Last night's showing of "A Simple Heart" by Annie Parson and David Lazar's Big Dance Theater was not for the artistically faint of heart.
Parson's stage adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's novella by the same name was unorthodox, to say the least. So if you are looking for the next "Swan Lake," stay at home.
But if you are interested in partaking in an innovative new genre of daring theater and dance, you are in for a treat.
The talented five-member cast excelled in multiple areas of artistic achievement. They acted, danced, sang and spoke French -- Cynthia Hopkins even played an uplifting little melody on a miniature spinaret.
The rueful tale centers on Flicit, a pious but mystical young country girl who loves and cares successively for her mistress, her mistress's daughter and the family's parrot. She grieves for the death of each, and eventually comes to view the expired parrot as the Holy Ghost incarnate.
The plot is a bit inaccessible for those not familiar with Flaubert's story. Although helpful, the brief excepts from the text that appeared intermittently on the onstage screen were not enough to help the audience completely comprehend the events of the story.
However, it seemed that Parson was aiming for an abstract artistic rendering rather than a literal movement translation. As she said in the post-performance discussion, "this is no Agnes DeMille story ballet."
Assuming an open-minded audience then, the hour-long work was both interesting and enjoyable.
Each aspect of the performance, including the movements, costumes and minimalist set design combined to form a cohesive whole.
Tymberly Canale's sharp, angular movements, for example, immediately brought across her character's glacial disposition. Her costume, which consisted of a large hoop skirt and corset, emphasized her uptight nature.
Indeed, one strength of the piece was that, although all of the movement reflected the brittle dryness of the Flaubert original, each dancer had a distinctive physical and aesthetic vocabulary that perfectly matched his or her character.
And within this specific vocabulary, repeated movement phrases took on new significance at different points in the plot.
The decision to use two identically dressed dancers -- Stacy Dawson and Molly Hickok -- to dually portray the forlorn protagonist and her psychological struggle with grief was particularly powerful.
Dawson and Hickok danced in breathtaking unison. Even in the silences, without musical cues to guide their timing, they seemed to dance as one.
The heroine's extreme dedication to her mistress was reflected in their movements. Dawson and Hickok climbed under the Canale's hoopskirt and physically became the mistress's hands and feet.
Their movement phraseology changed markedly as their character descended into madness. The girls' long hair came unbraided and flailed limply at their back as they twisted and turned, reminiscent of the Mad Scene of the classic ballet "Giselle," another work in which the protagonist goes insane.
The highly emotional work does have its periodic points of levity, however.
Actor David Neumann was awarded peals of audience laughter for his comical interactions with the other characters during his successive portrayals of a farmer, a peddler and a houseguest.
From comedy to tragedy, the music was key, propelling mood changes in the piece.
The sophisticated audio collage of French opera, singing birds, sharp piano, dissonant violin and periodic dramatic silence was particularly effective. The interesting juxtaposition of contemporary music with a 19th century story worked surprisingly well.
Taken as a whole, Big Dance Theater's unconventional adaptation of "A Simple Heart" from page to stage was worth seeing.
