Review of Twyla Tharp's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" 2/26 (LONG)

As my wife and I arrived at San Diego's Old Globe Theater to see
[i]The Times They Are A-Changin'[/i], Twyla Tharp's musical/dance
production of Dylan's songs, we weren't sure what to expect.
Friends who had already seen it had varying reactions, all the way from
"Great!" to "I didn't understand it" to "It was
terrible." Neither one of us knew very much about dance; perhaps it
would be like a ballet, perhaps like a musical ... perhaps like a
gymnastics meet; according to the program, one of the dancers had even
been a member of the U.S. Olympic rhythmic gymnastics team in 1992.

The exterior of the Old Globe itself looks like its namesake,
Shakespeare's 16th-century Globe Theater. Inside, it's a
surprisingly intimate modern theater with an orchestra and balcony, the
wood railing of the balcony carrying the Shakespearian architectural
motif along within. We entered to see a curtain hanging across the
stage in arcs reminiscent of an old circus tent, covered with words
from Dylan's songs: "Thinking of a series of dreams;"
"Thought-dreams could be seen;" "Jokerman dance to the
nightingale tune." Mist curled over the top of the curtain, behind
which vague outlines of the stage set could be seen. Our seats were on
the far left about 2/3 of the way back from the stage, but we had an
excellent view and were only 15 rows from the front. As we found our
seats the usher told us that the show would run 90 minutes with no
intermission. The theater filled rapidly; the show was a sellout.

Then a simply dressed young man walked around the curtain from the left
side of the stage and went to the center as the lights went down. He
began to sing "The Times They Are A-Changin'" in a declamatory
style, the first verse a capella and then against a solo guitar
background. This was Coyote, the son of Captain Arab, an arcane carny
proprietor with a wooden leg and faded, dirty emcee's costume who
limped on stage replying in song, "You gotta serve somebody, you
gotta serve somebody." So far, no dancing at all, and no dialogue;
the only thing spoken was the song's lyrics.

Then the curtain fell to reveal the stage set and a corps of dancers
doing all sorts of weird gymnastics and circusy movements began
proceeding on stage as the music rose. Each dancer seemed to be doing
an individual circus act as they came on stage in a diagonal line
beside a series of what looked like sound baffles from a recording
studio that partially obscured the left half of the stage. In between
the baffles we could see a broken-down circus wagon with all sorts of
paraphernalia piled on its roof. On the right was a strange,
ramshackle neo-cyberpunk structure like something out of [i]Mad Max[/i]
or [i]Waterworld[/i], atop which sat the band. The only band member we
could see was J.J. Jackson, who was the lead guitarist and harmonica
player. The rest of the band was hidden by the structure. At the back
of the stage was a trampoline on which other dancers jumped and
flipped. The front of the stage turned out to be another trampoline.

The band segued into "Highway 61 Revisited," complete with police
car siren, as Arab sang, "Well, G-d said to Abraham, kill me a
son," amidst the odd carnival acts and roustabouts bouncing around.
There was so much happening that it was impossible to keep track of it
all. G-d Himself came on stage in the form of a tall, bearded,
brilliant white figure on stilts in a top hat with a radiating sun-like
object attached to it. The dancers were tumbling and rolling and
leaping around the stage, some still dressed like circus acts, others
dressed like carnival roustabouts. The roustabouts threw a girl in a
belly-button-baring costume up in the air as Coyote wandered through
and around all the action, looking lost and bemused. The girl turned
out to be Cleo, the animal trainer, a young woman exploited by Arab and
loved by Coyote. The audience began to get into the performance at
this point, giving the song loud applause as it came to an end. There
was still no spoken dialogue, and there would not be any spoken
dialogue in the entire performance; the whole burden of presenting the
story rested with the dancers, the choice of songs and the mimetic
interaction of the three main characters - Ahab, Coyote and Cleo.
The story seemed to be that Ahab wanted to turn his circus show over to
his son, Coyote, who was ambivalent about accepting charge of such a
disreputable enterprise.

Then everyone left the stage except for Cleo, Coyote and Arab. J.J.
played solo harmonica as Cleo began to sing "Don't Think Twice,
It's All Right" in a very slow tempo and the rest of the band came
in. A dancer dressed as a dog chased Coyote off stage into the band
structure and Arab faded into the shadows. The song was performed like
an anthem, stately and dignified, without dancers.

At the end of "Don't Think Twice," Arab re-appeared, walking to
front center as Cleo left the stage, and he began to sing "Just Like
A Woman." The arrangement of the song was very similar to the album
version. Then Coyote reappeared, hovering around Arab, chiming in on
the chorus and then taking the lead on the second verse as the song
turned into a duet and the two characters harmonized. Although the
actors walked around the center area of the stage, they were not
actually dancing and there were no other dancers visible during the
song.

Suddenly the whole show turned into a surrealistic carnival again as
three roustabouts towed a huge balloon of a bikini-clad woman wearing
pointy 1950's-style sunglasses across the stage and the band broke
into "Like A Rolling Stone," again staying fairly close to the
original album version's arrangement. Coyote was the lead singer,
holding a prop guitar that looked like it had been pulled out of
Picasso's painting of the three musicians. A dance chorus rolled and
twirled around behind Coyote, manipulating large black balls, probably
representing rolling stones. Other dancers jumped on the front and
rear trampolines. A clown walked across the stage carrying cue cards
with the song's lyrics, dropping the cards one by one in time to the
music, just like the video of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" from
[i]Don't Look Back[/i]. This whole sequence to LARS got a big rise
from the audience.

Now the band started playing "Everything Is Broken" in a driving
blues style as Cleo came back onstage, this time dressed in dungarees
with her hair bound up in a scarf, singing the song. Arab began
walking around the stage in slo-mo, kicking and beating up the carny
people who were cleaning up the cue cards left on stage from the
preceding sequence, also in slo-mo.

"Everything Is Broken" ended with Arab standing in shadow at center
stage. J.J. again played a harp solo as Coyote returned, gradually
first moving toward Arab, then moving away in a kind of
approach-avoidance cycle. This sequence then opened out into Arab
singing "Desolation Row," which was one of the highlights of the
show, with the dance action and stage lighting making it seem like a
cross between Hieronymous Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights"
and a series of Hogarth panels. Each verse was illustrated by dancers
acting out the lyrics. First a tightrope walker teetered across the
rear of the stage, followed by a dancer with a blind man's cane
playing the Blind Commissioner; two dancers performed some quick
gymnastics, and then Cleo came back on stage in her dungarees, sweeping
the floor as Cinderella. Coyote then played Romeo, dancing a [i]pas de
deux[/i] with Cleo. A dancer unfurled an umbrella and left it on stage
at the line, "Everybody is making love / Or else expecting rain."
Dr. Filth and his nurse came onstage, working over a contortionist
playing the sexless patient on an operating table beneath a large
overhanging Tiffany lamp, which got a round of applause from the
audience. Then the lights abruptly went down except for a spotlight on
Arab, solus at center stage, singing the song's last verse:
"Don't send me no more letters, NO! [pause] Not unless you mail
them from Desolation Row." Big applause from the audience for this
one.

Now the band began to play "Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35" with an old
Roaring '20's attack (but without horns) and the stage backdrop
displayed a spinning crystal globe light show effect straight out of
[i]The Untouchables[/i]. Coyote sang this tune with gusto, drunkenly
lolling all over the trampoline at the front of the stage along with
several dancers dressed as roustabouts, while a big giant crescent moon
lurched up and down in the sky in the background. A unicyclist reeled
through the action as a gymnast flew up into the ceiling. Finally the
dancer dressed as a dog pulled the curtain across the stage, leaving a
single dancer dressed as a hobo standing in front.

The band began to play "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the dancer began
his routine, acting out the lyrics. Coyote, singing the song,
descended from the ceiling sitting on an even bigger, sculptured
crescent moon built out of hundreds of light bulbs. A corps of
black-clad dancers joined the hobo on stage, acting as the Tambourine
Man's followers, sometimes circling him, sometimes sweeping behind
the curtain where they were visible as shadows cast on the curtain
itself, sometimes racing out through slashes in the curtain to re-join
the Tambourine Man in front. On the final verse, however, the
followers ran off stage, the Tambourine Man went behind the curtain,
and he crossed the stage as a cast shadow trailed by a skeletal shadow
of Death touching him on the shoulder.

The next song was "Man Gave Names To All The Animals." Ahab sang
the lead on this number, with Cleo reappearing in her opening
bare-midriff costume, over which she wore an animal trainer's red
sequined emcee's coat and red bowler hat. Each animal in turn was
represented by dancers cleverly costumed as that respective animal;
they danced with each other and with Cleo, the different animals
accumulating on stage verse by verse. For the last verse Ahab pulled a
snake out of his coat pocket and laid it on the floor; when the song
ended, he picked it up and it became a whip that he cracked, chasing
all the animals off stage.

Lines of red and yellow neon lights dropped from the ceiling as
Ahab's whip crack led into "Masters Of War." The band
arrangement was similar to Bob's recent live arrangements. Coyote
began to sing the lyrics standing nearly motionlessly at the left side
of the stage, reminding me of Eddie Vedder's monomaniacal
presentation of the song at the Bobfest; while dancers cavorted and
tumbled all over the place, Ahab strangled one of them with his whip,
then offering the whip to Coyote, who ignored Ahab and kept on singing,
now with more intensity and body language. Cleo appeared on stage
carrying a large white ball, which she began to use as a weapon,
pounding another dancer with it until he too died, lying atop the
motionless body of the strangled dancer. Cleo appeared to be stricken
with remorse and ran off stage. At the end of the song, Ahab offered
the whip to Coyote again. This time, Coyote took it, held it for a
moment and then threw it violently away into the band structure; then
Ahab slapped him and went off stage.

Left alone at the center of the stage, Coyote began to sing
"Blowin' In The Wind" a capella. After the first verse the band
joined in, and then Cleo came back, now dressed again in her dungarees
and head scarf, joining Coyote for a beautifully sung duet. The other
dancers slowly filtered on stage, acting as a silent, motionless
chorus, witnessing the elegiac performance. The song ended with a
somewhat cheesy Broadway wind-up, but it was effective and pulled a big
ovation from the audience.

Now a solo harp melody from J.J. introduced a wild "Please Mrs.
Henry." Ahab's daughter was surrounded by dancers portraying
drunken, partying roustabouts, each of them singing the song's verses
in turn while Coyote, bemused, watched from the sidelines. Ahab
appeared at the door of his circus wagon and threw Coyote a broom.
Coyote picked it up and walked over to the carousing group of dancers,
who continued singing; periodically during the rest of the song, Ahab
would reappear, throw something else at them (culminating in a chair)
and then going back inside his wagon, slamming the door in disgust.
The song ended and the band segued into "On A Night Like This," and
the roustabouts all began dancing with each other in a kind of cross
between an old-fashioned hoedown and St. Vitus's dance, Cleo dancing
with one of them, Coyote dancing with another (who eventually kissed
him). This also got a substantial amount of applause from the
audience.

At the end of this tune, the roustabouts all rushed off stage, leaving
Coyote and Cleo alone together for a single verse and release of "Lay
Lady Lay," the musical arrangement being similar to the album
version. Coyote persuaded an initially reluctant Cleo to lay
seductively down on one of the trampolines; just as he was about to
join her, they both jumped up and sang and danced a great duet version
of "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," with a musical accompaniment that
rocked and swayed and had great energy; this was what that song was
always meant to be. As their dance turned into a ballet [i]pas de
deux[/i], the spotlight shifted to Ahab, who appeared on stage to sing
"Simple Twist Of Fate," with music again similar to the album
version as Coyote and Cleo continued to dance in near-darkness.

Suddenly the stage exploded into life as the band launched into the
opening riff of "Summer Days." Dancers brought big jumping ropes
out and jumped and flipped around as Ahab lurched around and through
the action . Coyote then appeared at the rear of the stage to sing
"Gotta Serve Somebody" to Ahab, as the dancers used the rope to
make themselves look like a chain gang, then turned it into a tag team
wrestling ring. They dragged Ahab into the ring, took off his wooden
leg and left him lying broken in a spotlight at center stage. Ahab
slowly raised himself up on one elbow and sang the first verse of
"Not Dark Yet" with an Old Man River style delivery, segueing right
into "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" as the stage lights went down
to zero. Dancers appeared carrying flashlights whose beams, the only
things visible, pierced the stage fog like lasers. They used the
flashlight beams to make striking patterns, sometimes aiming them
straight up, other times aiming them outward into the audience. When
the lights came back up, Ahab was gone.

The dance crew came back on stage and began to pull Ahab's circus
wagon out onto center stage. The roustabouts and Cleo sang
"Maggie's Farm" while dismantling the wagon and cavorting all
over the stage. At the end of the song, they all left the stage,
leaving Coyote alone, contemplating the wreck of the wagon, singing
another verse of "Not Dark Yet" - "I've still got the scars
the sun didn't heal." He picked up Ahab's wooden leg while
kneeling, singing, "My sense of humanity has gone down the drain."
The musical arrangement was very slow, and Coyote sang it with great
feeling. Cleo replied by beginning to sing "I Believe InYou" as
the roustabouts slowly filed back in to watch that song turn into a
stunning duet with Coyote. They pulled the wagon offstage and lowered
the red and yellow neon lights back down from the ceiling. Coyote then
sang "Dignity" surrounded by red leotard-clad gymnasts dancing in
formation, and the show ended with Coyote and Cleo singing "Forever
Young" in a speeded-up tempo, with Ahab, suspended from the ceiling
sitting on the huge lightbulb-festooned crescent moon, waving at the
audience and smiling. The audience erupted into a standing ovation as
the actors and dancers ran through what was obviously a pre-scripted
coda, and as we made our way out of the theater, we saw that people
weren't going straight out to their cars; the entrance court was
filled with groups of people discussing what they had just seen.

It's impossible to summarize this entire show. I don't know enough
about dance to give any sort of reasonable critique of that aspect of
it. A lot of the dance action seemed more like gymnastics to me than
classical or modern dance. Sometimes there was so much dancing that it
was impossible to assimilate everything that was happening at once, but
at other times the dance added a tremendous amount to the lyrics and
the song delivery, as was the case with the skeletal Death
shadow-figure in "Mr. Tambourine Man." The three lead actors were
very good singers, and they performed the songs with what I thought was
tremendous respect and feeling, although in a few cases the song
arrangements had Broadway-style repeats of the last verse, closing
cadences and so forth added on, which the purist Dylan fan might find
objectionable. The overall impression given by the flow of the entire
show is that of a Broadway revue; one song and dance number after
another, with a minimal story line running through it to tie the scenes
together - but surreal, with multiple levels of meaning - something
like a recombinant DNA experiment combining [i]42nd Street[/i] with
Thornton Wilder's [i]The Skin Of Our Teeth[/i]. In sum, [i]The
Times They Are A-Changin'[/i] is extremely interesting and well worth
watching. It would be really fascinating to see this show performed
with Bob in the role of Arab!

H.

.

Quantcast