Grande dame

TimeLine steps into life story of Isadora Duncan in 'When She Danced'

The mother of American modern dance? A poster child for pursuing "la vie boheme"? The model of the liberated woman in the early decades of the 20th century? A cautionary tale about the perils and pitfalls of celebrity?

Isadora Duncan could answer to all of the above. Rejecting corsets and pointe shoes and conventional notions of marriage and art, Duncan draped herself in faux Grecian tunics, breathed in the music that opened her soul (Chopin, Schubert, Brahms, Beethoven), rejected all that was hidebound and let the spirit move her. Of course life is rarely that free or that simple.

Duncan, who was born in San Francisco in 1877, and died in 1927 in a freak auto accident in Nice, France (her scarf got tangled in her car's steering wheel), moved through her relatively short life with determined abandon. But for all her liberated spirit, she was rarely free of emotional pain.

Because Duncan lived before dance was easily captured on film, what we know of her comes from dreamy photographs and impressionistic sketches from her heyday, from her autobiography, from the writings of those who saw her perform, from a major film (starring Vanessa Redgrave), and from re-creations and evocations of her work created by dance historians and contemporary choreographers.

We also have "When She Danced," a rarely revived 1985 play by Martin Sherman (who also penned "Bent" and "The Boy From Oz"), which will be revived by TimeLine Theatre, the company best known these days for its remarkable productions of both "The History Boys" and "All My Sons."

Nick Bowling, who just picked up a Jeff Award for his direction of "The History Boys," is staging the production. Jennifer Engstrom, the throaty actress who is a member of A Red Orchid Theatre ensemble, stars as Duncan.

The play, set in Paris in 1923, gives us a Duncan who already is past her dancing prime. It has been 10 years since the tragic death (also in a freak car accident), of her two children -- one by the pioneering theatrical designer Gordon Craig, the other by sewing machine magnate Isaac Singer. And for the past year she has been married to the Russian poet, Sergei Yesenin --18 years her junior and a serious alcoholic.

"As with all the plays I choose to do, this one affected me emotionally and had me imagining certain moments," said Bowling.

"It's about the whole idea of being a renegade and always living in the moment -- not worrying about the past or future. It's about trying to focus on quality and simplicity, and trying to make something meaningful of your life. Though it's true -- Isadora's life is a big mess. And she and Yesenin are involved in one of those very complicated relationships between two artists."

About casting Engstrom in the iconic role, Bowling noted: "There is a grand quality about Isadora in the play. I saw many actresses at auditions who could do that, but what I liked about Jennifer is that she also was able to bring the character down to a human level. She understood the goddess, but suggested that this also was a real woman."

Engstrom, who plays Isadora at 45, admits working on the role has been both "thrilling and daunting."

"The rehearsal process has been odd," the actress confessed, "because I have to nail the lines, hit my marks and figure out all the props while also playing a character who requires total freedom. I'm still waiting for that moment when I can actually live and breathe her."

"And yes, she drinks champagne every day and sells her furniture to pay for it, but I don't want to exaggerate that. True, she might have looked like crap by then, but the play imagines a great deal about her soul from earlier times, and her yearning for everything to be beautiful and inspired by great ideals."

"I haven't studied dance," Engstrom confessed. "I've only done some yoga and body awareness work as an actor. But I love watching dance. And I'm feeling the music and finding Isadora's physicality, and it has been hugely liberating learning to use my body for the expression of emotion, because ordinarily so much of what I do is through words. Thank God I don't have to actually dance in the show. But there is a wonderful moment when Isadora is listening to Chopin. And I think about how she wrote of beginning rehearsals by putting her hand on her solar plexus and not moving at all.

"I think 'bravery' is a small word for how Isadora lived her life."