Danielle J.S. Gordon (left) is Eve, and Marcy Richardson is Vanity in Austin McCormick’s Seven Sins.
The work of Austin McCormick, the polymath artistic director and choreographer of Company XIV, may be handily classified as burlesque—costumer Zane Pihlstrom provides more than enough feathers, fringes, and pasties to justify it—but that label doesn’t really fit a production that incorporates dance, opera, pop music, and acrobatics as well. All are on display in his newest effort, Seven Sins.
The atmosphere at Théâtre XIV in Bushwick is louche and decadent. Performers wearing fur coats welcome the audience and guide them to their seats. Androgyny is the order of the day: even the men wear high heels and pronounced makeup; glitter is ubiquitous.
Seven Sins is inspired by the seven deadly sins in Catholic liturgy, of course, but McCormick is not interested in a cautionary tale, but a celebration of Vanity, Lust, Wrath, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth and Jealousy.
From left: Scott Schneider (as Adam), Pretty Lamé, and Emily Stockwell in the Jealousy sequence.
The first third of the evening, however, concentrates on Paradise and the Garden of Eden, with the fall of Adam and Eve (Scott Schneider and Danielle J.S. Gordon at the performance reviewed here; they alternate with Cemiyon Barber and Emily Stockwell, respectively). Almost immediately there’s a sense of fun in Pihlstrom’s costumes. Schneider, for instance, wears a gossamer outfit (thong underneath) with abs and genitalia painted on as the pair dance a pas de deux to Dean Martin’s “If You Were the Only Girl in the World.”
McCormick has an encyclopedic knowledge of music, from classical to Cardi B, that he uses in the dances and the circus acts. Part of the curiosity of the evening is hearing the selections that McCormick has rounded up as aural accompaniment. It’s one thing for Broadway shows to ransack a particular songwriter’s catalogue for songs to set to a made-up libretto, but that pales next to McCormick’s magpie abilities.
During a sawing-in-half sideshow trick, with Adam as the subject, Louis Armstrong raspily sings the bouncy “You Are Woman, I Am Man.” Company singer Lexxe follows, with “Here Comes the Snake” (1996) by Cherry Poppin' Daddies. (She also serves as the emcee who introduces each of the sins.) The Eden segment winds up with the 1960 ballad “Adam and Eve” as glitter rains down, symbolizing the pair’s sudden knowledge of their nakedness—or perhaps because Pihlstrom has somehow cornered the glitter market—and Paul Anka sings:
Life was filled with happiness
Until one day arose
A very great temptation
Well, you know how it goes.
From left: Nolan McKew and Troy Lingelbach perform acrobatics on the double lyra to music by Bizet. Photographs by Mark Shelby Perry.
Adam and Eve strip off their gossamer gowns and exit Eden, now aware of their sexuality, emphasized in a spangled dildo for Adam.
There may have been collaboration on choices of accompaniment. Presumably a soprano like Marcy Richardson—as Vanity, she does acrobatics on a pole while singing the aria “Una Furtiva Lagrima” from Gaetano Donizetti’s L'Elisir d'Amore—has some input. (Later on, inverting and entwining herself on the pole, she does the Cardi B selection “Money” for the Greed sequence).
No less successful than the music are McCormick’s dances. For Wrath, Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang” is the basis for a terrific tap number by Demi Remick, clad in red-and-gold glittered shoes and a ruffled skirt. She continues the sequence on patrons’ tables with Florence and the Machine’s “Kiss with a Fist”:
You hit me once
I hit you back
You gave a kick
I gave a slap
You smashed a plate over my head
Then I set fire to our bed.
The Jealousy sequence has a tango to Una Musica Brutal with two matadors (Troy Lingelbach and Nolan McKew) that segues into their stripping down and performing sultry acrobatics on a double lyra, while a bearded, gowned figure (Pretty Lamé) sings Bizet’s “Habañera” from Carmen. No one in the company seems to be merely one thing: dancers are acrobats, singers are gymnasts. High kicks that are nothing to sneeze at are, at Company XIV, ho-hum.
Perhaps the sequence that’s the most fun is Gluttony. It begins with folks in 18th-century costumes strutting on to “L’Estro Armonico.” From there one gets the Beatles’ “Piggies” (written by George Harrison), in which most of the cast and select tables of people don porcine half-masks, and then Katy Perry’s “Bon Appétit.” It all winds up with Cab Calloway’s swing number “Everybody Eats When They Come to My House” (1948), which, in this context, hardly seems so innocent:
Have a banana, Hannah
Try the salami, Tommy
Get with the gravy, Davy
Everybody eats when they come to my house.
In McCormick’s feast of visual eroticism and musical pleasures, temptation wins out.
The Company XIV’s production of Seven Sins runs through Oct. 31 at Théâtre XIV (383 Troutman St. in Bushwick, Brooklyn). Performances are Thursdays through Sundays and select Wednesdays. Tickets start at $85. For further information, call OvationTix at (866) 811-4111 or visit companyxiv.com.
