Blue Spruce Theatre hasn’t been around for a
while—and they’ve been missed. This weekend only (through May 26th)
you can see why when they return for five performances of magical, operatic
proportion at Arsenal Center, Watertown.
GOBLIN MARKET and THE RAG DOLL are one-act
musical fantasies, linked only by the faintest flutter of fairy wings—and the
same remarkable performers in both. Of the two, GOBLIN MARKET (by Polly Pen and
Peggy Harmon) is the most classical, with gorgeous period music, some borrowed
from composers like Brahms and Scarlatti, to serve as perfect settings for the famous
“Goblin Market” poem by Christina Rossetti.
Rossetti’s cautionary tale about resisting
the pleasures of the night gives choreographer Kira Cowan ample opportunity to
translate the forbidden/forbidding images into gestural form. Director Jesse
Strachman’s performers do it all superbly. They sing, act and dance the dance
of “goblins, rats and wombats.” Teresa Winner Blume is riveting as the sister
who falls under the goblins’ spell, whirling in ecstasy as she joins the goblin
men, devouring their enchanted fruit. (Rossetti is most famous for her
religious writings so you can imagine the Freudian symbolism rampant in “Goblin
Market!”)
Abigail Clarke gives a lovely, solid
performance as the sensible, heroic sister who embarks on a journey of
sacrifice to match wits with the goblins and save her sister. Rossetti’s
language is florid and quite funny at times and both Blume and Clarke capture
the Victorian spirit of the piece. Music director Dan Rodriguez’s quartet plays
nimbly and oh so exquisitely in the classical mode, aided in large part by
Maiani de Silva (violin) and Kett Chuan Lee (cello). (The only hitch in the
proceedings are the costumes which become scenery—a clever idea in the abstract
but fraught in the concrete, when the undoing and doing up of those pesky
buttons does the women in. Sarah Caldwell used to have singers dressing and
undressing during arias and it most always proved fatal.)
After intermission you’ll be treated to a
world premiere of THE RAG DOLL with music and lyrics by David Reiffel, book by
Sylvia Graziano. Blue Spruce enlisted Reiffel when they were looking for a
companion piece to “Goblin Market.” (You can’t go to an evening of cabaret in Boston without hearing a
number composed by Reiffel, his songs are so imaginative and sing-able.) The
music for THE RAG DOLL ranges from “new” to “formal” to Sondheim-inspired (The
“thimble as a symbol, brine as a sign” song sounds like an outtake from INTO
THE WOODS for heaven sakes), all of it delightful.
A violent storm brings a mysterious homeless
woman (Blume) to Clarke’s door, looking for shelter…or perhaps, something more?
Clarke is amusing as the contemporary young woman too busy with her ear buds
and IPhone to bother with someone out of her element. Reiffel has an ear for
the absurd in the mundane—and the story benefits from the surprise and the
humor in his lyrics. Blume is simply spellbinding (I couldn’t resist) as the
woman who likes words beginning with “W.” How about WONDERFUL?
