Following in a Writer’s Rhythms
‘Gertrude Stein Saints!’ Sets Vivid Words to Music
Alexis Soloski
June 17, 2014: In Everybody’s Autobiography, Gertrude Stein explained why she preferred saints to martyrs. “A really good saint does nothing,” she wrote. “Anybody is more interesting doing nothing than doing something.” The busy, exuberant cast of Gertrude Stein Saints! would respectfully disagree. They flirt and tease and frolic. They belt and croon and chant. They take Stein’s libretto for Four Saints in Three Acts, as well as selections from the play Saints and Singing and a couple of lines from her lecture “The Gradual Making of The Making of Americans” and set them to original songs. The 13 members of this ensemble, called Theater Plastique and made up of current and former students at Carnegie Mellon University, are also the composers of this sung-through piece, which earned glowing notices at last year’s New York International Fringe Festival. Cute as tender buttons, the singers race around the stage in carefree pastels, a touch that occasionally gives the evening the feel of a long, avant-garde American Apparel ad.
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