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By Kerry Clawson
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 06:40 p.m. EST, Nov 21, 2009
How does cunningly eclectic choreographer Doug Elkins roll? With sass, unpredictability and tongue firmly in cheek in Fraulein Maria, his twistedly funny dance take on the iconic The Sound of Music.
You've never seen the Von Trapps et al. like this before. The quirky Fraulein Maria, performed by Doug Elkins and Friends Friday and Saturday at Cleveland's Hanna Theatre, had hip-hopping goat herders, nuns in black hoodies with white trim doing the wave with their arms, and lovely Liesl in drag.
Every moment of this show, presented by DanceCleveland, has a sense of irrepressible mirth.
It has its share of bawdy hilarity, too: When seductor Rolf (Gui Greene) lap dances briefly with Liesl in Sixteen Going on Seventeen, the coy girl (Devin Buchanan) actually whips out a tape measure to assess the goods.
It's crazily delicious.
Elkins, 49, said he never sets out to do something unexpected. His irreverent spin on the Rodgers and Hammerstein tale makes wicked sense to him and, by extension, to us.
Here, Capt. Von Trapp finally breaks out of his shell by break dancing, spinning on his neck. The Baroness has a major diva attitude, and each of the seven Von Trapp children introduces him or herself to Maria with a signature dance movement.
Elkins calls himself a ''style thief,'' borrowing from great choreographers in modern dance and ballet and seamlessly melding that movement with hip-hop, break dancing, vogueing, martial arts and more. Elkins appears with emcee Michael Preston in Edelweiss, where they clown around with a hat, and dances a solo in a strangely inspirational Climb Every Mountain set to club moves.
The show starts with a giddy audience singalong led by Preston. It's all decidedly low-tech, as Preston holds a Maria doll in the distant ''hills'' in the opening The Sound of Music, where dancers of varying heights hold up fabric hills of green, khaki and black.
In this musical theater deconstruction, Elkins gives us Maria times three, with a trio of dancers (including one guy) playing the larger-than-life postulant. Donnell Oakley is ultra-cheery Maria; the bald, muscular Kevin Fitzgerald Ferguson is vampy Maria; and Cindy Chung Camins is goofy Maria. These dancers work wonderfully in tandem and the replication is rife with humor.
(In a news update, Dancer Meghan Merrill, originally cast as a Maria, was replaced by Camins after Merrill was shot in the leg and mugged 1-1/2 weeks ago in New York.)
The cabaret-style Fraulein debuted in 2006 at Joe's Pub in New York, where it became a cult favorite. Cleveland is one of just five stops on the current tour, before it returns for a New York run in December.
Watching the classic movie over and over with his kids was the inspiration for Elkins, who paid his way through college by break dancing. In addition to his 12-member touring artists, Elkins cleverly cast five local dancers — Amy Miller, Kelly Brunk, Ellen Ressler Hoffman, Rebecca Nicklos and Marie Zvosec — to add to the hilarity in The Lonely Goatherd, in which they break dance on their heads.
Pop culture is the entry point into all this wacky fun, with Fraulein Maria making dance highly accessible to both The Sound of Music junkies and those who know it only in passing. It's the perfect time to celebrate the musical, which is marking the 50th anniversary of its Broadway opening this month.
Arts writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.
How does cunningly eclectic choreographer Doug Elkins roll? With sass, unpredictability and tongue firmly in cheek in Fraulein Maria, his twistedly funny dance take on the iconic The Sound of Music.
You've never seen the Von Trapps et al. like this before. The quirky Fraulein Maria, performed by Doug Elkins and Friends Friday and Saturday at Cleveland's Hanna Theatre, had hip-hopping goat herders, nuns in black hoodies with white trim doing the wave with their arms, and lovely Liesl in drag.
Every moment of this show, presented by DanceCleveland, has a sense of irrepressible mirth.
It has its share of bawdy hilarity, too: When seductor Rolf (Gui Greene) lap dances briefly with Liesl in Sixteen Going on Seventeen, the coy girl (Devin Buchanan) actually whips out a tape measure to assess the goods.
It's crazily delicious.
Elkins, 49, said he never sets out to do something unexpected. His irreverent spin on the Rodgers and Hammerstein tale makes wicked sense to him and, by extension, to us.
Here, Capt. Von Trapp finally breaks out of his shell by break dancing, spinning on his neck. The Baroness has a major diva attitude, and each of the seven Von Trapp children introduces him or herself to Maria with a signature dance movement.
Elkins calls himself a ''style thief,'' borrowing from great choreographers in modern dance and ballet and seamlessly melding that movement with hip-hop, break dancing, vogueing, martial arts and more. Elkins appears with emcee Michael Preston in Edelweiss, where they clown around with a hat, and dances a solo in a strangely inspirational Climb Every Mountain set to club moves.
The show starts with a giddy audience singalong led by Preston. It's all decidedly low-tech, as Preston holds a Maria doll in the distant ''hills'' in the opening The Sound of Music, where dancers of varying heights hold up fabric hills of green, khaki and black.
In this musical theater deconstruction, Elkins gives us Maria times three, with a trio of dancers (including one guy) playing the larger-than-life postulant. Donnell Oakley is ultra-cheery Maria; the bald, muscular Kevin Fitzgerald Ferguson is vampy Maria; and Cindy Chung Camins is goofy Maria. These dancers work wonderfully in tandem and the replication is rife with humor.
(In a news update, Dancer Meghan Merrill, originally cast as a Maria, was replaced by Camins after Merrill was shot in the leg and mugged 1-1/2 weeks ago in New York.)
The cabaret-style Fraulein debuted in 2006 at Joe's Pub in New York, where it became a cult favorite. Cleveland is one of just five stops on the current tour, before it returns for a New York run in December.
Watching the classic movie over and over with his kids was the inspiration for Elkins, who paid his way through college by break dancing. In addition to his 12-member touring artists, Elkins cleverly cast five local dancers — Amy Miller, Kelly Brunk, Ellen Ressler Hoffman, Rebecca Nicklos and Marie Zvosec — to add to the hilarity in The Lonely Goatherd, in which they break dance on their heads.
Pop culture is the entry point into all this wacky fun, with Fraulein Maria making dance highly accessible to both The Sound of Music junkies and those who know it only in passing. It's the perfect time to celebrate the musical, which is marking the 50th anniversary of its Broadway opening this month.
Arts writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
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Akron, OH
Posted 11:00 PM, 11/21/2009
'WICKED' sense' ? that's the name of the other show in town
Kent, OH
Posted 12:34 AM, 11/22/2009
So very typical...we hear about some cool event AFTERWARDS.
Posted 11:11 AM, 11/22/2009
Sounds like something that would have been nice to see.
