I wish I would've had the presence of mind to do the theatre preview on Theatre Gigante's show rather than the Skylight's this week. There are a couple of reasons for this . . . the most selfish probably being that I'd like to have had the opportunity to have spent more time with the show.
Theatre Gigante's one-weekend only Three Other Sisters only has two more performances a of this writingtonight at 8pm and tomorrow at 8pm. With a running time of only roughly an hour, the show itself is very brief. Like so many previous Theatre Gigante/Milwaukee dance Theatre shows, The Three Other Sisters is here and gone like a dream come Monday.
The piece is based on a Montenegran legend of three sisters who have all fallen for the same sailor. He goes out to sea, leaving the three sisters to wait. Simone Ferro, Isabelle Kralj and Janet Lilly play the three sisters against a very iconic R.H. Graham set. There are three chairs. And there are three window frames that almost appear to be hovering in mid air. Each of the three dancers plays a distinctly different sister. Each one has a distinctly different relationship with the sailor.
The sailor is played by Vlado Kreslin who also provides a musical framework for the show. With solo voice and acoustic guitar, who sounds a bit like a cross between John Prine and Bob Dylan and something else entirely. He's accompanied by Seth Warren-Crow on very basic and soulful percussion. It's a very wistful program. We get a profound feeling of how people incarcerate themselves with their own passion. Each sister slowly comes to recognize what waiting for the return of the sailor uniquely means for them.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
The spoken words here aren't terribly deep or intricate. It's all very simple and minimalist right down to the choreography. And it's all quite beautiful. There may not be any staggering insight into the nature of human emotion, but there really doesn't need to be. The piece works like a narrative songyou know where it comes from and where it's going, but there's a great deal of pleasure in watching it go from point A to point B in roughly one hour onstage. This is a good show that fits many moods. There are only two performances left. There's no reason a show this universal shouldn't be sold-out for its last two performances before Monday.
The Three Other Sisters runs through March 13th at the Off-Broadway Theatre
