Theater Review by Carol Rocamora . . . .
A garden. What an ideal metaphor for an artistic life . . .
It’s a place where creativity blossoms, where memories grow, where others are buried. Occasionally, it’s also a place where miracles of the natural world spring to unexpected life.
That’s the setting for the sweet bio-musical of the life of Graciela Daniele, honoring the famed choreographer/director, Broadway regular, and frequent Drama Desk and Tony nominee. Entitled The Gardens of Anuncia, it’s written by Daniele’s longtime collaborator, the composer Michael John LaChiusa, as a love song to his friend and artistic soulmate. Daniele herself is staging it at Lincoln Center Theater—where she has been a director-in-residence—and co-choreographing it with Alex Sanchez.
La Chiusa’s script introduces us to an older Anuncia (that’s the name given to Daniele in the story) played by Priscilla Lopez, in an elegant white suit and tending her garden one afternoon while pondering whether or not to go into the city where a lifetime achievement award is being bestowed upon her that evening. During that sunny afternoon, memories of her teenage life in Buenos Aires flood the garden—populated by her mother Mami (Eden Espinosa), her aunt (Andrea Burns), her Granmama (Mary Testa), and her younger self (the graceful Kalyn West). The older Anuncia recalls scenes from her youth which are acted out by the formidable trio of women who raised her. We observe the moments when she falls in love with dance and her family discovers her gifts. We meet the absent men in her family’s life—her grandfather (a seafarer), her abusive father (a gambler), and her aunt’s suitors (“the Moustache Brothers”)—all played by the versatile Tally Session and Enrique Acevedo.
Always in the background is the long, dark shadow of the Perón regime and the threats of his dictatorship. The narration covers the younger Anuncia’s formative years, ending when she leaves Buenos Aires to dance professionally in Europe in her early twenties . . . and the rest is theater history.
Daniele directs her ensemble on the Mitzi Newhouse stage, warmly lit by Jules Fisher/Peggy Eisenhauer. Mark Wendland’s set features an empty space framed by an upstage curtain of lush green, floor-to-ceiling, slender stems topped with colorful blossoms that move and sway gently as characters enter and exit through them. Daniele’s expert staging is graceful (of course), and La Chiusa’s gentle musical score is sweet and pleasing, giving each actress a song and a moment to shine.
But what stood out for me in these gentle 90 minutes was an unexpected element of fantasy in that enchanted garden. It took the form of a deer—yes, that’s right, a forest animal—played by the irrepressibly delightful Tally Sessions, with a crown of giant antlers atop his head. The deer appears in two scenes, both my favorites in the play. In the first, he acts as the older Anuncia’s confidant and soulmate, offering her perspective as she looks back on her past. Together they sing a tender duet, “What’s to forgive? What’s to regret?” (At the song’s conclusion, he suddenly declares, apologetically: “I forgot—I have a dentist appointment,” and gallops off). In the second scene, the same actor with the crown of antlers returns, explaining that he’s the brother of the deer in the previous scene and announcing that his brother has been tragically killed on the expressway. He weeps, and sings, offering her more advice: “Love what you want, and dance while you can.”
When I finally was able to stop laughing at their charming “pas de deux,” I realized that I had just witnessed the heart of the play.
Bravo to La Chiusa and Daniele’s collaborative imagination, creating such an unexpected, fanciful dimension to Anuncia’s story. If only there had been more fantasy to augment this lovely bio-musical and lift it airborne, like the young Anuncia when she danced in that garden.
A postscript to this review: I saw The Gardens of Anuncia during a three-play weekend wherein I also attended Hell’s Kitchen and Scene Partners. Emerging from this 48-hour marathon, I was struck by the notion that I had seen different versions of one story—namely, the life of a famous, gifted, creative, artistic woman (two real ones—Alicia Keys and Graciela Daniele—and a fictitious unknown one named Meryl Kowalski, fabulously played by Dianne Wiest). What stayed with me were the non-realistic moments in these stories where the magic really happened—when, for example, a 75-year-old nobody from Wisconsin willed herself to become a successful Hollywood screenwriter . . . and when one of the most talented choreographers of our time danced with a deer.
The Gardens of Anuncia. Through December 31 at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (150 West 65th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues). www.lct.org
Photos: Julieta Cervantes
