Szabo: Why-o did I leave Ohio?

What is it about the kitchen? (lowercase t and k, mind you)

If I need a good cry--or even if I don't consciously think I need it but have no way to prevent it--I'm usually standing up at our kitchen sink, washing plates and eye-to-eye with a pigeon on the neighbor's fire escape. Clearly Michou Szabo (The Mill Michou Szabo) has some history here, too.

Szabo's new trio, Alone, OH--presented at Brooklyn's Center for Performance Research--takes us into what the quiet, spare kitchen of what appears to be a working class, midwestern (Ohio) household of three women. Hard to know the ages of these three, since the dancers could be roughly the same age, but from their deportment and behavior you can imagine a middle-aged mom (Sandy Tillett) with two youngish teenagers (Julie Alexander and Jennifer Lafferty). Designer Joanne Howard has arranged functional furniture--a simple dining table, chairs--as well as a sink, stove, basic equipment, dishes and silverware. Nothing outstanding. Even the decorative curtains--hanging straight down on either side of the sink--fail to be remarkable in any way. It's a feeling of hardness and withholding.

But this kitchen conceals an undercurrent of emotional energy that explodes, rarely in words or facial expressions, but in direct, brutal and relentless movement. There's something of Graham's psycho-physical starkness in this, but a Graham electrified and wilded. We think we are in the bedrock of civilization, but we will discover that we are not. Szabo peers into the minds of his three characters and channels psychological expression through the body with inescapable impact.

Composer Guy Yarden's score captures the low-grade but toxic obsession and tense emotional weather, but Tillett, Alexander and Lafferty--often punishing to watch--really make this piece. There's a fleeting moment in which, with posture and a single look, Tillett suggests what might be the source of her anger. In that moment, especially, she's stellar and stunning.
 
Alone, OH can be a long hour--with some overly repetitive motifs--but see it for these dancers' gutsy, all-in performances.

See The Mill Michou Szabo in Alone, OH at Center for Performance Research tonight and Saturday night at 8pm. Details here.

Center for Performance Research
631 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn

Directions: L to Graham Avenue (3rd Stop in Brooklyn). Exit to the right of the turnstile. Take a left down Graham, another left on Jackson Street and a right on Manhattan.