Art, Film, and Music in Milwaukee: it all rocks!

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It was a good weekend for the arts here in Milwaukee. Three quick hits:

Visual art at Villa Terrace

On Friday evening the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum opened a small mixed media group show called “Chasing Horizons.”  Guest curators Nirmal Raja and Christopher Willey, who both have ties to UWM, assembled a diverse set of Milwaukee artists whose work uses the idea of landscape as a point of departure. It’s not the kind of show one typically associates with Villa Terrace.

Most of the work is installed gallery fashion in the cleared upper rooms of the historic mansion. My favorite pieces, however, were the two site-specific installations. Kevin Giese has inserted two slender, undulating trunks of stripped buckthorn into the steeply sloping, carefully landscaped “backyard,” which sweeps dramatically down to the lakefront.

Emily Belknap, whose show at the Chazen I recently reviewed, has taken wonderful advantage of the ambiance of the building. Her installation, called “Flight Zones,” is made up of three life-size bronze sculptures of robins. A precise circle of finely sifted dirt surrounds each, indicating the distance at which a person’s approach will cause the bird to take flight. The circles of dirt echo the decorative period moldings on the ceiling and the intrusion of the “wildlife” creates a curious dialogue with the portrait paintings hung on the walls.

If you didn’t get to the opening you have plenty of time. The show will be up through August 25.

The Oriental Theater offers another great movie

Since we were in the neighborhood and it was still early my wife and I checked out the Oriental. From amongst the several interesting choices we were glad we picked “The Place Beyond the Pines.” It’s being promoted as a “crime thriller,” and there are aspects of that in it. However, it’s a much more nuanced and complicated story than that genre generally implies. It would be hard to describe much of the story without ruining the many truly surprising plot twists.

It begins with a stunt motorcycle driver played by Ryan Gosling who goes on a crime spree for an unusual motivation. Things don’t turn out as planned but that’s the only thing predictable about this provocative and sensitive narrative. Go see it before it goes away. 

Read more on the official movie website.

The Milwaukee Rep and Janis Joplin

Although we are season ticket holders for the MilwaukeeRepertory Theater, we might have missed this show because it isn’t part of the regular season. But we were very happy that we took advantage of a special Cinco de Mayo offer and went to see it last night.

It isn’t exactly a concert and it isn’t really a musical play. But I’ve never seen the Powerhouse Stage rock like it did last night. The performers were outstanding and the music was as energetic as any concert I’ve seen—and then some!

I’ve never been a particular fan of Joplin. I was just a couple years too young to have gone to see her perform live. Anyone my age has heard her most famous songs (especially “Me and Bobby McGee” and “Mercedes Benz”) repeated endlessly on the radio, of course, as well as seeing video of her performing. But those don’t hold a candle to the actual experience. The show was a visual and auditory extravaganza that seemed to represent her onstage persona pretty accurately. The only thing missing was a pall of pungent pot smoke wafting over the crowd--but I only know that from heresay!

I could quibble that the attempt to add a story line to the show was flawed by the lack of any real arc to the narrative. The implications of her famous dissolution and untimely death were quite subtle and understated. Still, it was nice to see and hear the people who influenced her, including Bessie Smith, Odetta, Nina Simone, and Aretha Franklin. Blues singer Sabrina Elayne Carten recreated all of those voices and presences and she deserves credit equal to Mary Bridget Davies, who played Joplin.

The audience was an intriguing mix and far more diverse than usual for the Milwaukee Rep. There were plenty of folks who looked old enough to have seen Joplin live—and even a few that came garbed in authentic-looking “period costumes” like dashikis, tie-dye, colorful stripped bell-bottoms, and leather vests. However, I was glad to see a wide variety of ages amongst the appreciative crowd. At first it took a bit of urging by the cast to break through the Milwaukee/Midwest reserve, but by the end of the first set the entire audience was on its feet, clapping, singing, and generally rocking the night away.

As she sings in Bobby McGee, “…feeling good was good enough for me!”

The show is called “One Night with Janis Joplin,” but you have many nights to choose from before the show closes June 2 to join in the fun.

Liberace lives again in Milwaukee!

I must confess that the little I knew about Liberace during his lifetime was the glitter, dazzle, and opulence of his public persona. I didn't grow up in Milwaukee originally, so I hope I may be excused. Nevertheless, I was entranced by the Milwaukee Rep's tribute to Liberace with its eponymous show at the Stackner Cabaret. The music is wonderful. Jack Forbes Wilson, who plays Liberace, is very entertaining.

Given the nature of Liberace's own showmanship - he called himself "Mr. Showmanship" and, according to the show, it was a deliberately self deprecating alter ego - it comes as no surprise that the show was entertaining. I also found the story unexpectedly moving. It sounds a bit schmaltzy, perhaps, out of context, but Wilson convinced me that the key to Liberace's amazing success was mutual love - to give the audience what they love and to love the audience back.

My own personality is pretty much the antithesis of Liberace's. The medium I work in, photography, doesn't have an audience in the same way such a performer does. However, I too believe that to be the best photographer I can be I have to love what I do. If that comes across as a cliché then it seems to me that there's a fine line between a cliché and an eternal truth.

Congratulations to the Rep! If you haven't seen the show already, it runs through January 16. The house was pretty full last night, so I hope you can still get tickets.

Check it out: Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

Oh, and Happy New Year from Arts Without Borders!

You haven't heard from me for a while because I was in Santa Fe last week, where the art scene is always lively. I hope to bring you highlights soon.

Kudos to Joe Hanreddy and the Milwaukee Rep

I hope you’ve already seen “Seven Keys to Slaughter Peak,” the hilarious comedy that closes the curtain on Joe Hanreddy’s 17-year stint at the helm of the Milwaukee Rep. There is a definite downside to having season tickets to the rep that are scheduled for the last day of each production. If I write about a play I’ve just seen, I can never encourage anyone to go see it!

Judging from the packed house last night though, plenty of people had gotten the word. I’ve been to all of this season’s plays and I haven’t seen such a full house. That’s tribute to the appropriateness of this play as a swan song. The script, originally by the powerhouse George M. Cohan, was freely adapted by Hanreddy not only to update its humor but to speak to his hometown audience. It worked brilliantly, with loads of subtle – as well as completely un-subtle – inside jokes about Wisconsin. It also showcased the talents of the resident acting company, who were spot on. By the time its twisted double (maybe there were three?) endings concluded I realized two important things: I for one (as well as my wife and the people we were with) had been completely taken for a ride and it was a delightful ride indeed.

I have been one of the anonymous audience members, off and on, for much of Hanreddy’s tenure. For what it’s worth, I add my salute to all the well-earned kudo’s he’s been receiving.

I wish there had been the same crowds at the rep’s last play, “The Seafarer,” which I thought was the best of the season and one of the best I’ve seen. In fact, in between that play and last night’s I had the opportunity to go to New York. While there I saw a play on Broadway (“A Behanding in Spokane” – feel free to ask about that!) The star of that show was truly a star: Christopher Walken. I enjoyed the show, and Walken lived up to his reputation. But, in my opinion, it doesn’t diminish Walken’s stature to say that I don’t think the Broadway theater experience was in any way superior to the Milwaukee theater experiences I feel privileged to have had. (It was certainly more expensive though!)

Milwaukee. Let’s appreciate what we have. Thanks, Joe Hanreddy and company!

If you want more information about "Seven Keys to Slaughter Peak," here is a link to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's review.