Cheri
Tickets from $25 Buy Tickets
Cititour.com Review
Since its inception over 20 years, Signature Theatre has often challenged its audiences, and the award-winning company is doing so once again with Cheri, Martha Clarke’s moody, mostly silent dance-theater piece based on two novellas by the famed French author Colette (“Gigi”). While some viewers will find that the 65-minute piece feels much longer, others will take great pleasure in watching Clarke’s balletic choreography performed by two of the world’s greatest dancers, the legendary Alessandra Ferri and American Ballet Theatre principal Herman Cornejo, and listening to the haunting (uncredited) score beautifully played by Sarah Rothenberg.
In the show’s opening sequence, set in David Zinn’s beautiful evocation of a Belle Epoque Parisian flat, we see a couple relishing in the afterglow of recent passion. What we don’t immediately know is that the handsome Cheri (Cornejo) is actually half the age of Lea (Ferri), who is also the best friend of Cheri’s mother, the tart-tongued Charlotte (Amy Irving). We eventually learn all this from Charlotte, who is none too pleased that her son’s dalliance has lasted six years, and who is jealous of her friend’s “gift for life.” She soon arranges for Cheri to be married to be a younger woman, and although the marriage does take place, it isn’t the end of the affair.
Clarke often relies on minimal movement, rather than virtuouso dancing, to express the piece’s inner feelings, and the result can sometimes be too static. However, when she allows the sublime, athletic Cornejo to finally display all his gifts in the show’s final section – set in 1919, when an emotionally shattered Cheri has returned from World War I – the effect is thrilling. For her part, Ferri -- who recently turned 50 and has long been absent from the New York stage -- remains a remarkably supple and expressive dancer who lets us inside Lea’s emotions.
Unfortunately, there’s far too little of the delectable Irving, who comes and goes infrequently with snippets of narration and observation. (The text is by the esteemed playwright Tina Howe). She perfectly captures Charlotte’s brittle, often condescending tone towards everything and everyone around her, while also capturing our sympathy for this obviously unhappy woman.
[Photo (top) by Joan Marcus ]
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
http://www.signaturetheatre.org/tickets/production.aspx?pid=3099
Open/Close Dates
Opening 12/8/2013
Closing 12/29/2013
Theatre Info
Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
Comments
Sign up for our newsletter !
