"Fraulein Maria"
Choreographed by Doug Elkins
Music by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, New York
December 11, 2008
by Tom Phillips
copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips
“When you know the notes to sing ….You can sing most an-y-thing!” Thus does Fraulein Maria instruct the seven von Trapp children in the original “The Sound of Music,” laying down the basis for an enchanting tale in which music, along with dance, are the keys to love and life. Nearly 50 years later, in “Fraulein Maria,” Doug Elkins uses the same analytic method to deconstruct the tale, but re-affirm its essence – this time with dance on top. “Fraulein Maria” is a joke and a tribute, and among the New York downtown dance set, it promises to become as beloved a staple as the original is for the rest of the world.
The centerpiece of “The Sound of Music” is the mountainside picnic where the would-be nun turned governess Maria teaches the talented but music-deprived children their do-re-mi’s. In Elkins’ bar production there are three Marias, including one male, and the do-re-mi’s are translated into dance moves, taken from street dance, modern dance, hip-hop and ballet, so when you run them in different sequences you get a wild mishmash of movement. It’s comic and absurd, but no less liberating for it.
“Fraulein Maria” uses the original sound track of “Sound of Music” but it’s a pure dance work. The kids are grownup, athletic dancers, and the well-known plot is sketched in pantomime, with Joe’s Pub serving as the Alps, the Abbey and the von Trapp mansion. When the Marias leave the convent their mountain path is a narrow ledge next to the barroom tables. On Thursday one of them stopped to sample a patron’s glass of wine.
Besides multiplying and demystifying the Marias, Elkins also mixes genders and roles freely. Liesl, the eldest daughter (16 going on 17) is played by a stout cross-dresser, and her courtship with 17-year-old Rolf is raunchy foreplay. The climactic love scene between Maria and Captain von Trapp culminates in a flying leap by the Captain into her arms, and then a gentle lift, with Maria hoisting her partner by the buns.
“The Sound of Music” is set in Europe in the thirties, but it’s really about America in the fifties, and our stalwart sense of innocence, freedom and rightness. Maria is strictly an American invention, a guitar-playing proto-hippie free thinker who sings a depressed, militarized family back to life. She came along just as a folk-song revival was starting to shake up the quiet America of the Eisenhower era, when the show first opened in 1959.
“Fraulein Maria” is the same story, updated for the present decade – a chaotic age where Americans acknowledge our corruption, confusion and wrongdoing, and try to dance and sing through it. But it’s not quite a travesty of the earlier work. On Thursday night, Meghan Merrill danced Maria with the power and frankness of a 21st century liberated woman. But in the thunderstorm scene when the frightened children climb into bed with their new nanny, she was every bit as sweet and reassuring as Julie Andrews in the movie. Maybe even more, since she acts like a real person, not an actress playing a person who acts like a “real person.” We’ve lost a lot in shedding the grand illusions of the age of Rodgers and Hammerstein, but we’ve also gained something in authenticity, on the stage and off.
If Maria is a 1950’s American archetype, so is her mentor the Mother Abbess, whose theme song “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” sounds like a sermon by Norman Vincent Peale on the power of Positive Thinking. That’s why it’s so funny when Doug Elkins himself comes out in a hoodie to perform the number as a house dancer/ghetto basketball dude, gliding his joints through imaginary jump-shots and ritual crotch scratching. Hoop Dreams, man.
Elkins’ fluid choreography holds the whole piece together. Originally a street dancer, he has the secret of transferring movement from limb to limb – and he extends it in the ensemble scenes so that it flows from body to body. He also has a deft way of changing scenes without blackouts or intermissions, making a snow-capped mountain range out of a few pieces of fabric and a white apron, turning a single curtain into new outfits for all seven kids, and making a bed by just holding up a blanket.
The show runs an hour, just enough time for a round of drinks, a few good laughs and a sing-along reprise at the end. After three years it’s become a holiday tradition at Joe’s Pub, and with plenty of love from the downtown arts establishment, it’s got the do-re-mi.
“Fraulein Maria” runs through this Saturday, December 13, at Joe’s Pub.
Copyright 2008 by Tom Phillips
Photos by Steven Schreiber:
Deborah Lohse as Mother Abbess with nuns
Meghan Merrill as Maria
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