Can people change? Is it true that most people are broken, only in different ways? Playwright Mark St. Germain explores these possibilities in the touching, often funny one-act play “Dancing Lessons,” playing through October 10 at North Coast Repertory Theatre.
We first meet 40-something dancer Senga Quinn (Leilani Smith) stretched out on her couch and sporting a huge knee brace from a serious injury that she fears may end her career. She has essentially sentenced herself to house arrest for fear that being seen in that condition by anyone in the dance world will definitely mean her career is over.
One day the doorbell rings. She doesn’t even want to answer it, especially when she finds out it is downstairs neighbor Ever Montgomery (Christopher M. Williams), a jittery but bright young geoscientist trapped in his own Asperger’s cage. Ever has won an award and has come to offer her an outrageous amount of money (he’s done his research and knows what she makes) for one dance lesson that can loosen him up just enough to dance a bit and not ruin the award ceremony.
“How old is the crowd?” she asks.
“From 20s to pre-extinction.”
It’s fun to watch the naturally outgoing Senga try to draw out the touch-phobic scientist, even only conversationally. It’s interesting (though a bit scary) to witness his responses to the idea (let alone the reality) of touch.
But they do manage an uneasy verbal relationship, and he surprises her when he offers to hook her up with a doctor he knows who will be able to explain her options.
Williams’ Ever, always clumsy, has come to see life as transactional – just wins and losses. Smith’s Senga lives in a different world. He offers her reality. She brings imagination.
Will she be able to to calm him down enough to perform on the dance floor in time? Will she ever dance onstage again?
I quite like this show, though I’ll agree that it is not St. Germain’s best script. It wanders off in scientific explanations from time to time, leaving the audience wondering. But the story of this awkward relationship is enough to keep this audience member happy.
Director Richard Baird manages to minimize the less dramatic elements and keep the audience’s mind on the problems to be solved.
Smith is a wonder as the outgoing Senga, who finds herself tasked with a job she never asked for but trying to figure out how to give Ever what he needs to get his job done.
Williams is so realistic as Ever that I almost found myself jumping a bit when Senga tried to get too close.
“Dancing Lessons” is the first live show at the theater since the pandemic sidelined all such activities in February, 2020. That’s reason enough to celebrate.
“Dancing Lessons” has been extended through October 10, 2021 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach.
Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.
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