Kingston Freeman, August 31, 2003

By KITTY MONTGOMERY

Reviewer

WOODSTOCK - A serendipitous side effect of the Woodstock Festival of Peace ‘n’ Love that never did play our town is that class artists from multiple genres have opted to hold festivals here, intent on establishing recognition via the legendary name.

    Among them, Wallace Norman, producing artistic director of Woodstock Fringe, which innovative, eclectic festival of theater and song is playing at the Byrdcliffe Theatre through the weekend, is no opportunistic parvenu.

    AN AREA resident for five years, Wallace co-produced the Woodstock Theater Company for three summers in the old Theater Whitehead hay review barn on Byrdcliffe preceding his current main stage venture. Actor, singer, playwright, administrator, know this multi-faceted, generous, spirited artist through his discernment in importing X‑treme talent in extraordinary works for this “fringe” event that reactivates great vibes in an historic theater.

    Some were sent up by the Turnau Opera Company in days when composer Yehudi Weiner conducted from the keyboard —and more than a few of the young Turnau singers went on to European opera houses. In more recent times, Rob Thirkield, one of the original creators of Circle Repertory Company, co-found- ed River Arts Repertory with Lawrence Sacherow on the site. Thirkield’s productions of John Whiting’s “Saints Day,” O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night” and Lanford Wilson’s “Serenading Louis,” originally written for Thirkield, played as outstanding events in American theater at this rustic Woodstock venue. Wallace’s ‘fringe’ imports sustain and expand this level of excellence, even coming full circle in a production of “The Great Nebula in Orion,” co-written by Wilson and composer Kenneth Fuchs.

    Let’s expand the circle image to gyre, the mythical tornado- like thing that spins higher and higher, because that’s what this theater piece effects. Co-directed by Nicola Sheara and Michael Conley, he from the keyboard, she giving singing actresses—or are they acting songstresses? — Laura Green and Watson Heintz stage directions, this quartet creates the miraculous in this subtly expanded and suddenly contracted tale of a couple of former Bryn Mawr classmates visiting over a decanter of brandy after an impromptu encounter at Bergdorf’s.

    That miracle is one never before witnesses in a thousand and one nights at the opera and-or musical theater. There is no single instant of separation from dialogue to song. Spoken and sung lines fuse in the expression of emotional subliminals, with Conley etherizing notes to atmosphere, seeming to create the women’s interior revelations as he expresses them. He makes Fuchs’ score play like intuitive improvisation, unpeeling and opening minds through music.

    WILSON HAS a genius for knitting up the common, natural, seeming trivial of daily life and then having his characters arrive at deeply person- al epiphanies that have universal reach — that’s why he’s one of the country’s great living playwrights. Green and Heintz bring naturalness to the characters of Louise, the glam- designer, and Carrie, the affluent suburban mom-ex-campus activist. Through a brandy glass, they ultimately arrive at an affirmative and liberated moment, won from conflicted desire and dreams come true that prove empty. It’s a coalescence of spirit, a breakout Car- rie yearns toward, unknowing, in her exuberant description of Orion’s seething nebula, a wow aria that doesn’t ever stop the show.

    SETTING out to confirm the superstition connected with Shakespeare’s “M” play, Woodstock Fringe opened with Rebecca Ortese as woman possessed in “Murder, Madness and Lady Macbeth.” Ortese developed and scripted this piece through Mabou Mines, coached by Lee Breuer. Leigh Silverman, who among other projects directed WIT on London’s West End, lends an overview to this Byrdcliffe production.

    Ortese’s piece is a funny, scary, personal variation on “an actor prepares,” with the actress reliving a live-in romance that runs parallel to her triumph at being cast in the great classic role, her rehearsals and on through to opening night when she still wants her psycho-mentor-tormenter to show up for her performance.

    Ortése’s character shifts, and time and place changes are mercurial, all springing from the open-spirited lady who is herself and the mime- dancer as he must be. What is most marvelous about her work is its contagious effect. As she experiences the angst and dread that Lady M’s role imparts with help from the charmer she’s let into her life (recollect “Waiting for Mr Goodbar”), she transfers it to her audience. We don’t just empathize, we seethe with her afflictions. It’s afterward that we laugh.

    CONTINUING where angels tread lightly, the Fringe offers a second Macbeth production played by the Tiny Ninja Theater. The animator of these wee plasticine warriors, Dov Weinstein, has been here, struck and moved on to other fringe and puppet theater festivals, but not without leaving a mark.

    Never mind those binoculars the ushers hand you so you can watch the inch-high figures Weinstein wheels on a brief- case-sized stage. What you really witness is a tour-de- force, brilliantly excerpted performance of “Macbeth” with Weinstein doing all the voicings in extraordinary characterizations. It’s like watching the fantasy play of a precocious child in the privacy of his own world who has left a window open so we can peek. The dramatic reach is so total, you may never care to sit through the long, full-staged version of “Macbeth” again.

The Woodstock Fringe production of ‘Murder, Madness and Lady Macbeth’ repeats at 5 p.m. today and ‘Great Nebula in Orion’ repeats at 8 p.m. today at the Byrdcliffe Theater, Upper Byrdcliffe Road off Glasco Turnpike, Woodstock. Ticket prices range from $l2 to $18, $40 pass to all shows. Call (845) 679-0167.