Dance Nation
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Cititour.com Review
“Too young to take over/too old to ignore/Gee. I’m almost ready/But what for?”
In an inside joke, it’s a different lyric from “A Chorus Line” that gets spoken during Clare Barron’s sometimes hilarious, often bracing meditation on pre-adolescence, “Dance Nation,” now making its world premiere at Playwright Horizons. However, it’s those aforementioned words (by the late, great Ed Kleban) that perhaps best sum up the feelings inside all the girls we meet –all members of a competitive amateur dance troupe – as they face a flood of physical and emotional changes and desires.
If “Dance Nation” sounds like familiar, well-trod territory, it is on some level. Yet, more importantly, it’s not. The award-winning playwright’s brilliant conceit, brought to full-bodied life by director/choreographer Lee Sunday Evans, is to have these young ladies portrayed by actresses ranging from their 20s to their 60s. It’s a daring casting decision that works, since each performer proves to be equally convincing whether spouting typical tween-girl silliness (creating a secret society named for each of their first initials, where the initiation is sipping coffee) or reciting the stunning monologues Barron has created that both speak volumes to their current inner thoughts and offer glimpses of their future selves.
An angry, profanity-filled rant by the confident Ashlee (the sublime Lucy Taylor) in which she proclaims herself smarter, prettier and savvier than just about anyone else on the planet is a masterpiece (as well as a credo for these #metoo times); a humorous yet poignant speech delivered by the struggling Zuzu (an excellent Eboni Booth), which describes in great imagined detail how she expects to lose her virginity at 23, is simultaneously somewhat romantic yet vaguely ridiculous; and a final summation by Amina (the beautiful, graceful Dina Shahibi) in which she sheds her reluctance (and need to be liked) and accepts the inevitability that she will devote her life to dance -and succeed – is stunning in its passion and simplicity.
In fact, all of the girls (the others are skillfully portrayed by Purva Bedi, Camila Camo-Flavio, and downtown theater legend Ellen Maddow) are equally well-drawn, even with fewer great moments, and we feel we know them by the end of the 105-minute play. Conversely, Barron is slightly less successful with her other (admittedly more minor) characters, especially the two men in the play.
The expertise of the great Thomas Jay-Ryan is primarily responsible for elevating the character of the girls’ hard-driving teacher “Dance Master Pat” beyond caricature. (Still, he too often feels like a re-tread of Zach from “A Chorus Line.”) I’m not completely convinced that Barron was right including just one boy in the troupe, but even if she’s right, the role of Luke is startlingly underwritten and actor Ikechukwu Ufomadu seems at sea in how to make him become more than one-dimensional.
Lastly, the fine Christina Rouner does what she can playing each troupe member’s mother (aided by costumer Asta Bennie Hostetter), but these ladies are mostly reactive, rather than proactive, characters.
Despite the play’s imperfections, I’m all for Barron writing a sequel so we can see where these young ladies lives’ actually end up. With any luck, not even Amina will end up at that famed doctor on Park and 73rd.
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
https://www.playwrightshorizons.org/shows/plays/dance-nation
Cast
Purva Bedi, Eboni Booth, Camila Canó-Flaviá, Ellen Maddow, Christina Rouner, Thomas Jay Ryan, Dina Shihabi, Lucy Taylor, Ikechukwu Ufomadu
Open/Close Dates
Opening 4/13/2018
Closing 7/1/2018
Box Office
212-279-4200
Theatre Info
Playwrights Horizons
416 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
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