Hilarity Pursued

Karen Getz's Suburban Love Songs celebrates human inelegance.

by Deni Kasrel

TWIST AND SHOUT: In Suburban Love Songs, improv actors gesture their way through sexual encounters in the form of rumbas and cha-chas. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Though she stands just 5 feet 4 inches tall, Karen Getz looms large. "It's the nature of my physicality," says the local creator/choreographer/director of 1812 Productions' latest jaunt, Suburban Love Songs. "I have these big huge eyebrows and a very theatrical face ... and I'm sort of over-the-top. Subtle is not my first instinct."

It's that flair for drama that makes Suburban Love Songs, which premièred at the 2006 Live Arts Festival, so appealing. A comedic tale without a whit of spoken text, as well as a full-out dance work performed primarily by nonprofessional dancers, the piece is a fantasy look back at the late '60s.

Partially inspired by her real-life memories of growing up in Queens — the soundtrack features some of Getz's favorite artists back then, including Sérgio Mendes, Herb Alpert and Donovan — the premise concerns an uptight couple who host a party where toking, Twister and sexual shenanigans ensue. Each scene features a dance extrapolated from Latin ballroom styles (rumba, cha-cha, samba). Says cast member Dave Jadico, "There's so much text and dialogue, yet nothing is said. The nuance of language comes out in Karen's choreography."

Jadico, and nearly all the rest of the cast, has no dance training. While hardly clumsy, Getz believes these performers' "human inelegance" is what makes the piece special. "[With] skill-trained dancers there's something that's removed, because you're watching them do something you can't really relate to, like doing a triple pirouette. But when you take dance and it's translated to somebody who is not a dancer — you put it on a comic actor — then you come up with this other language."

The cast largely hails from Philly's improv scene, where Getz participates in assorted ensembles, including ComedySportz, LunchLady Doris, 13 Skirts and Killer Pussy. Among these wacky outfits, Getz's over-the-top tendencies help her take risks. "The greatest high in the world is having no net," she says. "No set, no props, just getting the audience on your side. When you get that huge laugh, it's a godlike experience."

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

That high has driven Getz for as long as she can remember. A self-described "theater baby," she was a theater and dance major at SUNY—Binghamton, and got into improv comedy while working the New York theater circuit. After scoring the role of dance captain in Dirty Dancing, new opportunities opened up. Getz moved to L.A., where she worked in the film and TV industry as an actor-dancer-choreographer (she was Kathy Najimy's flying stunt double in Hocus Pocus). She moved to Philadelphia in 1994, and currently lives in Merion with her husband and daughter.

Soon enough, Getz infiltrated the Philly arts community. Aside from improv work, she's also an in-demand choreographer for local theater outfits, and she co-founded Tapestry Theatre, dedicated to producing work by women.

All the while, in the back of her mind, Getz nurtured the notion of creating ballets featuring actors rather than trained dancers. "After all these years of working with these really funny actors, I realized they can rule the stage," says Getz, who never worried about whether her performers could handle doing a wordless, purely movement-based piece. "That's where the improv comes in," she explains. "Because in improv, you have 30 seconds to let the audience know who you are before you even start speaking. And it's just gesture. Little gestures can tell a huge story. ... I could see it all, and none of it had any text."

That germ of an idea eventually resulted in Suburban Love Songs, in which a group of characters engage in assorted sexual encounters. "There are some very deep and serious issues that I'm interested in that manifest themselves in this comedy," she says. "Real sexuality is funny and awkward and vulnerable and gawky. ... These are just human beings, but instead of speaking, they dance; that's how they tell their story."

(d_kasrel@citypaper.net)

Suburban Love Songs, April 4-27, $15-$25, 1812 Productions, Plays and Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, 215-592-9560, 1812productions.org.