'Nureyev's Eyes' at Delaware Theatre Company: The madness that visits only artists

There are plenty of examples of iconic dancer/visual art collaborations - Degas' ballerinas, Jasper Johns' set for Merce Cunningham, John Sloan's Isadora Duncan - but one in particular has local resonance. David Rush's Nureyev's Eyes, at Delaware Theatre Company, examines the long friendship between Russian defector and ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev and Chadds Ford painter Jamie Wyeth.

The production, lifted straight from the George Street Playhouse, features the same team: William Connell as Wyeth, Bill Dawes as Nureyev (until March 16, when Jed Peterson - played Nureyev in the play's world premiere at Florida's American Stage Theatre Company - takes over the role), director Michael Mastro, plus its designers. Mastro, DTC's former associate artistic director, clearly enjoys the contrast between arrogant Nureyev - gay, obsessed with beauty and power, both of which he possessed in abundance - and straight, humble, all-American Wyeth.

Though Dawes doesn't physically resemble Nureyev, his pursed lips and graceful, muscular body project a sketch of the man, much as Wyeth's sketches and paintings captured his essence - not motion so much as the quality an awed Wyeth described in real life as "like having a panther in the house." None of Wyeth's portraits appear in the show. Among set designer Alexis Distler's many tchotchkes, lining shelves that rise high above Wyeth's paint-splattered studio floor, ballet posters, taxidermy, and lamps to ward off Wyeth's fear of the dark, only one painting hangs. It's an illustration from the novel Treasure Island, the dark, terrifying "Old Pew," painted by his grandfather, N.C. Wyeth.

The weight of history hangs heavy over both men, for Nureyev, a desire to leave a legacy worthy of the greats who came before him, and for Wyeth, the desire to leave a mark separate from but equal to that of his grandfather - and father Andrew Wyeth. Dawes carries his body like a shield, warding off external threats, while Connell, in blue jeans, with floppy blonde hair, seems to be a lightweight with a platonic crush. Rush creates an ongoing parrying between the pair, a series of riddles they tell about each other, highlighting their differences.

One riddle, however, binds them both. Nureyev asks, "How is Jamie like Van Gogh?" The answer is that he has a madness visited only upon artists. Nureyev, of course, knows this because he recognizes it in himself. It takes a while for their pas de deux to synchronize, but once both begin to relax into their friendship and feel comfortable challenging each other, it's fascinating to watch their unlikely bromance blossom.

Playing at: Delaware Theatre Company, 200 Water St., Wilmington. Through Sunday, Mar. 20. Tickets: $30 to $45. Information: 302-594-1100 or DelawareTheatre.org.

Wendy_Rosenfield@yahoo.com http://twitter.com/WendyRosenfield http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/phillystage/