WHEN SHE DANCED
Such artists are the stuff of legend, whether their name is Isadora Duncan or Arthur Rimbaud or Judy Garland or John Lennon. They exert an intense hold on the imagination, though their grip sometimes seems disproportionate to their lasting achievements. This is especially true in the case of someone like Isadora, an extreme eccentric even by the standards of the particularly eccentric world of dance, who worked in an age before technology was able to accurately preserve the artistic experience. In this day of videocassettes and laser discs, it’s good to be reminded that it wasn’t very long ago that the only way to see an artist perform was to go see her live, and that the only way a dancer could practice to a Chopin etude was to find a pianist to play it for her.
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Of the supporting cast, Frank Langella look-alike Paul Stroili is an engaging Alexandros, but dull pacing dampens the role’s potential for bright comedy. Caitlin Hart (Isadora’s friend Mary), Paul Mullins (the bureaucrat Luciano), Pamela Webster (Isadora’s condescending French maid), and Cheryl Lynn Golemo (a misguided dance student) are stolidly competent, but nothing more (though Golemo’s nymphlike dance in ersatz Duncan style is cleverly choreographed by Milos). The show’s one remarkable performance comes from Susan Philpot as Miss Belzer, the shy Russian woman hired to translate for Sergei. The depth and complexity of feeling Philpot conveys in a few subtle but captivating strokes–a pulled-in gesture here, a tentative but radiant smile there–embodies the quality of being, not merely doing, for which Isadora Duncan strived.
