But if only as one last reminder that this year’s Fringe has been a bit more multidisciplinary than it was in years past, I thought I’d point out what the WashPost has to say about the Tehreema Mitha Dance Company’s contribution to the festival.

I’ve always been impressed by the technique and the focus Tehreema and her disciples exhibit in the more traditional Bharatanatyam repertoire — that’s some heavy-duty stuff — and by the expressive range she finds in both that material and in the classical-contemporary fusion pieces she choreographs.

So check ‘em out, if that’s the sort of thing that appeals to ya. Three shows left: Tonight at 8:30, Saturday at 5, Sunday at 5.

Remaining performances:
Saturday, July 19 @ Noon; Sunday, July 20 @ 8 PM

They say: “Helen Hayes Award-winning playwright Peter Coy explores undercurrents of abandonment in Poe’s tragic personal life, thinly veiled in art. Horrifying and humorous, ‘a delicious, confusing, delicate, sensual delight’; jazz, ghosts, poetry and song. A phantasmagoric ‘dream within a dream – none of this is real’ but it’s all true.”

Tabitha’s take: I don’t know if I should write a review or a term paper, but I was an English major, so it’s a happy conundrum. This is a little gem of a show. The concept of pairing standards with classics isn’t new, but Porter and Poe? Really? Well, yes. The songs are like punctuation marks, resulting from and driving the action while offering sly commentary.

What’s more, Poe is funny. Not all the time. If you want creepy Poe, you’ll get him, but the power of this piece is its emotional exploration. Here Poe is more than than a hollow-eyed tortured soul. He’s pitiful, pained, ebullient, cocky, angry, thoughtful – pretty human, actually. As Poe, Jon Cobb is riveting as he takes the audience through stories, poems, letters, and dreams. Equally mesmerizing is Patti Finn, who is the vocal part of all the jazz and plays the women in Poe’s life and work. They are aided flawlessly by Bob Bennetta on piano and Jim Ryan on bass. Together, the ensemble is thoroughly entertaining.

The play deliberately blurs the lines between dream and reality by transitioning invisibly from Poe’s life to his stories, so there may be a few confusing moments until you remember that no, Poe did not bury an ax in his wife’s head and build a brick wall around her, but that’s part of the fun.

I want to own, read, and mull this play. Oh, the discussions we could have about genius and madness, the school of psychological criticism, the layers of meanings behind the doll used in the production, and yes, there’s more, but I guess I’ll save it for the term paper.

See it if: You know a lot about Poe, or want to know more about Poe; heck, see it if you can spell Poe.

Skip it if: Thinking gives your brain an ouchie.

Remaining Performances:
Sunday, July 13 @ 5:30 PM; Sunday, July 20 @ 6 PM
Sunday, July 24 @ 7 PM; Saturday, July 26 @ 1 PM

They say: “Join Word Dance Theater in their multi-media production of the life and times of Isadora Duncan, the great American artist and revolutionary. Using Duncan’s own words, actress Sarah Pleydell embodies Isadora. WDT dancers provide brilliant reconstructions of Isadora Duncan’s choreography, and Marcia Daft creates a soundscape using the beautiful music that was the thru-line of Duncan’s life and work. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience one of America’s greatest geniuses.”

Brian’s take: I find it very challenging to apply words to dance. To me, they kind of kill the point.

Not that it can’t be done, as it is elegantly in the Word Dance Theater’s production at the Harman Center Forum. You can truly watch the mother modern dance give birth to the form in this homage not only to Isadora Duncan, but to movement itself.

The piece is divided into segments of language and segments of dance, taken directly from Duncan’s texts and her choreography, respectively. Sarah Pleydell, who compiled the script, narrates as Duncan from a plush divan. The director has given her very little opportunity to move–she lounges nearly the entire performance–but save a few weak moments, Pleydell commands Duncan’s words with masterful gestures and thoughtfully measured delivery.

And then there are the dances, performed by Cynthia Word (also artistic director), Valerie Durham, and Ingrid Zimmer, which, over the course of eleven pieces, run the emotional gamut from joy to childhood to love to patriotism to mourning to communism. (Well, I’m not sure if communism is officially part of the “emotional gamut,” but I digress.) Some are better than others–and a few are spectacular–but each resonates vibrantly with Pleydell’s soliloquy and, even more impressively, her intent gaze as she watches the movement unfold before her.

One number bears particular mention, although I hate to demean it by even calling it a “number.” In 1913, Duncan’s two children drowned in the Seine. At this moment in the show, Word stands center stage and performs a painfully physical ave in low light. Her gestures are revealed so slowly, so precisely, and at such a microscopic level, that you barely even catch her moving. She refuses to utter an extraneous breath. Draped with a simple white linen, she might as well be a trembling marble statue. Word never moves her feet, and so the faintest tilt of the head or quiver of the torso sends a ripple of sorrow through the theater. Duncan often spoke of ever-elusive “ideals” in movement, gesture, and the human form. Word would certainly have made the master proud.

See it if: “You’re just not a dance person” (I can hear you saying it from here, and that’s no excuse).

Skip it if: You find yourself easily irritated by less-than-ideal recordings of classical music, no matter how talented the dancers moving to them are.