Agnes And Walter

 Agnes and Walter (A Little Love Story) by Smith DanceTheatre is based on James Thurber’s story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, about an ordinary man lost in his daydreams but continually belittled by his wife. Walter and Agnes are a couple. They indulge in daydreams, have fun playing in the shed, love dancing, and age together. Smith’s production seems to diverge from the tale in that Agnes appears to be rather on the same dreamy page of Walter.

Agnes and Walter has a very promising start: a young man and woman escape their monotonous life by enacting heroic fantasies, on the amusing soundtrack of old-school Hollywood movies. Somewhere around the middle, though, the play becomes confusingly abstract after twenty minutes of inexplicable dancing in front of a fan.

A very talented cast of young and older performers is engaged in a show that in spite of its incomprehensibility, is sweet and poetic, and could have been a real treat. The acting and the dancing are powerful and convincing, but it would appear that director and cast have spent so much time on creating the play that they forgot to make it accessible to someone unfamiliar with the story and what it tries to convey.