BWW Reviews: FRAULEIN MARIA Leaps Ev’ry Mountain at Hartford Stage

Fraulein Maria
Conceived and Choreographed by Doug Elkins
Directed by Barbara Karger and Michael Preston
at Hartford Stage through June 26
www.hartfordstage.org

When Hartford Stage Artistic Director Michael Wilson arrived in Connecticut in 1998, one of his goals was to take the company's usually moribund summer months and turn them into a vibrant opportunity to present revenue-generating, crowd-pleasing fare.  The first SummerStage saw a remount of his popular A Streetcar Named Desire and Jean Stapleton in Eleanor: Her Secret Journey.  This pretty much set the tone for Hartford Stage's mix of summer offerings over the ensuing thirteen seasons.   Intriguing artistic choices (St. Nicholas, The Carpetbagger's Children, The Umbilical Brothers) and commendable musicals (the two-piano My Fair Lady, Betty Buckley's Broadway by Request and a riotous Anthony Rapp in Hedwig and the Angry Inch) have had to sit alongside celebrity biographical plays of varying quality (Say Goodnight Gracie, Mahalia, Ella, George Gershwin Alone) and autobiographical shows featuring Carrie Fisher, Elaine Stritch, Ben Vereen and Chita Rivera.  This SummerStage, Michael Wilson's last, continues the mix of mining the celebrity boneyard (the upcoming Nat King Cole show I Wish You Love) and a more exciting, far-out choice -- Fraulein Maria.

A fantasia based on The Sound of Music, Doug Elkins & Friends' Fraulein Maria is a daring and risky choice for Hartford Stage at any time of the year as dance traditionally has been inadequately supported by Greater Hartford.  The Hartford Ballet's much-lamented demise over a decade ago and The Bushnell's sporadic guest company programming has made dance a marginalized presence in this community.  As such, it is exciting to see a major arts organization putting money behind a full-scale dance production.  Of course, the built-in audience for Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic movie musical likely draw crowds that would normally shy away from adventurous dance-theatre.  And make no mistake, this is adventurous dance-theatre.

Performed to the soundtrack of The Sound of Music, Fraulein Maria begins with two winning ingredients on its side - audience affection for the material and top-shelf musical performances by Julie Andrews and her castmates.  A simple sing-along to "Do Re Mi" at the top of the show reveals that the crowd already knows every verse and chorus.  The deliciousness of the performance arises from how Elkins uses our intimate knowledge of the film to his advantage and then discards it to take us in unexpected directions.  The opening sequence - the iconic Maria twirling in an alpine meadow - is recreated simply and joyfully with bodies, stretched fabric and a few props.  The deceptively simple tableau is simultaneously inventive, humorous and comforting.  This does beg the question: can Fraulein Maria be enjoyed if you are one of the five people on Earth who have never seen the film?  Yes and no.  Yes, the dance is wonderfully compelling.  And, no, most of the humor and pathos require a working knowledge of the film's plot, characters and relationships.

As the title track begins, Elkins trifurcates Maria von Trapp into a trio of dancers - two female and one male (editorial apology - the playbill does not supply the names of who performs each role and I will do my best, when possible to guess who plays who).  This is one of Elkins' first indicators that he intends to honor the material while monkeying with it.  Genders get bent while dance vocabularies get mashed-up into an indefinable mélange.  "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" finds modern dancing nuns in modified sweatsuits splintering into solo configurations and then reuniting to form an undulating, unified corps. "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" becomes a horny pas de deux/lap dance/vogue-off between a male Liesl (played by the lanky audience favorite John Sorensen-Jolink) and Rolf (the athletic Therman Christopher).   "Something Good" finds the three Marias coupled with three Captain Georg Von Trapps - one female and two male - turning the touching ballad into a pan-sexual ballet.  The anthemic "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" becomes a hip-hop solo for Elkins himself.  Throughout, Fraulein Maria mainly (but not slavishly) sticks to the characters and storyline of the film, occasionally relocating musical moments to keep the momentum sprightly and having different dancers playing multiple roles.

The most effective moment comes when Elkins abandons the film narrative and interpolates a short interlude set to "Edelweiss."  Two men seated on a bench fight over a hat and space.  The more forceful of the two, Michael Preston wearing a Nazi armband, gradually takes everything that is dear to the other, played poignantly by Elkins, finally driving him from the bench.  In a wordless scene not aped from any moment in the film, we see the insidiousness of Nazism overtaking a nation that is asleep without knowing if the man being driven away is a Jew or an Austrian who capitulates to survive (like the film's Max Detweiller).  Coupled with "Something Good," "Edelweiss" reminds us that despite the grandeur of the film or the energetic ensemble numbers of Fraulein Maria, there is a very real tenderness and horror at the heart of The Sound of Music.

Even though the production clocks in at little more than one hour, certain numbers do have a feel of sameness about them.  "The Lonely Goatherd" (featuring local guest dancers) and "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" both feel like they should build to something grander but are contented to repeat statements already physically expressed.  Needless brief spoken moments and occasional lip-synching break the spell rather than enhance it.  The show is essentially being marketed as suitable for ages 5-and-up, but the somewhat naughty "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" is a bit too sexualized for children.  But these are minor quibbles.  At the end of the day, Fraulein Maria celebrates that which it exploits and the hard-working dancers dazzle and delight as they send us soaring over the Alps.  Bravo to Hartford Stage for taking the artistic leap.

Photo courtesy of Hartford Stage.

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