CONCERT REVIEW
January 23, 2025
Financial Times: Hypnotic Variations — In A Grove
George Grella from Financial Times reviewed highlights from Prototype Festival, including our production of In A Grove:
Less radical but no less new is Christopher Cerrone’s In a Grove (at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, Manhattan). This had a superb cast of soprano Mikaela Bennett and tenor Paul Appleby as newlyweds travelling through a forest, where they encounter a stranger in the form of baritone John Brancy. It’s an adaptation of the 1922 Ryūnosuke Akutagawa story that became Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon — death is at the core, each character retelling their experience as variations on a theme.
With a foundation of ambient sound and vocal writing that underlines the most important moments with plangent harmonies, this is often mesmerising. The variations grow more meaningful and tragic as they pass, and the effect grows hypnotic. Although Cerrone could have gone even deeper, this was a moving experience, punctuated by librettist Stephanie Fleischmann’s line for the murder victim, “And so, ready to prove I was invincible . . . ” From this have come many tragedies. ★★★★
Photo credit Maria Baranova