In the coming weeks, you can see a dance-theater festival, a one-woman play, a twisted whodunit and a madcap opera. The month-long festival Bodies in Motion is already underway in the Northampton Community Arts Trust building. A co-production of A.P.E. @ Hawley and the School for Contemporary Dance and Thought (SCDT), it’s a multidisciplinary feast of performances, films, workshops, installations, and exhibits featuring local and national artists. The focus is on “diverse approaches to dance as a performative art,” with new works premiering weekly. Info and tickets at
scdtnoho.com.
An adjunct to the festival is Cast, Stage, Author, a free, three-part installation and performance work by the New York-based collaborative a canary torsi, exploring issues of perception and representation. The first part, Author, described as “a participatory video installation that invites each visitor to interact with the performers through a text-based computer game,” runs at the Arts Trust through Jan. 31.
Then the company moves to Amherst College for Cast and Stage, Jan. 31-Feb. 1. A script written by a computer for each performance, and handed to the actors on the spot, is followed by “a visual and aural fantasia that explores what an audience sees and perceives.” Call 413-542-2277 for reservations.
Ira Levin’s mystery-thriller Deathtrap is playing at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield, running through Feb. 16. It’s a classic rendition of the multiple-switcheroo, can’t-trust-anyone suspenser, often tongue-in-cheek but with real jolts and surprises. The setup — a famous but dried-up playwright covets a young rival’s script and plots to do him in to get it — is only the entrée to the plot’s hairpin twists. There’s also a play (called Deathtrap) within the play and plenty of theater-world jokes.
Majestictheater.com.
When Nilaja Sun brought her solo play Pike St. to the Academy of Music in November, I called her “the most exciting solo performer I’ve ever seen.” The show is up at Hartford Stage through Feb. 2. This is an expanded physical production, with a full set, but, as she told me, “the same cast.” That is, 12 characters, all played by her.
Among these is Evelyn Vega, whose daughter Candi is severely disabled. Sharing the cramped Lower East Side apartment is Evelyn’s brother Manny, a decorated war veteran just back from Afghanistan, and her disreputable father, called Papí. It takes place in 2012, as Hurricane Sandy barreled toward Manhattan bringing devastating floods. Sun’s portrait of a family caught up in chaos is equal parts stunning technique and enormous heart. If you didn’t catch it in Northampton, head for Hartford. Hartfordstage.org.
Panopera, the Valley’s home-grown, artist-led opera company, follows up last winter’s Sweeney Todd with another tonsorial tale, The Barber of Seville, Jan. 24 & 26. Sweeney is Sondheim’s grisly musical about a crazed barber plotting murder and revenge; Barber is Rossini’s classic opera-buffa about a quick-witted barbiere improvising plots to unite true lovers.
Imitating this narrative, the production, as directed by Valley theater veteran Sam Samuels, imagines “a penniless but determined opera troupe” improvising their performance from “backstage odds and ends.” Guest conductor Jonathan Hirsch leads a full orchestra in the performance, sung in Italian with supertitles.
Panopera.org.
Chris Rohmann is at StageStruck@crocker.com and valleyadvocate.com/author/chris-rohmann.