Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Monica Bill Barnes & Company’s vaudevillian ONE NIGHT ONLY is a joy to watch

• By drediman
• October 7, 2017
• No Comments

Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass in “One Night Only”, courtesy of Women’s Project Theater

I recently caught up with Monica Bill Barnes & Company’s joyous, quirky Off-Broadway dance-theater hybrid One Night Only (Running as Long as We Can), courtesy of the folks at Women’s Project Theater. I am glad I did (as it closes tomorrow) – even at a very quick 65 minutes, it was one of the more invigorating evenings I’d spent at the theater in recent memory.

One Night Only is performed in irresistible vaudevillian fashion by longtime collaborators Monica Bill Barnes and Anna Bass. Their chemistry is seemingly instinctual and they play with each other with a kind of looseness, as if improvising. They are a joy to watch (Ms. Barnes and Ms. Bass remain silent for the duration of the piece). Almost as enjoyable to hear is the witty, deadpan commentary provided by Robert Saenz de Viteri.

Choreographed by Ms. Barnes, the work is both a celebration of the two performer’s ongoing partnership, as well as a defiant acknowledgement that their highly physical work will one day come to the end, and perhaps sooner than they would like. It’s touching to watch, and also a privilege. By making the actual act of dancing the subject of the piece, both audience members and performers are forced to meditate on the bittersweet ephemerality of it all.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

ONE NIGHT ONLY (RUNNING AS LONG AS WE CAN)
Off-Broadway, Dance/Theater
Monica Bill Barnes & Company in association with Women’s Project Theater
1 hour, 5 minutes (without an intermission)
Through October 8