WIENER ZEITUNG

Six Dance Lessons and One Funeral

„We begin with the Swing. This was invented during the Second World War, as you will surely remember.“ There are doubtless more charming ways a dance instructor can formulate an introduction to private lessons for a lady of advanced years. And this is only one of the more harmless insults Michael throws at his no longer young pupil, Lily.

(…) In the course of the six booked lessons the superficialities of the two gradually break down revealing the insecurities of both. It soon dawns on Michael that Lily, (an exceptionally lively Anne Kavanagh) is an excellent dancer, who doesn’t need an instructor at all. Michael’s rudely sarcastic manner, on the other hand, is exposed as a consequence of serious set-backs in his life.

After the (at first unnoticed) death of a neighbor, the two come to realize that in the course of the six hours they have learned totally different lessons than originally planned: to acknowledge their own fragility and need for friendship.

The theme is not remarkably original, but Richard Alfieri is a gifted witty author. Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks is a lively piece full of spritely and pointed dialogue. The audience is easily led grinning and laughing (with his sense of humor Joseph Kolinski interprets his part to perfection) to the end of the performance.

Von Alexander U. Mathé
16.09.2010

DER STANDARD

A Sitcom for the Stage

*VoFrom Broadway to Vienna’s English Theatre: Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks entertains with situation comedy like television. *

„Who is it?“ „The Dangerous Stranger!“ Michael anwers from the stairway.
She has booked him as a dance instructor through an agency, „Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks,“ having the same name as the piece at Vienna’s English Theatre. The question-answer game through the door is repeated in various ways. A neighbor, Ida, constantly calls and complains about the music. Lily and Michael always have to bicker a little before they lightheartedly dance towards the exit as the stage lights dim. Then the carpet is rolled out again, the table is back in center stage.

(…) The repetitions, the staging, the minimal personnel, the limited play space on the jewel-box stage: Richard Alfieri has written a Hollywood sitcom for the theater and one evening. Energetically and wittily played by Anne Kavanagh and Joseph Kolinski, who played Michael on Broadway. It is an entertaining piece whose invectives sometimes succeed and sometimes grow tedious. „For God’s sake, I’ve paid for…….company,“ „You mean sex?“ „If you want to call it that.“ „You’ve paid for sex?“ „Lily, one way or another, you always pay for sex.“
But the quick come-back (Sitcom) excuses such blunders. It turns the piece into a not overly complex but rounded out thing. A film version is planned.

Georg Oberhumer,
17.9.2010

Kurier

Temperamentsbündel zwischen Tango und Twist

An amusing comedy for the seasonal opening in Vienna’s English Theatre. In Richard Alfieris two-person play, Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, a boorish jokester, dance instructor and man with the mouth of a mule-driver meets up in sunny Florida with a rather delicate sensitive pastor’s widow and former teacher so that sparks fly in the dialogue and psycho-striptease between this disparate pair. „I am not crazy. I am Italian,“ he excuses himself, „That is normal behavior for us.“

With that cleared up there gradually grows – to Swing, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, Cha-Cha-Cha and Twist – an inner friendship between the two characters. The complicated process of their growing closeness, for which dance is a metaphor, is played by Anne Kavanagh with sensitivity and Joseph Kolinski with a slight tendency to over-acting.

Werner Rosenberger
19.09.2010