Making Contact

Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2004 | 8:13 a.m.

Despite snarls from critics miffed that a production with no singing, original or live music would receive a Tony Award nomination, Susan Stroman's "Contact" won four, including best musical.

The stylish, sexy dance play, which opened on Broadway in 2000, incorporates pre-recorded jazz, classical and rock music in its stories about the need for human contact.

It alludes to an 18th-century painting, encapsulates the fantasies of a verbally abused 1950s housewife and follows a desperate man into a present-day swing club.

On Wednesday it opens its national tour at Cashman Theatre under the direction of Fergus Logan, who served as resident director for the production when it was staged in London's West End in 2000.

In London, however, there were no worries on how to transport a portable truss and giant swing across the country.

"This has been the big technical problem, this rig," said Logan last week while crew were working on the production. "But we've got it worked out. Now we're going to drag it across the country so the world can see it."

The swing is featured in the first story, "Swinging," a vignette inspired by Jean-Honore Fragonard's 1767 painting, "The Swing," in which a woman swings in the floral French countryside as two flirtatious men (one, her lover) look on.

Stroman's version identifies the men as a servant and master vying for the woman's attention to Rogers and Hart's "My Heart Stood Still."

The second story, "Did You Move?" takes place in an Italian restaurant where a 1950s housewife, emotionally beaten by her mobster husband, rips into comical and romantic fantasies about dancing in the arms of surrounding customers and the restaurant staff to the music of Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Bizet.

The third scene, "Contact!" is the production's centerpiece. It portrays the desperation of Michael Wiley, a successful ad salesman on the brink of suicide, who walks into an after-hours swing club in Manhattan's meat-packing district. There, making contact with the enticing Woman in the Yellow Dress seems his only salvation. Music by Benny Goodman, Robert Palmer, Dion and the Beach Boys highlight this segment.

Because the first act has no dialogue and the following two have little, "Contact" perpetuated the argument of what is and is not a musical.

While some critics argued "Contact's" validity as a musical, others praised it as a refreshing addition to Broadway. In April 2000 the Tony Administration Committee ruled it a musical.

Defending any idea that "Contact" is merely a dance concert, Logan said, "There's nothing in the show where the choreography doesn't further the plot. We don't set off and do 20 minutes of dance for no reason. It's a play, but with lots of dance. But a lot of our language is dance.

"As a dancer and director I love being able to communicate with an audience, not just with words, but with dance as well ... The show wasn't conceived around not having live music. Not having live music was a stylistic choice. To have a band playing a Tchaikovsky piece and then play the Beach Boys, it just wasn't (probable)."

Stroman won best choreography for "Contact" and was nominated for best director. Boyd Gaines won best actor in a featured role. Karen Ziemba won best actress in a featured role, and John Weidman, co-collaborator on the project, was nominated for best book of a musical.

"Contact" was a personal story for the five-time Tony-winner Stroman, who put it together while her husband was dying of cancer. Originally a dancer from Wilmington, Del., Stroman moved to New York City in the 1970s and worked as a dancer on and off Broadway before turning her interest toward choreography. She's had a successful career working on "Oklahoma!" "The Music Man" and "The Producers." Stroman is working as director and choreographer for a movie version of the latter.

The Scottish-born Logan, with an extensive ballet resume, was in the revival of "Oklahoma!" choreographed by Stroman. He also worked as choreographic assistant to Stroman on a ballet for the New York City Ballet.

Having that background, Logan said, "makes it ideal to look over a big dance piece like this. I understand the piece and what Stroman wanted from the play."

Logan said he has changed nothing from the production that opened in Lincoln Center's Mitzi Newhouse Theater in 1999 and moved to the Vivian Beaumont Theater the following year. (The show has had a national tour and in addition to London was produced in Japan.)

Casting for "Contact" is a delicate process for the company looking more for actors who can dance than dancers who can act.

Allie Meixner, who studied at the Abby Lee Dance Company in Penn Hills, Pa., was cast as the Woman in the Yellow Dress, a crucial role for the desperate ad salesman.

"The character that she plays is almost slightly aloof so it's challenging to him to go beyond the boundaries of normal everyday life," Logan said. "The character in the yellow dress is a tool, a symbol of what he needs to overcome. He asks her to dance under the ridicule of other people.

"He needs to have contact with someone. If he doesn't have contact with someone, his life is over ... All three of these stories are set in different time periods, but they all carry a message relevant today."