In a review of Fever Theater’s last show, the cloying New
Believers, I wrote: “This company’s strengths are in their sense of
humor, their elegant, offbeat choreography, their willingness to take
risks, and, best of all, their flair for campy musical numbers.”
I went on to call that particular show “infuriatingly precious,” and
to express a hope that this company would play to their strengths in
the future. And guess what? That’s exactly what they did.
Smiling in the Dark/Alone Together is a playful and elegant
consideration of what it means to exist in the world, in relation to
other humans and to ourselves. Fever is working here as a three-person
ensemble, and a sharpening of the company’s vision is
apparent—their new show is clear-eyed, self-aware, and distinctly
more mature than previous efforts. (Maturity does not preclude
silliness; there’s always room for silliness.)
The two-part show is the first in a projected series dealing with
the concept of “emergence”: complex patterns arising from the
interaction of simple parts (think bees in a hive, or ants in a
colony). While studying in Colorado, Kate Sanderson Holly developed a
solo piece, Alone Together; back home in Portland, Jacob Coleman
and Amber Whitehall worked together on Smiling in the Dark. The
artists used certain common elements in the creation of the two shows,
but otherwise there is no explicit connection between the two
works.
In Alone Together, Holly winningly employs dance, song, a
popcorn maker, and tiny plastic wolf toys to muse on
relationships—more precisely, on the relationship in which humans
stand to their lives and to one another, and the possibility of
shifting that perspective, even late in the game.
Coleman and Whitehall also tackle relationships. Their segment is
loosely organized around a couple discussing their respective attitudes
toward consciousness: “I think I emerge from my sensations,” Whitehall
says quietly, as Coleman gesticulates and pontificates on the notion of
the constructed self.
What emerges from the side-by-side placement of these two pieces,
created by artists thinking alike but working apart, is a sophisticated
and compelling consideration of human relationships—marked by
humor, elegant choreography, and, of course, campy musical numbers.