Arts & Entertainment writers offer capsule comments on this, that and the other thing ...

Bodiography

It's a well-known part of ballet lore that George Balanchine often adjusted his ballets to suit the dancers, even choreographing steps that would help strengthen their weaknesses. It was apparent that Maria Caruso was doing the same for her young group, Bodiography Contemporary Ballet, at the Byham Theater on Saturday night.

Caruso uses rock music to attract new and younger audiences, such as the twentysomething crowd at the Byham for her latest rock venture, "Kaleidoscope," which featured the smooth sounds of the Dave Matthews Band.

This was her most successful effort to date, and she mostly abandoned the usual hip wiggles and sexy walks for a more abstract rendering of the music.

Maybe it was Matthews' intelligent approach -- the importance of music choices cannot be underestimated -- that set Caruso on a more sophisticated path. Maybe it was Caruso's growing maturity that helped to sustain the piece through to completion.

Even if "Kaleidoscope" was the lure to attract patrons, it was the first half that produced the best results. Caruso selected a former teacher and member of Dance Theatre of Harlem, Anjali Austin, as guest choreographer.

Austin created a sleek fusion of dance techniques to a pulsating world music score. But more important, she exhibited a clean style with quality of shapes, especially by Lauren Suflita and the Shannon Hritz. No longer did the dancers play to the audience. They became immersed in the movement, and it paid off handsomely.

Caruso also scored with a duet for Hritz and Suflita, "Mentality Toiled Empathy." Despite the convoluted title, this was a deceptively simple piece, in which the black-and-white-clad dancers moved in shadowy echoes of one another. Gradually they took a side-by-side position, finally acknowledging each other and then moving in support, or empathy, as the title suggested. Although it felt lengthy in the end, the dancers deserved kudos for their perfectly matched phrasing.

-- Jane Vranish,
Post-Gazette dance critic

'The Skin of Our Teeth'

After 65 years, all is well at 216 Cedar St. in Excelsior, N.J.. Life goes on.

But that's rather Thornton Wilder's point in his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Skin of Our Teeth," as the resilient and highly anachronistic Antrobus family struggle through the Ice Age, the Flood (as in Noah's Ark) and a major war. Led by Mr. Antrobus, inventor of the wheel, the alphabet and beer, and buoyed by Mrs. Antrobus, inventor of the hem and the apron, the Antrobuses show a phoenix-like ability to rise from the ashes of catastrophe, scrape by (by the skin of their teeth) and begin anew.

The students of Point Park's Conservatory Theatre Company have a great deal of fun with director Shirley Tannenbaum's production, relishing all the visual gags of Gianni Downs' lively set, like tilting walls and cartoon icebergs and Joan Markert's appropriately absurd costumes.

Lindsay Schramm is Sabina, the Antrobuses' sexy and exasperated maid and our somewhat reluctant guide for this romp through history. She nails Wilder's humor, deftly stepping out of character to address the audience in Wilder's non-naturalistic style, which, while maybe not as fresh as it was in 1942, is still a delightful surprise.

The rest of the cast ably strikes this same balance. Sarah Bordenet and Eric Cheski place Mr. and Mrs. Antrobus somewhere between the Flintstones and Ward and June Cleaver, simultaneously laughable and admirable. Emily Metzger as Gladys and Jeffrey A. Dudek as Henry mostly get to play silly kids, but Metzger brings a sly naughty streak and Dudek an undercurrent of malevolence, as would be expected considering his name: Cain.

An ensemble of more than 20 people and videos designed by Frederick Johnson poking fun at contemporary news broadcasts help the audience to feel like part of the Excelsior crowd -- all the more fitting when Sabina sends us home to carry on the business of life while she and the Antrobuses must simply carry on.

"The Skin of Our Teeth" continues at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Pittsburgh Playhouse; tickets are $12-$14; 412-621-4445.

-- Anna Rosenstein,
freelance theater writer

Blake Shelton

The Pepsi-Cola Roadhouse isn't Blake Shelton's home venue, but it sure felt that way when the country star returned to Burgettstown for a fun and casual concert on Friday. Backed by his five-piece band, Shelton revisited his radio hits, previewed new material from an upcoming CD and stoked his hard-partying image.

Bobby Braddock's "Good Old Boy, Bad Old Boyfriend" set the stage for a freewheeling show, and the crowd joined in on the "Hey Romeo" chorus of Neal Coty and Randy Van Warmer's "Playboys of the Southwestern World." Shelton touched on a few covers, including the Bellamy Brothers' classic "If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me" and a countrified take on Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl." He shooed the band off stage, pulled out a stool and offered an acoustical peek at a catchy, hook-laden new song, "The More I Drink, The More I Drink," part of a new CD to be released in March. Shelton seemed flattered when the crowd requested a tongue-in-cheek comedy song that he reserves for laid back evenings, "The Snake Song."

Shelton took his hits more seriously, with a more sober approach to David Kent and Kirsti Manna's "Austin" and James Bohan's "Ol' Red."

Monaca Mayor John Antoline presented a plaque to his town's claim to musical fame, Dusty Drake, a local boy now signed to Big Machine Records. Drake, who once fronted the Pittsburgh cover band Silverado, opened the show with a professional set that included his 2003 radio hit "One More Time" and "Not Bad for a Good Old Boy," from his upcoming CD.

-- John Hayes,
Post-Gazette staff writer