Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – STATE OF SIEGE and GRAND FINALE give us timely, if tiresome, glimpses of the apocalypse at BAM

• By drediman
• November 10, 2017
• No Comments

Things have been looking grim at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where two Next Wave Festival offerings are giving audiences timely glimpses of the apocalypse. Unfortunately, I found both, despite some high end production values, to be ultimately tiresome.

The company of Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota’s production of “State of Siege” by Albert Camus at BAM.

Last week at the BAM opera house, I attended Emmanuel Demarcy-Mota’s revival of the rarely-staged State of Siege (SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED) by Albert Camus. The play, written in 1948, is a heavy-handed allegory about what happens when common complacency, widespread sickness, and evil dictatorship simultaneously plague humanity. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by divulging that things don’t quite turn out well for us, although the play’s pleading ending did strike me as somewhat hopeful. Despite a striking visual production (sets and lighting are by Yves Collet and Christophe Lemair) and some effectively visceral acting, director Demarcy-Mota’s declarative bold-strokes staging cannot mask the didactic, vague qualities of Camus’s play. Indeed, there’s a reason why State of Siege hasn’t been performed very often.

The company of Hofesh Shechter’s “Grand Finale” at BAM.

Somewhat more successful is Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter’s evening-length dance piece Grand Finale (RECOMMENDED), which opened last night for a brief three performance run, also at the opera house. Like State of Siege, Shechter’s work is stunning to look at – the constantly shape-shifting set is a marvel (set design by Tom Scutt), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dance performance lit so atmospherically (big kudos to lighting designer Tom Vesser). I also found merit in the pulsating, moody mostly-electronic score, which was composed by Shechter himself. However, his energetic, repetitious choreography, while evocative of widespread oppression, revolution, and violence, ultimately grew tiresome stretched across the piece’s two acts (particularly the lengthy, unfocused first act). Nonetheless, Grand Finale boasts a number of harrowing and sinister sequences suggesting humanity’s grotesque, depraved final days (think Ravel’s “La Valse”). These gave me chills.

STATE OF SIEGE
Off-Broadway, Play
Brooklyn Academy of Music
1 hour, 35 minutes (without an intermission)
Closed

GRAND FINALE
Dance
Brooklyn Academy of Music
1 hour, 45 minutes (with one intermission)Through November 11