Wicked Dreams, Pleasant Nightmares at the American Cabaret Theatre

[Jennifer Litz]

The idea for Motus Dance Theatre's "Wicked Dreams, Pleasant Nightmares" was potentially haunting. But the execution was lacking.

I knew from reading reviews and descriptions that this play was a modern dance interpretation of a restless sleep session. I expected all the abstract, brooding and avant-garde scenes ensuing. I was looking forward to them, actually.

The act opens with the lead dancer's unrestful sleep. The lanky girl lies on a series of black boxes, tossing artfully to the beautifully cacophonous soundtrack that would represent her slumber. The choreography here is interesting; there's only so much a dancer can do while lying down. But the performer executes the artistic series with sharp, exactingly repetitive movement, beginning the entrancement.

The lead dancer is soon joined by many more—apparitions of her sleep, incarnations of herself. They move in sporting exaggerated movements that belong to their personas: the stiff-moving working stiff, the bouncy runner, the jazz-footed audiophile. The scene reaches for Lynchian status, but comes off more like a parody of modern art. This was a little too free-form for me. The other dancers seemed to lack the grace and sharpness of their leader: Their movements hardly seemed artistic.

This was an unfortunate theme in the piece, which consequently failed to captivate me. During scenes like one where the dreamer's apparitions dance around her in eerie golden masks, a series of wiggly robot movements are not executed uniformly down the line of dancers. Similar sloppiness: An earlier lesbian-tinged scene had two dancers' heads shaking like springs to a quickly-pointed beat—without attempting uniformity.

I appreciate the attempt. I appreciate the phantasmal motifs. I appreciate the creativity—especially toward the end, where a dark pillow fight elicits waking screams, introducing the players' voices for only the second time, and brilliantly threatening to break the illusion of the dream and the act.

… If the illusion had been in place.