Motion and emotion

Despite technical brilliance, Mark Morris troupe never catches fire

March 21, 2009|Thea Singer, Globe Correspondent

Choreographer Mark Morris's dances are looking a bit less full-throated these days. What exactly was missing from the three Morris classics that Celebrity Series of Boston presented at the Cutler Majestic Theatre Thursday night - "Bedtime" (1992), "All Fours" (2003), and "V" (2001) - is hard to pin down: The renowned musicality was intact, with the steps and gestures and multi-layered invention springing from the score. The live music was exquisitely played and sung by the company's own ensemble, with several artists appearing courtesy of Emmanuel Music. And the technically acute dancers were bursting with brio. And yet.

Many of Morris's dances, despite the structural formalism at their core, have in the past brought a lump to my throat. It had something to do with their pristine architectural beauty juxtaposed against their utter humanness. They hit you smack in the heart. But not so Thursday night.

"Bedtime," a three-part song of a dance to Franz Schubert's "Wiegenlied," "Standchen," and "Erlkonig," premiered in the very same theater (it had a different name), in 1992.

"Wiegenlied" ("Cradle Song") opens, and closes, with three dancers lying curled on their sides at the stage apron. Thursday night, Elisa Clark, in gold, hovered over each in turn, blessing the sleeper with a lullaby, her leg swinging fore and aft, her back arcing deeply. Clark is beautiful, and her extensions go on forever. But she doesn't have the taut opposition in her limbs of, say, Ruth Davidson, who played the part in the past.

In "Standchen" ("Seranade"), a chorus of eight in blue stands out against four characters now in silhouette, now with their fingers to their lips as if to echo the repeated word "liese" ("quiet") before curving through the air and letting their hands cup another's head.

"Erlkonig" tells the tale of a young boy's abduction by the Erlking, the bogeyman of Goethe's poem of the same name. In earlier productions it has been both menacing and witty, with splayed hands waving a crown of doom over the Erlking's head, and the boy's father swooping his son high to save him, the boy's legs careening into a diamond. This time around, though, the father (Joe Bowie) and son (David Leventhal) are too close in heft for the relationship to ring true, and for the boy's vulnerability to hit home.

Rigorous in its intensity, "All Fours" takes Bela Bartok's ragged, buzzing String Quartet No. 4 and gives it a human, if not a terrifically heartfelt, face. A group of eight in black plays against couples in white and/or black - a small departure from the dance's usual white and browns as the piece's costumes were delayed in shipping from Louisville to Boston for opening night.