AUTOPORTRAITS
nytheatre.com review by Tim Cusack
August 15, 2002
By far the most enjoyable evening I’ve
spent at FringeNYC, Kathleen Dyer’s Autoportraits is also the
only show I’ve seen with a coherent directorial/choreographic presence
and concern for aesthetic presentation. Dyer (as befits her name) also
designed the costumes, and her witty recombinations of cast-off finery
serve both to add color and texture to the evening and to ground each
piece in a specific reality. What’s even more satisfying is that, even
though there are six separate dances on the program (one of which is by
another company), they function much like thematically linked short
stories—character sketches of women in different time periods and life
stages. If Eudora Welty had made choreography instead of literature, I
imagine this is what it would have looked like. Add to that terrific
performers, fabulous (largely live) music plus a great 11th hour comedy
number (about dancer/waiters, choreographed by Erica Murkofsky), and who
needs Broadway? Two of my favorite pieces in the evening, "East Whistwaddle Ladies" and "Self Portrait (at 12 we got earrings)," explore the varying ways girls socialize each other into adult women. In EWL, Dyer seems to be instructing Theresa Duhon and Laura Halm in the proper rituals of gentility. I think of her as an Edwardian maiden aunt with her young charges. They perform odd little bourrees and rock back and forth as if impersonating ladies’ fans. Duhon keeps rebelling against this upbringing by rolling her hips and breaking out of formation. Maybe it’s because of the music—South Asian- and Caribbean-influenced sounds from the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It’s such a genial world, that the silent communal scream at the end feels unearned and out of place.
"Self-Portrait..." (percussive music composed and drummed live by PJ Merola) graphs a female friendship from playground to prom to singles’ scene. In grade school, Dyer and Duhon play intricate hand games in their jumpsuits, but while their backs are turned, all of the other girls exchange schoolgirl uniforms for bright dress. Duhon would rather hang with the cool girls than with the clingy Dyer. Soon, everyone graduates to another level of maturity and slips on all-black ensembles. It’s at this point that we lose the main thread of the two women’s relationship. After building up the narrative interest, the story leaves us hanging—not that we mind so much when these gals are dancing up a storm.
