Jordan Wright
May 11, 2013
Special to The Alexandria Times
The Musketeers and D’Artagnan: Hector Reynoso as Porthos, Dallas Tolentino as D’Artagnan, Ben Cunis as Athos and Matthew Ward as Aramis. Photo credit Johnny Shryock
“It is supposed to be the most difficult task for a dancer to leap into a definite posture in such a way that there is not a second when he is grasping after the posture, but by the leap itself he stands fixed in that posture. Perhaps no dancer can do it — that is what this knight does. The knights of infinity are dancers and possess elevation. They make the movements upward, and fall down again; and this too is no mean pastime, nor ungraceful to behold.” – Soren Kierkegaard
Synetic’s dancers excel in perceived weightlessness and aerialistic suspension and in this production of The Three Musketeers their talent is well utilized. Thankfully most of the play is good old-fashioned swashbuckling, fight-till-the-death duels and leaping tour-de-force dances performed with a viscerally physical athleticism for which the ensemble is best known. It’s the script that gets in the way of the action.
Dallas Tolentino as D’Artagnan, Mitchell Grant as the Duke of Buckingham and Brittany O’Grady as Constance. Photo credit – Johnny Shryock
Playwright brothers Ben and Peter Cunis, seem to have conceived the play to serve as backdrop to the fight scenes using the speaking parts as a vehicle to hang the piece together until the next dramatic swordplay. And that’s a good thing since the dialogue is not nearly as riveting and the scene transitions are sometimes awkward.
In Alexandre Dumas’s classic you may recall D’Artagnan, the eager rube from Gascony, who endeavors to join the illustrious Musketeers, the King’s personal guard. The “barn boy” as the men refer to him, is determined to prove his mettle and his love for Constance, the Queen’s handmaiden. Within France’s Bastille, Athos, Porthos and Aramis serve a cuckolded child king, a beautiful queen and a Machiavellian cardinal. Their unforgettable motto, “All for one and one for all!” becomes a battle cry for “I’ll meet you at dawn!” “I’ll take you out!” and “How dare you insult me or my King!”
A ball at the palace. Robert Bowen Smith as Louis XIII, Dan Istrate as Cardinal Richelieu, Brynn Tucker as Queen Anne and Ensemble. Photo credit – Johnny Shryock
Dallas Torentino stands out as the eminently likeable D’Artagnan, whose love for Constance, played enchantingly by Brittany O’Grady, is placed in peril when she defends her queen’s cheating heart. Dance diva Irina Tsikurishvili as the treacherous Milady thrills in Act One in a pas de deux with Athos. Later, amidst an ongoing duel, she performs a macabre tango with the evil Cardinal Richelieu. Notable too are all three Musketeers – Hector Reynoso portraying Porthos as a short-tempered, speech-slurring buffoon; Ben Cunis rendering Aramis, the priest wannabe, as a handkerchief hoarding heartbreaker; and Matthew Ward as Athos the Musketeer with a dark past. But it’s Robert Bowen Smith as the petulant, mincing King Louis XIII who sends it over the top.
Set to an olio of bal-musette, a dash of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, and a soupçon of exhilarating orchestral pieces, the play is a departure from Synetic’s Silent Shakespeare Series but keeps to the troupe’s same riveting dance-centric tradition.
Through June 9th at Synetic Theater, 1800 South Bell Street, Arlington in Crystal City. For tickets and information call 1 800 494-8497 or visit www.synetictheater.org.
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