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Pity the Metropolitan Opera.
Those 3,800 seats, the wedding-cake balconies, the starburst chandeliers what aburdenit all is.
Chamber opera wont breathe there, and the rooms vastness overwhelms anything fine-grained, personal, alexandrine, careful.
In the recentEurydice,for instance, Matthew Aucoins opera ends when Orpheus steps on a piece of paper.
But how many people actually saw him do it?
Judging by the post-show conversations in my row, not enough.
So its a big deal that the Met has figured out how to get small.
Sher and the impressive company have built the performances at exactly the right size for the space.
DidIntimate Apparelactually need to become an opera?
As a proof of concept for an operatic co-production model, though, it was an inspired choice.
Who doesnt want to see this play again?
And the concept works.
Imagine a fighter jet roaring past you barely overhead.
It feels dangerous just to be in its path.
A certain flicker of danger is also part of Clare Barrons graphicShhhhat the Atlantic Theater Companys small Stage 2.
Its a play similarly interested in intimacy and underwear and sex and misery.
A Barron play without laughter is tough to take.
Here she plays the lead character, Shareen,and her detached half-smile sets the tone.
Shareen talks about crossed sexual lines with her not-a-boyfriend Kyle (Greg Keller); Barron smiles.
Primarily, can you make an audience feel something without touching them?
Nottage uses suggestion and kinetic sympathy: She shows us silk; we feel it against our cheek.
Shes brave, certainly, and she must feel this play deeply.
Intimate Apparelis at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre.Shhhhis at Atlantic Stage 2 through February 20.
