With inclusion on several reviewer’s “best of the decade” lists when it was released including those of Paste, NPR, and Rolling Stone, Sufjan Stevens’ acclaimed 2005 concept album Illinois enjoys cult status for its lush orchestrations and wildly inventive portrayal of the state’s people, landscapes, and history, complete with UFOs, zombies, and predatory wasps. This musically ambitious work, which weaves together cinematic orchestral anthems, jazz riffs, and other musical influences to explore wide-ranging narratives about blossoming queerness and self-exploration is expanded upon through a mix of live music and impressionistic choreography to revisit the beloved album’s themes of self-discovery.
Dancer, choreographer, and director Justin Peck has assembled an impressive body of creative projects, starting out as a soloist with New York City Ballet and moving on to create work for that company and prestigious companies from around the world, as well as on Broadway with Carousel and Stephen Spielberg’s acclaimed film West Side Story. The Tony Award-winner embraces Stevens’ album in an ecstatic pageant of storytelling, theater, dance, and live music with a cast of virtuosic dancers, singers, and musicians with a narrative crafted with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury (Fairview, Marys Seacole). Featuring new arrangements of the entire album by composer and pianist Timo Andres for a live band and three voices, ranging in style from DIY folk and indie rock to marching band and ambient electronics, this bold, new music-theater production leads audiences on a mighty journey through the American heartland, from campfire storytelling to the edges of the cosmos.
For all the high-powered theatrical talent involved, this stage interpretation of Sufjan Stevens’ acclaimed 2005 album “Illinois” could probably use a warning label. It’s extraordinary, it’s queer, it’s often thrilling, but regular New York theatergoers might need to adjust their expectations. The first adjustment — and a truly exasperating one — is that “Illinoise,” opening tonight at the Park Avenue Armory, has already sold out its entire run.
A few instances of more heavy-handed literalism are sprinkled through the piece, with gimmicks that work at first appearance but dull as they recur. A song about how our country’s founders and leaders haunt us, for example, doesn’t need accompanying identification signs to make its sociopolitical point; choices like this from director/choreographer Peck put too fine a point on an otherwise gorgeously crafted show. Peck’s choreography, however, leaves a lasting impression: Sped-up sequences of mimed movement and intricate tap dancing from Byron Tittle are both highlights of the contemporary dance piece. The duet “Decatur” is refreshing both for its evocation of childhood through play as dance, with characters balancing on unseen logs, and for its exploration of the ballet duet through two men, protagonist Henry (Ricky Ubeda) and his best friend Carl (Ben Cook), whose obliviousness to Henry’s feelings endears us to him all the more. The ensemble of Illinoise is strong and often moves as if one unit, but Ubeda and Cook’s performances stand out for their ingenuity.
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