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There is loads of textual content in “Many Happy Returns,” however dance, the language of the physique — offered right here as intentional and slyly forthright — is simply as crucial because the phrases. The major character, who by no means speaks however does, in a single second, sing a Billy Joel music in flat a cappella, is Monica Bill Barnes. But is it actually her?
In this partially improvised work at Playwrights Horizons by the inventive workforce of Barnes and Robbie Saenz de Viteri, Barnes, the dancer and choreographer, isn’t simply taking part in herself. Her character is a hybrid of its creators.
Barnes performs the lady’s physique — with its silent-movie attract because it navigates area in sinewy and dewy methods — and Saenz de Viteri, talking all through, is her thoughts. Through motion and textual content, the character’s insecurities and pleasure spill out for all to really feel and see. “She’s a girl who carries herself with complete readability, a readability she won’t even all the time precisely really feel,” Saenz de Viteri says. That appears proper.
Bach, Blondie and Judy Garland are a part of the energetic soundtrack that helps usher within the New Year. Flowers are handed out, a prewritten toast is made by an viewers member. We cheer her on. “Many Happy Returns” winds alongside many paths till it arrives, joyfully, at its sweeping remaining dance to “(Nothing however) Flowers” by Talking Heads. It appears free — with the jovial air of a reside podcast — but its freedom clearly comes from its unyielding construction and element.
At its essence, “Many Happy Returns” is an experiment within the artwork of camaraderie and connection, of strangers discovering group in a damaged world. “I must also say I’ll play another person, there’s going to be a second after I play considered one of you truly after which there shall be a second when considered one of you has to play considered one of us,” Saenz de Viteri says. “So we’re all on this collectively.”
This manufacturing — admission is free — takes place in an area dressed up as if for a dance in a college gymnasium. At the seemingly informal begin, Barnes arranges pitchers and vases of flowers; Saenz de Viteri sits behind a small desk and pc and units the scene: “There’s some dread within the air this yr for certain,” he says. “Maybe a bit little bit of pleasure? I don’t know.”
But this efficiency, he says, shall be “sort of a party.” As the thoughts of this manufacturing, Saenz de Viteri can also be its amiable host, easygoing and free from the beginning. Early on, he asks to borrow a hat from an viewers member, which on Thursday turned out to be a fedora extra suited to summer season and manufactured from paper. Its again story — the hat was bought throughout a visit to Italy — comes up later within the present when Saenz de Viteri weaves a story about it impressed by his off-the-cuff trade with its wearer. Another pleased return is that this: He takes the banal and makes it riveting.
And Barnes, using on the short impulses of her physicality, matches his verbal adroitness as she springs to life, looking for her footing as she stumbles and triumphs alongside her typically merry, typically clueless means. She is in management, however beneath the floor you sense self-doubt; for her, dancing is an armor, the place she appears most safe.
This is greater than plausible as Barnes strings collectively seemingly easy actions — flapping a leg on repeat, spinning with freedom and drive, snapping her fingers with glee — whipping from one course to the subsequent like a gale wind. Her expression, flickering between heat and deadpan blankness, is one other sort of armor, a masks. “Her face wasn’t all the time telling everybody how she felt about all the things,” Saenz de Viteri says, “the best way mine all the time is.”
But she finds solace when dancing with three associates from her previous — Mykel Marai Nairne, Indah Mariana and Flannery Gregg — who seem and disappear by means of doorways in the back of the stage. In these duets, the dancers stability rolled yoga mats on their heads, strut backwards and forwards to “Let Your Love Flow” by the Bellamy Brothers and lip-sync to “Islands within the Stream.” In every, they’re twins sure by motion.
Near the top, Saenz de Viteri says: “It is perhaps a good suggestion to maneuver. There’s an opportunity I feel that speaking doesn’t truly make all of us really feel higher.”
As a full drive of 4, they unfold out on the dance ground to Blondie’s “Dreaming.” Movement, we realized earlier within the piece, might not be everlasting, however its afterimage is lasting. And, identical to the price of admission for this present, dreaming, courtesy of Blondie, is free.
Many Happy Returns
Through Jan. 18 at Playwrights Horizons; playwrightshorizons.org.
