by Michelle Watters, Burlington Writers Workshop
Review of Transitions . . . in FlynnSpace on November 20, 2015.
Apparently I am psychic. My preview of “Transitions” had so many similarities to the actual “Transitions” I had to look over my shoulder to make sure the woman who had been hacking at the back of my head for the entire performance was not really a ghost with tuberculosis trying to tell me the future. Being psychic is tough business. How did I know ahead of time that there would be interpretive dance? I don’t know. The fact that there was such a striking similarity to an episode of The Golden Girls? So weird.
Well there is one thing I didn’t expect and that was that I would have so much fun. This was the first time I have seen a performance in the FlynnSpace. It has a dark basement vibe. It is small, intimate and a cross between beatnik poetry reading and 1970s Dad’s basement. When I first sat down in the second row I couldn’t help thinking I am way too close. I have issues with intimacy and being on the same level and less than two feet away from everything got me a little panicky. I felt as if I was in someone’s living room watching them, a sneaky voyeur.
I don’t want to tell all in this review mainly because there are two more performances yet to come and part of the fun of being in the audience was watching each story unfold. There was a slow suspense involved much like the turning of a page in a novel and I don’t want to spoil it for the people who have yet to take their turn in the audience. So I’m going to give you a little bit of the experience but not of all it.
Dark basement, drink in hand, six acts/stories. Are you ready? Okay. Cello and accordion music, silence, lights, scene opens on a couch, two chairs and a table, a doorway. The floor and table is covered with boxes. First story is about two sisters coming together for the first time after their mother’s funeral to sort her stuff. Second story two lovers with a big age gap argue about what they meant to each other. There were so many great one liners in this particular story I could not remember them all but I will tell you this: I chose the title of this review after my favorite one. Third story is a conversation between a documentarian and a woman getting ready to go to jail. Fourth story Mormon cult escapees with secrets. Fifth story I really don’t want to tell you anything about this so you can see it for yourself (hint). It is the one with interpretive dancing (!) and it made me smile in my soul, for real. Sixth story if you have seen even one episode of The Golden Girls this will feel familiar to you.
Maybe it was the intimate feel of the room or the lighting but this was definitely not a theater experience I have ever had before. It wasn’t flawless. Sometimes the lines were almost poetic and other times the silence went on for way too long and I found I had to make my own interpretations, but it was different and refreshing. I really loved the fact that it was only women performing and I don’t really know why; maybe it was comforting.
So get off the couch and your iPhone, gather some friends and head down to a dark hole to watch people who are creative and really love theater. As a bonus they like to swear as much as I do. This is isn’t your Dad’s basement so you won’t have to sneak sips off weird liquor nobody drinks like vermouth. Afterwards you can try to remember which episode of The Golden Girls that last story was most like and if the performers were really drinking all that red wine or just pretending.
