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MCC’s “New Voices”
McLennan Theatre’s “New Voices, New Beats: A Festival of the Now” showcases short plays and original dance numbers, but leaves the audience torn between wanting more and wondering what’s going on. There’s some clever dance routines spanning tap, a cane routine, hip-hop, swing dancing and more, plus an eye-catching dancer in lithe Shauna Brown. There’s a short pre-show concert from a pretty tight seven-person McLennan Jazz Ensemble led by Rob Page.
There’s also some good character acting - Eric Poff as a gay caped crusader who builds a neighbor’s self-confidence in “SuperHero;” Courtney Mock and Casey Pierce stuck in that no-man’s-land of a relationship called “just friends” in “The Kiss” (the evening’s best play); and a breezily confident Marc Novick trying to convince a roommate (Nick Catoire) he can father a child with minimal human interplay in “For Rent: Fourth Floor Walk-up, Womb for Two.”
It’s the nature of the beast that such samplers of small plays leave an audience wanting to see what actors could do with a longer play to develop more of their characters.
But director-choreographer Jerry MacLauchlin’s framework connecting these short one-acts by Mark Harvey Levine, David L. Meth and Midway High School grad Tyler Wayne Baldwin (“The Pathway”) plus eight dance numbers proves a distraction.
There’s a Production Manager (Myra Ybanez) who calls cues, hurries actors and dancers into their places and supplies some running chit-chat. While she’s running what’s presumed as a live show, there’s not much continuity holding that show together, at least from the audience’s perspective.
Dancers are costumed casually and eclectically, wearing street clothes and dance gear more typical of a rehearsal than a performance. Dance numbers also don’t connect with the subjects of the plays, though dancers are integrated into the action of “For Rent.”
Relationships and friendships are common threads in the plays, save, perhaps, for the opening “How I Won the Lottery (and Kept Myself Out of Prison for Almost a Month.” There, a slightly menacing redneck Bobby Bob (Seth Ramsey) and his girlfriend Lu-Ellen (Elizabeth Vining) visit a convenience store run by the Indian-born Baggy (Eddie Moralez), but the scene never breaks free of its stereotypes.
Saturday night’s audience found plenty to like in “New Voices,” however, and gave the evening’s cast a warm reception.
“New Voices, New Beats” continues its run this weekend with performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at MCC’s Ball Performing Arts Center. Tickets cost $10, $8 for senior adults and students.
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