TRANSFORMATIONS
nytheatre.com review by Daniel Asher
August 15, 2002
Fairly tales, and their morals, try to give us through story telling and
imagination a context for how we feel, think, and reflect on our world,
and they are certainly not reserved for children. Transformations,
by Anne Sexton, uses a few of the classic "Brothers Grimm Fairly Tales"
to give context and a vehicle for her poems. This two-woman performance
piece winds us nonstop through seven selected tales and Sexton’s
emotional interpretations, connections, and understandings of them. The actresses are barefoot and with only a stool embody the different poems through simple but expressive choreography. It took about three or four minutes for Valerie Shull and Samantha Gleisten to warm up, but when they did, each looked like she was enjoying the taste that Sexton’s words were leaving in her mouth.
There were some homoerotic sexually charged references, word plays, interactions, and gestures that didn’t quite have the strength needed to land firmly. Neither actress seemed very comfortable repeating the line "A woman who loves a woman stays forever young."
