In Terrence McNally’s Fire and Air, the Russian ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev says, “I invented the 20th century.” He’s not far off.
Diaghilev’s Paris-based Ballets Russes was central to the evolution of concert dance in the early 1900s, its collaborations with up-and-coming avant-garde artists of the day crucial to the development of modernism. Dancer-choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky was one of them.
Fire and Air, one of the last plays written by the prolific and celebrated McNally (Master Class, Love! Valour! Compassion!) delves into the stormy professional and personal relationship between the two men. The 2018 drama is receiving its regional premiere by Dallas’ Uptown Players in the intimate Wyly Studio Theatre.
Their work was controversial, starting with Nijinsky’s 1912 The Afternoon of a Faun, which ended with him miming masturbation. The next year, he choreographed The Rite of Spring to Stravinsky’s primal score and caused a riot. Nijinsky (Dominic Pecikonis) left the Ballets Russes after his marriage led to a rift with Diaghilev (Patrick Bynane).
Fire and Air also portrays Diaghilev’s cousin and first lover Dima Filosofov (Aaron Cash), his maid Dunya (Lisa Fairchild), arts patron Misia Sert (Marianne Galloway) and Nijinsky’s replacement, Léonide Massine (Danny Vanegas). Cheryl Denson directs.
Details
Through March 17 at 2400 Flora St. $45-$55. uptownplayers.org.
