Word: riv
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...RIV VU by BOB RANDALL...
...Riv Vu is just such a starveling kitten of a comedy. The title is classified-ad shorthand for an apartment with a river view. The locale is Manhattan. Inspecting the rent-controlled flat are two strangers, Anne (Jane Alexander) and Paul (Jerry Orbach), both married, but with their respective spouses otherwise occupied. A missing doorknob effectively locks them in together...
Simplicity often seems to have the scope of an epigram, and the plays at Lowell House seem to universalize Blitzstein's lyrics even more by their free sweep through time and space. Wakeen Ray-Riv is director and choreographer of "The Harpies," set in ancient Thrace. A farce based on Apollonius, it is Blitzstein's first opera to his own text, performed only once before, in 1953 at the Manhattan School of Music. The new staging here and emphasis on dance is a vital response to Blitzstein's dedication to popular art and depends on the spirit of community...
Seneca's Oedpius is an exciting and challenging production. Much of the acting is very good. Shcila Hart as Iocasta and Jack Shea as Tiresias are particularly strong. Wakeen Ray-Riv's choreography is superb, and exploits the extremely-limited Agassiz stage to the fullest. Senclick's direction is intentionally upsetting. Yet it must be admitted that even a ritualized Theater of Cruclty cannot escape being theater. And as long as that is true, I prefer Sophocles's pretension to human reality to Seneca...
...exception, both operas received topnotch performances. The costumes were excellent, and so were the instrumentalists. (Hats off to Cyrus Stewart for his virtuoso performance of the horn part in Curlew River. ) The main credit, however, must go to Martin Kessler, musical director of both works, and to Wakeen Ray-Riv (choreographer in the Britten) and Charles Heckscher (director of Daniel ). Most of all, they deserve our gratitude for producing these seldom heard works and, even more, for giving them the performance they deserve...