Odd angles are a highlight of Mark Morris’ “Pepperland” at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. Photo by Frank Wing/Cal Performances.
By WOODY WEINGARTEN
A black man scurries onstage and is introduced to the audience as white science giant Albert Einstein, only one of multiple racial- and gender-bending flashes and same-sex moves in a 12-part, 60-minute ballet, “Pepperland.”
The squatting dancer then mimics a classic photo of Einstein by sticking out his tongue and wiggling his brows.
A brunette Marilyn Monroe prances. Shirley Temple preens. So does Sonny Liston. They’re joined by other celebrities, all extracted from the cover montage of The Beatles’ groundbreaking concept album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” to which the ballet pays homage.
The life-size cartoons specifically flesh out “Magna Carta,” one of five original pieces by arranger/composer Ethan Iverson squeezed between seven Fab Four tunes used in the Mark Morris creation at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley.
“Pepperland” features oblique postures. Photo by Frank Wing/Cal Performances.
Morris’ out-of-the-box choreography — highlighted by dancers repeatedly standing and walking at virtually impossible angles, frequent three-person lifts and dancers melting/collapsing onto the floor, groupings of two and four, and frequent insertions of visual humor — guarantees to put a grin on your face and to keep it there.
The music itself is another story.
Fusion — which combined jazz harmonies and improv with rock, funk, and rhythm and blues — hadn’t yet become “the thing” in 1967. But that’s when The Beatles released their groundbreaking concept album, a whimsical stroke of imagination that superimposed psychedelia and pop onto rock rhythms.
Musical moments later, the term fusion became stretched beyond imagination following trumpeter Miles Davis’ experimentations with electric instruments and rock beats in his jazz.
Ultimately, to virtually everyone’s confusion, public relations flacks started defining fusion as the blending of any two or more genres of music, no matter how disparate, even when the notion of playing five tempos simultaneously was a part of the melodic landscape.
Iverson might not be fond of the label either, despite his arrangements rapidly slip-sliding like a roller coaster between slow, mournful blues to almost deafening jazz that features amazing runs on clarinet, sax, and drums.
“Pepperland,” which Morris first mounted in 2017 as a 50th anniversary tribute to the Sgt. Pepper album, was revived this weekend at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley under the auspices of Cal Performances. It not only merged elements of yesteryear seamlessly, it accomplished that task with light-hearted charm, dark aviator sunglasses, and Elizabeth Kurtzman’s brightly colored Mod-style costumes that couldn’t help but bring to mind 1967’s Summer of Love.
The often quaint and/or oblique dance moves wash, rinse, and repeat, then wash, rinse, and repeat again and again, their consistency playing off the low backdrop of irregular mylar-like pieces that reflect various colors.
Those who came to see unadulterated Beatles would have been disappointed. Iverson’s score, played live by seven musicians (including him on piano), emphasizes vocals by Clinton Curtis and an electric instrument, the theremin, which requires no human touch (though Rob Schwimmer’s body parts hover over it to produce a cornucopia of sound).
Theremin riffs varied, from lovely high-pitched wailings that might potentially evoke tears to screechy chalk-on-blackboard sounds that could trouble eardrums.
Innovative were moments like Iverson’s conversion in “A Day in the Life” of individual vowels into two-note grunting patterns. Amusing, too, was a double-take-inducing move in which one dancer is hidden behind another to create a laughable form.
Mark Morris (left) and Ethan Iverson collaborate on a tribute to The Beatles. Photo by Trevor Izzo/Cal Performances.
Morris seemed genuinely overjoyed Opening Night as he acknowledged with a smile and deep bow that a healthy chunk of the audience was giving his ballet a standing ovation.
“Pepperland” starts with company members in a tight circle smoothly dancing their way into a larger design. The ballet ends similarly, just in reverse. In between are tons of smooth transitions from one grouping to another. And yes, Morris’ flamboyant, carefree, entertaining approach to modern dance does delete much of the edginess and tension in the original Beatles musicology.
What’s left, sometimes, are mugging dancers and an over-all cutesiness with which all you can do is lean back and enjoy.
The Mark Morris Dance Group has one more show at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, this weekend — at 3 p.m. today. Info: 510-642-9988 or https://calperformances.org. Upcoming Cal Performances include the June 21 roots music of Rhiannon Giddens and The Old-Time Revue.
Sherwood “Woody” Weingarten, a longtime member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net or on his websites, https://woodyweingarten.com and https://vitalitypress.com.
