Contact

Contact (2000), a “dance play with music” by Susan Stroman and John Weidman. [ Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre, 1,010 perf.; Tony Award.] Choreographer Stroman conceived and staged this unusual entertainment that Weidman wrote, though there was little dialogue and the music was prerecorded standards. The opener is a danced version of Fragonard's painting “The Swing” in which an aristocrat (Séan Martin Huingston) disguised as a servant woos a lady (Stephanie Michels). The second piece explored the vivid imagination of an abused wife (Karen Ziemba) at an Italian restaurant. The longest section concerned the suicidal Michael (Boyd Gaines) who is entranced by an elusive Girl in a Yellow Dress (Deborah Yates) whom he meets in a nightclub. Although many critics considered the program unsatisfying as theatre, all applauded its dancing and the attraction was popular enough that Lincoln Center moved it upstairs to the larger Vivian Beaumont Theatre for a long run.