Review: The Gordon-Foreman WHAT TO WEAR is Totally Wonderful at Prototype in BAM's Harvey

Yoo-hoo, Metropolitan Opera. Looking for something new/old/odd/wonderful? I hope you made it to the Prototype Festival’s WHAT TO WEAR, by Michael Gordon and Richard Foreman, staged by Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson of Big Dance Theater following the original’s aesthetic from 2006. The opera just finished up its four-performance run at the BAM Harvey in downtown Brooklyn—and it’s the definition of event programming in its most complimentary meaning.

You’re sure to find that new audience you’re always looking for by doing it, without losing any more of your most conservative audience than anything else from the 21st century. (And you can probably charge premium prices for it, too, for limited performances.)

Three cheers to Beth Morrison and BMP Projects (sole presenters of Prototype for the first time this year) for bringing it to us.

The oddest thing for me about this 20-year-old work, which just finished up a quick “hello” to local audiences, is that it was just now making its New York debut--and a smashing one at that. It recreates (more or less) its original production seen at CalArts in Los Angeles in 2006, recreated by Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson of Big Dance Theatre.

Why is this late-to-the-dance appearance so surprising? With no slight intended to composer Gordon, with his hallucinatory music to match the librettist/director's trademark style and did a grand job on the piece, Richard Foreman, who died last year at 87, was the draw for many in the audience.

He was the dean—the face—of downtown theatre in New York for decades. He wrote, directed and designed over 50 of his own plays, won numerous theatre honors, Lifetime Achievement awards (eg, from the National Endowment for the Arts, when it still meant something), a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship and, for good measure, was elected officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France, among many other distinctions.

To call the opera unusual, with its surreal style and multiple versions of its main character, Madeline X, and its duck motifs, would be stating the obvious. And beside the point, because the fact is that it’s mesmerizing, funny, and grandly performed, often in deadpan style. The cast is superlative in putting the piece across.

It is headed by sopranos Sarah Frei and Sophie Delphis, tenor Morgan Mastrangelo and mezzo Hai-Ting Chinn, as iterations of Madeline X, the central character who is concerned about the reception to her wardrobe and what to change. In addition, there's a heroic chorus comprised of Weiyu Wang, Kaileigh Riess, Leilah Rosen, Kira Dills-DeSurra, Jordan Jones and Zen Wu.

Alan Pierson, Artistic Director and conductor of the “Alarm Will Sound,” ensemble, here leads members of the “Bang on a Can” All-Stars," who give a spectacular rendition of the composer's score. The movement ensemble, so vital to the production's overall effect, is devika wickremesinghe (Dance Captain), Lindy Fines, Hallie Chametzky, Lilly Lorber, Annika Mankin, Celeste Goldes, Addie Levandowski and Chloe Claudel.

The new production stays true to the original, which is a blessing, since the shock of colors, as well as the (literal) addition of a “fourth wall” to the stage design, are so critical to its overall effect.

WHAT TO WEAR is a fine bookend to Snider's HILDEGARD, showing New Yorkers the depth and breadth of opera as music-theatre, according to the Prototype Festival.

Caption: The WHAT TO WEAR ensemble.

Credit: Stephanie Berger