestrations—often test the limits of dancers’ physicality and powers for expressing raw emotion.
Firebird features the choreography of the ballet’s artistic director Paul Vasterling, and The Rite of Spring showcases the work of the late Salvatore Aiello. Dance master Timothy Rinehart Yeager has been charged with the task of re-creating the dances, each of which has been performed previously in Nashville. This program is recommended for mature audiences, due to its daring costuming and erotic content.
Vasterling’s rendition of Firebird takes an everyman figure on an exploration of love with an angelic alien. “There are times when Stravinsky’s music is so strong that you don’t want to compete with it choreographically,” Vasterling says. “Yet our company now is so much better than what it was back in 1997 when we first mounted it. They understand the style so much better.”
The Rite of Spring concerns an ancient tribe and its ritualistic sacrifice of a maiden to ensure a good harvest. “This remains an amazing piece of music,” Vasterling continues. “The dissonance is still fresh, and there are thousands of layers to work through. The Aiello choreography is highly theatrical, and it offers a wonderful realization of the complicated score.”
Firebird, the more lyrical of the two pieces, will feature dancers Christine Rennie and Eddie Mikrut in the leading roles. The Rite, with its tense orchestral textures, stars the elegant Sadie Harris, the heroically sculpted Christopher Mohnani and the sinewy, catlike Jennifer McNamara as the sacrificial lamb.
Performances are Feb. 17-19.
