A partnership between
The Baryshnikov Arts Center of New York and the
Ringling Museum of Art brought the first of what plans to be a significant biennial
Ringling International Arts Festival to mid-October '09 Sarasota.
Florida State University, administrator of the expansive Ringling Museum complex, also afforded the Festival its Historic
Asolo Theatre and its
Mertz and
Cook venues in
FSU Center for the Performing Arts with the cooperation of residents
Asolo Repertory Theatre and
FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training
as well as fine local musical groups. But wherever you saw media
publicity, brochures, posters and programs for the Festival, you'd be
led to think all was headlined by the so-called post-post-modern
showgirl
Meow Meow.
Awaited on a stage swathed in black velvet, with fuschia spots on
accompanists and a vase of flowers, Meow Meow came in from the
audience, supposedly breathless from just making it down from Tampa.
Enlisting male help in unzipping (shades of Gypsy Rose Lee, but without
her class) all but her black haltered gown, Meow Meow climbed up on red
heels to center stage. There she caressed (like another MM) a
microphone, while made up like Liza Minelli's Sally Bowles but with
even more sparkles on her eyelids and jet hair frizzed out like Elsa
Lancaster as Frankenstein's bride. Setting out lyrically on "The
Boulevard of Broken Dreams," the derivative diva essayed ditties in
accented, hard to make out Italian and Brel's Belgian French in between
audience participation on and off stage. As a matter of fact, she threw
herself to be carried bust-forward all the way through the first floor
audience: "This is why we're watching the theatre and not television."
(Mezzanine and balcony viewers be damned!)
Too bad she didn't just sing, as her voice isn't bad. But no. Some
silly dancing: "I much prefer amateurs." Removal of falsies. (There's a
variation of this in an encore where Meow Meow donned a Madonna like
flower-laden bra, then a corset and split skirt.) Lots of
touchy-feely, but no empathy for a "thoroughly white bread audience" or
older people watching impassively. Could you help it if you've seen and
heard it all before? Often on cruise ships. As for the punk--not
"Beyond Glamour" but the real thing.
Meow Meow made a big deal of having performed in London, Sydney, Paris
and now being...where? Clearly, you were either an
inexperienced-with-theatre youth-to-middle-ager thrilled to have her do
something new to you (standing ovation, posing for pix in the lobby) or
you knew better but behaved politely (silent departure). Meow Meow did
have two big advantages with both types of audience:
Lance Horne on piano and
Yair Evnine with cello. Theirs is a purr-fect fit for Paris theatre...in the venue of the Musee Grevin.
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