Joe Goode Performance Group in Goode’s Wonderboy. Photo by RJ Muna.
Joe Goode’s latest collaborator is the justly celebrated puppeteer Basil Twist. That information may be the publicity tag for the captivating Wonderboy, but it’s not what makes the piece important.
The news, praise be, is that real, unambiguous, sinew-stretching choreography has returned to the center of Goode’s creative universe. It has been years since the San Francisco-based company has been unleashed to dance with the lushness, bracing extroversion and unambiguous sweetness displayed Friday (June 6) during the opening performance of the Joe Goode Performance Group’s annual two-week season at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater. Fear not: the antic Goode whom audiences have come to love over the past 22 years returns in the first part of the evening and a reduced version of his hilarious Maverick Strain (1996) returns with him. An unusual event: I mean, it’s not every dance company director who, in full dude ranch regalia, greets you in the lobby before the performance.
But, on to the show. The contribution of Twist, a Bay Area native acclaimed internationally for his ingenious puppetry, is a little fellow posed on a window frame, which is moved around the stage periodically during the 40-minute Wonderboy. Goode’s dancers alternate in manipulating the figure and, standing on the other side of the stage, the men, in turn, put the words in his mouth; those texts are drawn from the writings of
Sam Shepard, Thom Gunn, Christopher Isherwood and Krishnamurti.
Soon, the clouds part around Goode’s theme. Wonderboy is an investigation of unarticulated, let alone unconsummated desire, yes, of an amatory and even sexual nature. Very soon, the puppet becomes a surrogate for every sensitive soul who cannot mend the disconnect between ambition or desire and the follow-up. He enters the fray, raised high above the crowd, becoming the center of the action in a fantasy episode that resonates through the hall. There’s probably a bit of the wonderboy in all of us; in this case, wish fulfillment really does seem to conjure miracles. A witty pop score by Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi, delivered live, propels these events.
Wonderboy could not have come at a better time. In Goode’s recent work for his own company, structured movement has been gradually retreating to the periphery, as spoken texts have increasingly occupied the center of the design. Here, dance not only dominates. It does what it has done since time immemorial: It expresses what words cannot. That Twist can wrap his puppet in shades of meaning seems an act of considerable genius.
This was certainly an occasion to salute Goode’s dancers, who are frequently praised for their theatrical allure, but insufficiently lauded for their movement skills. The current cast includes Melecio Estrella, Mark Stuver, Jessica Swanson, Andrew Ward, Patricia West and Alexander Zendzian (all listed as co-creators), and Wonderboy capitalizes on their dancing, like no other Joe Goode Performance Group piece in recent years. For the wooden protagonist, the dancers seem to play out a series of scenarios. We see them demonstrating their physical prowess in a sequence of unison push-ups. We watch them at play in a set of gentle, contact improvisation-scented partnering situations and we watch them in more intimate couplings (by now, the men have stripped to the waist). Like the best art, Wonderboy percolates with a universal message. It’s Goode’s most absorbing, most humanistic effort in many moons.
Maverick Strain was initially unveiled as an installation at YBCA. Friday, except for some ill-advised pre-performance action in the clogged lobby and a bit of play in the theater aisles, it re-emerged as a proscenium piece, and, to these eyes, much improved. Goode has cited Arthur Miller’s script for the John Huston movie, The Misfits, but I also detect allusions to Howard Hawks’ classic western, Red River. Still, in its parody of macho myth, in its "ride ’em, cowgirl" sensibility, I find the piece closest in spirit to Andy Warhol’s gay underground classic, Lonesome Cowboys; one half expected Taylor Mead to pop up from under a petticoat.
In this gallimaufry of song, speech, movement and cross-dressing, Goode, anchored in furry chaps, is often at his droll best, extracting some of Miller’s dialog for his then-wife Marilyn Monroe and giving it that extra ironic twist. Goode’s laconic delivery of his assignment contributes to the jollity, and so do the others’ performances, pitched somewhere between melodrama and camp. The unison duet between dance hall girls Swanson and West at the beginning is especially appealing. Goode’s final tableau leaves no doubt of his views about the American frontier mystique, and it’s brilliant.
Beth Custer’s original score, dispatched by the composer and her trio, captures the mood of the piece perfectly.
Joe Goode Performance Group repeats this program Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre. For tickets, call (415) 978-2787 or visit www.ybca.org.
For more information:
Read Joe Goode's thoughts about his collaboration with puppeteer Basil Twist on his blog
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