Stay presented by Theater Of The First Amendment at Michael R. Klein Theatre

Stay

Michael R. Klein Theatre
450 7th Street NW Washington

STAY, an innovative blend of theater, modern dance, multimedia videography and music, premieres at the Harman Center for the Arts Lansburgh Theatre.

Presented by Theater Of The First Amendment

Thru - Nov 27, 2011

Price: $15-$55

Show Type: Performance Art

Running Time: 1 hour,30 mins with no intermission

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Stay Reviews

Average Rating based on 5 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Somewhat Recommended

"... The rocks litter the wistful beachscape that is the dreamlike setting for “Stay,” a brave but unsatisfying meditation on loss, yearning and impermanence making its world premiere at the Lansburgh Theatre. Conceived by playwright Heather McDonald and choreographer Susan Shields, and written and directed by McDonald, this ambitious 90-minute piece attempts to speak in a new and meaningful way about some of the most basic and oft-noted truths of human experience: that change is constant and usually difficult, and that happiness, and even satisfaction, can be fleeting. Unfortunately, “Stay” — produced by Theater of the First Amendment — tackles these issues so explicitly and emphatically that the show often feels clunky and mawkish."

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- Celia Wren

Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended

"... The best non-dance moments come when three men sit around an imaginary bar, drinking and riffing on stories from the New Testament. (Who was that other Mary, anyway?) But any settling in with these characters is undermined by STAY’s inexplicable plot shifts. A couple that waltzes together in one scene is screaming, “I don’t love you anymore!” By all means, let’s see more playwrights and choreographers collaborate, but they should be wary of what happens when the dancing delivers the work’s themes more effectively than the words."

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- Rebecca J. Ritzel

Washingtonian - Somewhat Recommended

"... Devised works can be a missed bag, often feeling more like a patchwork of individual scenes than one work as a whole. But STAY is surprisingly cohesive, thanks to its strong underlying emotional core; an exploration of bittersweet nostalgia, love, and loss. The patriarch of sorts is Blue (played by the ever-impressive John Lescault), who presides over a community of islanders and children with his partner, Eilean (Naomi Jacobson). During STAY’s first dance sequence, performed by Kalynn Marin and Aaron Ingley to a gorgeous piece of music by Ludovico Einaudi, Blue and Eilean watch the younger pair while dancing themselves, a nod to the unavoidable passage of time."

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- Sophie Gilbert

MD Theatre Guide - Somewhat Recommended

"... The show never builds anything as majestic or dramatic as its music (used with permission by Eluvium, Einaudi, Johannsen, Elbow, Cloud Cult, and Moby). The metaphorical waves of the beach setting appear to be well at work washing away any depth or great clarity from the stories being told before they have a chance to reach the illusion of permanence. In this sense, that McDonald’s show is presenting a meditation on things not lasting, that we never have enough story told to care about the characters being introduced, that we get mere fragments and brief, apparently very emotional dance pieces, gorgeously performed but without any clear substance to consider, it is certainly a success."

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- Graham Pilato

DCTheatreScene - Recommended

Stay is a story in performance featuring theatre, dance, music and SLAM multimedia. The premiere production of this collaboration was developed in workshop by Theater of the First Amendment, and it has all the markings of an interesting experiment of form realized through beautiful stage pictures.

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- Susan Galbraith

Stay presented by Theater Of The First Amendment at Michael R. Klein Theatre

Stay

Stay Reviews

Washington Post - Somewhat Recommended

Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended

Washingtonian - Somewhat Recommended

MD Theatre Guide - Somewhat Recommended

DCTheatreScene - Recommended

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