Rochester Fringe Festival, Day 3: PUSH Physical Theatre review

A large crowd filled the lobby and looped around the
entrance to the TheaterROCS stage at Xerox Auditorium
Friday night as people waited patiently for the doors to open for PUSH Physical Theatre’s first show at
Rochester Fringe. I gleaned from snippets of conversation in the rapidly
overheating space that many had seen PUSH perform before and were coming back
for more. They were, in PUSH parlance, “PUSHERS,” as followers are playfully
dubbed on the group’s website.

Darren and Heather Stevenson founded the group in Rochester
in 2000, wanting a vehicle in which to perform and create that embodied not
just dance and not just theater, but a host of other disciplines, including
mime, gymnastics and acrobatics. In short, it was to encompass whatever
physical vocabulary they needed in order to convey what they wanted to express.
In fact, the company includes a classically trained actor, Jonathan Lowry; a parkour (climbing urban spaces) instructor, martial arts
expert and gymnast, Andrew Salmon; and an actor, juggler, and gymnast from
Cirque du Soleil, AviPryntz-Nadworny.

The company’s first piece last night, the premiere of “The
Evolution of Aviation,” immediately demonstrated the impact of combining these
various forms of movement and expression. The members of PUSH possess a
startling ability to transform their bodies into other entities through
movement, sound, and expression. Without using any props, the performers became
gliders, helicopters, and planes, as well as the pilots of these vehicles. Starting
with the basic position of laying stomach to the ground, arms hovering sideways
like wings — the plunky strains of ragtime music
establishing the time period – the group progressed to more elaborate
depictions of flying machines. A flurry of hands became propellers. A central
dancer supported a smaller dancer in the air on either side of him to become a
plane’s wings. PUSH possesses the beguiling ability to access the inner world
of the imagination through physical transformation, that innate gift of early
childhood that most of us, sadly, left behind long ago.

The audience responded with resounding enthusiasm throughout
the show, bursting into laughter or chuckling with appreciation again and
again. In fact, humor and accessibility are part of the group’s wide appeal.
Unusual for a dance company — almost unorthodox, in fact — Darren Stevenson spends
substantial time on stage during every show addressing the audience, his truly
funny anecdotes and insightful, self-effacing quips chipping away at that
limiting wall between performers and their audience.

By far my favorite piece of the evening was the
gut-wrenching “Web,” a dark departure for the group. The 2011 piece closely
examines both the savagery of abuse and violence and its emotional and
psychological fall-out. Lowry was superb as the victim, literally harnessed and
roped to his torturers who yanked him around and mimicked striking him with
ugly sneers on their faces. Lowry’s classical background was evident, as finely
filtered expressions moved across his face to convey the pain, fear, and
bewilderment at the brutality he was enduring. His body was no less expressive
than his face. He recoiled again and again as would an animal under attack,
each time his resistance fading incrementally. The most affecting 10 seconds of
the night’s performance — in fact, the most affecting 10 seconds of anything
I’ve seen in Fringe so far — transpired after the brutes had finally tired of
their tormenting, unleashed Lowry and left him, a collapsed heap of humanity.
Salmon turned abruptly then and mimed a final fierce jerk in the air.
Brilliantly choreographed, Lowry responded as if he were still wearing the
rope; his body spasmed up into the air, then collapsed
back into itself.

(NOTE: PUSH Physical
Theatre performs again Saturday, September 22, at 10:30 p.m. in the Xerox Auditorium.
Don’t miss it.)