Motion makes ‘Contact’ so moving

Tom Titus

Just when we were beginning to think there was nothing new under

the spotlight in musical theater, along comes “Contact.”

There’s nary a note sung in this show, and only a modicum of

spoken dialogue. This places the entertainment burden on the third

element of the musical theater -- the dance. That’s something this

show has plenty of.

Director- choreographer Susan Stroman’s Tony Award-winning

production is at the Orange County Performing Arts Center through

Sunday, and it deserves a far longer engagement. This is a visual

smorgasbord -- three stories told entirely through the medium of

dance, each one more involving than the last.

The first segment, “Swinging,” transpires in 1767, inspired by

Jean-Honore Fragonard’s painting “The Swing.” The swinger in this

case is a saucy French lass (Mindy Franzese Wild) who’s pushed

skyward by a man who may be either her lover or her servant (the

truth doesn’t surface until late in the piece).

Wild gleefully triggers the libido of both attendants -- Keith

Kuhl and Dan Sutcliffe -- in this wordless exercise, a fitting warmup

for the passions to be stirred in the next two episodes.

Act Two, entitled “Did You Move?” and set in 1954 in an Italian

restaurant, places the accent heavily on comedy as the frustrated

wife of a macho mafioso type allows the performing muse free reign

while her husband is off fruitlessly searching for the bleeping rolls

he never can seem to obtain.

Meg Howrey blossoms with a vengeance in this lively segment,

boogieing down with the headwaiter (Gary Franco) and then switching

back to downtrodden domesticity when the humorless hubby (Adam

Dannheisser) returns. The variations on this theme become wilder and

funnier, including a waiter’s shell game with the husband over a

missing pistol.

The post-intermission entertainment is the extended title piece,

as a suicidal advertising man (Daniel McDonald) finds himself in a

New York poolroom bar attempting to make “contact” with a vision of

loveliness in a yellow dress who arrives nightly to dance with, and

tease, the male patrons.

Colleen Dunn plays this blond goddess, performing a variety of

exquisitely choreographed numbers, which twist her delectable body in

all sorts of directions as the smitten McDonald -- who’s no dancer --

can only watch in awe.

Stroman drew this character from a real woman she’d observed at a

Manhattan club who’d nod or shake her head to the various men

yearning to dance with her. Collaborating with playwright John

Weidman, Stroman expanded on the theme, pairing the wordsmith and the

whirling sprite in a most improbable romance. It’s set to some of

America’s greatest music, including “Big Noise From Winnetka” and

“Sing, Sing, Sing.”

“Contact” makes just that with its audience, and many a male

audience member will fall asleep that night with visions of a

gorgeous blond in a yellow dress swirling in his subconsciousness.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His

reviews appear Thursdays and Saturdays.